Escape

'The word dirty was always present; it lived on her skin.' With the reassurance of outstanding A-level grades and a place at Edinburgh University, Magdalen thinks she can now escape from her outwardly adoring and protective but secretly manipulative and abusive father. Surely in student accommodation she will finally be safe? Her father, though, has other ideas and plans to set her up in her own flat. This drives Magdalen to a suicide attempt and then, aided by a sympathetic young teacher who provides the car, the cash and the cover and her cousin Greg who provides the support and finally the love, a flight to Alnwick on the Northumbrian coast where she can attempt to cleanse herself in the sea and sand. Running through the book is Magdalen's attempt to try to explain it all to herself through the device of a fairy-tale with her as the princess and her father the king who becomes a monster at night. An engrossing and deeply moving book which offers no easy answers.