Ready Or Not

This tense YA psychological thriller will draw readers in straight away with its gripping opening premise of a game of hide and seek that goes horribly wrong.  A group of teenage friends have spent shared summer holidays at Creek House with their families for years and Millie, the youngest of the group at 15, insists on a final game of hide and seek.  By the time Millie has finished counting, Kat has vanished.  But people don’t just disappear, do they?

After this taut opening the narrative splits into two different timelines, each told from Millie’s point of view, switching back and forth between the hours and days after Kat’s disappearance and a year later, when the group re-gathers at Creek House for a final attempt to put the past to rest.  Readers will be kept guessing as an unreliable narrator reveals a succession of clues, red herrings, secrets and lies.  An atmosphere of unease builds, and tension slowly rises as more truths about toxic relationships, family breakdown, blackmail, manipulative behaviour, and false friendship come to light.  The characters are all flawed and unlikeable, ambiguities abound, and the end reveal is shocking.  Fans of dark, enigmatic, psychological mysteries will be drawn into a complex web by this skilfully written story of secrets, lies and deception.