Hush, Little Bird

A short story for fans of Jodi Picoult and Anita Shreve. Step into the fragile domestic world of Roar and discover the unforgettable voice of Nicole Trope, best-selling author of The Secrets in Silence, Three Hours Late and The Boy Under the Table. The baby sleeps peacefully, filled with milk and contentment. The man on the bed breathes his way into the darkness, filled with rage. Was there ever really a choice?

Once, so very long ago, she watched him like this when he came to pick her up from a date. Her stomach fluttered and burned with infatuation and desire. She would watch him walk up the path and think, 'This must be love.' But that was so very long ago. Now Liz is wary and afraid. She has made a terrible mistake, and it cannot be undone.

All Malia needed was a single litre of milk, and now she's surrounded by police and Zach has disappeared. Detective Ali Greenberg knows that this is not the best case for her - not with her history, but she has to get back to work at some point. Edna is worried about the new residents at the boardinghouse. She knows Mary would turn in her grave if she knew the kinds of people her son was letting in. And then there is someone else. Someone whose heart is broken.

Caro and Anna are best friends...they were best friends. Over a decade, Caro and Anna have bonded while raising their daughters, two little girls the same age but living two very different lives. The women have supported each other as they have shared the joys and trials of motherhood, but now everything has changed. There's been a terrible car accident, an unimaginable tragedy that leaves both families devastated.

There was so much anger brewing in the child that sometimes Alicia feared for all of them. And now she had gone and done this terrible thing. This terrible, terrible thing. Tara has lost her voice. She knows there was pain and fear, but she cannot remember anything else. Now she can answer the questions only with silence. Minnie has buried her voice for years, losing herself in silence and isolation, keeping her secrets safe and her broken heart concealed. Liam finds refuge in silence; it is a place to go to when he cannot get the words out.

Richard and Judy and international best-selling author of The Guilty One returns with a nail-biting ride of 'he said/she said' between a teacher and his pupil. For fans of Anatomy of a Scandal and TV's Liar and Dr Foster. While Nick Dean is enjoying an evening at home with his family, he is blissfully unaware that one of his pupils has just placed an allegation of abuse against him - and that Nick's imminent arrest will see the start of everything he knows and loves disintegrating around him. Because mud sticks, right? No matter if you're innocent or guilty.

Gemma Ballantine is getting ready for work one morning when her eldest child comes running down the stairs saying the words every mother dreads. The front door is open. And her six-year-old daughter has disappeared. Frantic with fear, Gemma starts a nail-biting search for her little girl. After what feels like forever, her mother-in-law, Diane, finds Katie wandering lost a few streets away. Relieved to have her youngest child back in her arms, breathing in the sweet scent of her hair, Gemma thinks the nightmare is over. But then her perfect family starts to fall apart....

Teresa’s heart stops when she enters her daughter’s bedroom to find that her sweet, trusting little girl is gone. Teresa can’t bear to think who would snatch a terrified three-year-old from her mother in the middle of the night, but all the signs point to someone close to home. Hasn’t Jessica’s stepfather been acting a little oddly? Or is it, as Teresa is beginning to fear, something to do with Angie, her daughter’s babysitter who lives next door...? 

Paige has only a few vivid memories of her mother, who abandoned her when she was five. Now, having left home and her father for dreams of art school and marriage to an ambitious young doctor, Paige finds herself with a child of her own. Emotionally and physically exhausted, overwhelmed by the demands of her family, Paige cannot forget her mother’s absence or the shameful memories from her own past. Her next step would have been unthinkable before her doubts about her maternal ability crept into her mind.

What could cause a mother to believe that giving away her newborn baby is her only option? Cathy Glass is about to find out. From author of Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller Damaged comes a harrowing and moving memoir about tiny Harrison, left in Cathy's care, and the potentially fatal family secret of his beginnings. When Cathy is first asked to foster one-day old Harrison her only concern is if she will remember how to look after a baby.