Fear of Falling

'Gripping' Mail on Sunday

What if your child ends up hurting those you love?

Lydia and Bel have been best friends for years, from wild teenage days all the way through to motherhood. Bel becomes pregnant by accident and has a fraught relationship with daughter Freya, while Lydia and love-of-her-life Mac, after failed fertility treatment, choose to adopt. Gorgeous toddler Chloe challenges them more than either of them had ever expected and as a teenager her behaviour escalates increasingly out of control, pushing their marriage, and Lydia and Bel's relationship, to breaking point.

A harrowing and heart-breaking story of the splinters that can tear mothers and daughters, husbands and wives - and friends - apart.

Praise for Cath Staincliffe:

''This powerful, often harrowing story will move you to tears' My Weekly

'Harrowing and humane. A real knockout' Ian Rankin

'It's always exciting to see a writer get better and better and Cath Staincliffe is doing just that' Val McDermid

'Powerful, complex and utterly gripping' Sunday Mirror

'An intelligent and emotionally engaging moral workout' Daily Telegraph

'Cath Staincliffe gets into the heads of ordinary people and makes them extraordinary' Ann Cleeves

'Complex and satisfying' Sunday Times

Cath Staincliffe is an award winning novelist, radio playwright and creator of ITV's hit series Blue Murder. Cath's books have been shortlisted for the CWA Best First Novel award. She was joint winner of the CWA Short Story Dagger in 2012. Letters To My Daughter's Killer was selected for the Specsavers Crime Thriller Book Club on ITV3 in 2014. Cath also writes the Scott & Bailey books based on the popular ITV series. She lives with her family in Manchester.