The Thread that Binds Us

Have you ever had a secret that you cannot tell anyone - even your closest friend? Susan’s childhood was full of secrets—‘Don’t tell anyone,’ was her mother’s favourite phrase. So when she discovers that her father had an illegitimate child called Michael, she instinctively knows she can’t tell anyone.But Susan isn’t a child anymore—she is a middle-aged woman who is keeping secrets from her husband in her search to find her half-brother. The need to know more about Michael becomes an obsession and she soon finds herself enmeshed in a web of lies and deceit as she tries to track him down.When she and Michael finally meet, Susan is faced with a dilemma—she can walk away and forget about him or she can tell her family and face the consequences.

The Scottish novelist Joan Fallon, currently lives and works in the south of Spain. She writes both contemporary and historical fiction, but has also written a work of non-fiction which has proved the inspiration for at least two of her subsequent novels. Two aspects of Joan's life particularly influence her writing. The first is being a woman who grew up during the sixties and seventies, at a time when it was harder for a woman to gain recognition in a man's world. Consequently almost all her books have a strong female protagonist. The second influence is the fact that she has lived in Spain for the last twenty years. Spanish history and culture fascinate her and have provided some of the most exotic settings in her historical novels.