Watching You Fall

Some promises are meant to be broken.

When Josie’s sister Megan spirals into addiction, she makes a sacred vow: if anything happens to Megan, Josie will take care of her young son, Sunny. Three days later, Megan is dead―and Josie’s promise becomes a life sentence.

Haunted by guilt over failing to save her sister, Josie welcomes her troubled nephew into her home. But as the initial shock of grief fades, unsettling questions surface. Megan wasn’t alone on the night she died. Was it really her addiction that killed her, or something more sinister?

As her family begins to fracture, Josie feels her grip on reality slipping. Strange incidents multiply. Items disappear. Whispered conversations stop when she enters rooms. Is Sunny’s presence causing these disturbances, or is Josie’s guilt-ridden grief making her paranoid? When the people she trusted most begin to doubt her stability, she’s forced to question everything she thought she knew.

Because some promises don’t just bind us―they blind us to the truth.

A claustrophobic psychological thriller about family loyalty, deadly secrets and the price of keeping your word, perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell and Shari Lapena.

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II appointed Dreda an MBE in her New Year’s Honours’ List 2020.

She scooped the CWA’s John Creasey Dagger (New Blood) Award for best first-time crime novel in 2005, the first time a Black British author has received this honour.

Ryan and Dreda write across the crime and mystery genre―psychological thrillers, gritty gangland crime and fast-paced action books. Spare Room, their first psychological thriller, was a #1 UK and US Amazon Bestseller.

Dreda is a passionate campaigner and speaker on social issues and the arts. She has appeared on television, including Celebrity Pointless, Celebrity Eggheads, Alan Carr’s Adventures with Agatha Christie, BBC Breakfast, Sunday Morning Live, Newsnight, The Review Show and Front Row Late on BBC2. Ryan and Dreda performed a specially commissioned monologue for the ground-breaking Sky Arts’ Art 50 on Sky TV.

Dreda is one of twelve international bestselling women writers who have written a reimagined Miss Marple short story for the thrilling bestselling anthology, Marple. She talked about this on The Queen’s Reading Room.

Dreda has been a guest on many radio shows and presented BBC Radio 4’s flagship books programme, Open Book. She has written in a number of leading newspapers including the Guardian and was thrilled to be named one of Britain’s 50 Remarkable Women by Lady Geek in association with Nokia. She is a trustee of the Royal Literary Fund and an ambassador for The Reading Agency.

Some of their books are currently in development as TV and film adaptations.

Dreda’s parents are from the beautiful Caribbean island of Grenada. Her name, Dreda, is Irish and pronounced with a long vowel ee sound in the middle.