Books

What does the babysitter do when you’re not there?

Ashleigh is the neighbourhood’s favourite babysitter. But what her employers don’t realise is that while they’re out at dinner parties and book clubs, Ashleigh is secretly foraging in their most private possessions; discovering their hidden truths, mocking them, owning them, and daring them to catch her.

As Ashleigh delves into the lives of people she has come to despise, the deepest secrets of an entire community end up in the hands of a very unusual fifteen-year-old-girl. While the gulf between the haves and the have-nots is accelerating faster than ever and the neighbourhood becomes even more divided, Ashleigh’s actions spin out of control. What starts with a few stolen earrings will end up tearing lives apart, and the consequences hit where they’re least expected as Ashleigh realises, of all the things she’s taken, which one she wants the most…

Set in the heat of London’s Olympic summer, this urban thriller is a dark, tender and bitterly humorous exploration of where community begins and where it ends, tracing back the concerns of our current political climate to the daily friction in the lives of ordinary people.