How would you feel if you were one of a group of girls asked to meet a boy. You don’t go, but one girl called Jamie answers the text, and it’s the last thing she ever does. Now you are left with an all encompassing guilt of just being alive, and the knowledge that you however fleetingly, skated on the knife edge of life or death.

The narrator in this book (who is never named), tells the story a year on from the horrific crime and tragedy. She’s been through a year of hell, booze, drugs – anything to forget that it could have been her. With the help of her best friend Lindsay (who was also texted that day), she gets through to the other side. Now she’s functioning again, but still carries a truck-load of survivor guilt.

Then there’s Charlie. He was Jamie’s boyfriend. He loved her then and loves her still, consumed with grief, anger and his own load of purposeless guilt that he wasn’t there to save her. His hate for the murderer from their own town is still eating him up and he’s almost like a ghost in class at school. Silent. Brooding. Handsome and honest.

Murder, guilt, teenage love and life made this an enjoyable read. I felt what the narrator felt, empathising with her guilt of being one of the lucky ones. The girl who answered the text was kind and caring, which was probably why she went to meet a boy who needed someone to talk to.

The pointless unfairness of her gruesome murder is still shrouding all involved a year later.  Authentic with a good ending. Love the cover, which I understood more after reading this novel.

Author – Mary Crockett

Age – 14+

(Murder, Rape, Crime, Guilt, Sorrow, Romance, Survivor Guilt, Relationships, Loyalty, Court case, Death Penalty, Shakespeare, Hamlet)