Afraid

''One of the bad girls of gritty crime'' Daily Mirror

When fifteen-year-old Skye''s mother finally does something so shocking that it can''t be hushed up, the police turn Skye over to the social workers - and that''s when the nightmare begins.

No one will let her talk to her father. And the woman who is supposed to be helping her dumps her in a terrifying ''home'' that''s more like a jail. But she still has one friend to turn to: the sympathetic girl she''s met in an internet chat room, the one who seems to have a home life as unhappy as Skye''s.

So when Jade offers Skye - now alone in Manchester and nearly penniless - a safe place to stay, Skye is willing to trust her. Even when it isn''t Jade who turns up at the rendezvous, but a grown-up man who says he''s Jade''s brother . . .

''Mandasue has played a real blinder with this fantastic novel'' Martina Cole on Forget-Me-Not

''A cracking read that will chill you to the bone'' Sun on Two-Faced