“I've built myself too many identities and now they're imploding,” remarks the main character of this gripping novel, encapsulating the main motif that runs through its veins.
Aiden Kendrick is promising football prospect who trains with the Norwich youth team and lives with his mum and wealthy entrepreneur stepdad in an affluent area. He finds out that a girl he “used to be close to” has gone missing when the police turn up to question him. Both the police and Lizzie’s friends, including Aiden and his best mate, Scobes, dig into Lizzie’s online life and it emerges that she’s been chatting to a bloke called ‘Hal Peterson’. Then, as Hal’s identity begins to look increasingly suspect, the truth behind Aiden and Lizzie’s falling-out also comes to light, and a succession of increasingly shocking twists take the tale to a jaw-dropping finale.
This riveting thriller explores many manifestations of deception, from digital duplicity and the forced fakery of the “Spoilt in the Suburbs" reality TV show that’s being filmed in town, to Lizzie’s love of drama, and secrets between friends. It will make you think twice about who you’re really befriending online, and what you think you know about real-life loved ones.~ Joanne Owen
A thrilling read, for fans of Gone Girl and We Were Liars. There was no sign of a struggle, they whisper to each other. She took her phone but left her laptop behind. Apparently, she'd met someone online, they write to each other in class, phones buzzing. She ran away. She was taken. The first time Aiden Kendrick hears about Lizzie Summersall's disappearance is when the police appear at his front door. He and Lizzie used to be friends; they aren't anymore. And when Aiden finds out that Lizzie had been talking to strangers on Facebook; that the police think she went to meet one of them, he begins to wonder how well he ever really knew her, and Aiden doesn't know it yet, but with Lizzie's disappearance his life is about to take a twisted and desperate turn.
Nicci Cloke is a full-time writer, part-time doer of random jobs. These jobs have included Christmas Elf, cocktail waitress, and childminder. She is also the organiser and host of Speakeasy, the only London literary salon to host regular YA events. This is her first novel for young adults.
Her first adult novel Somebody Find Me was published by Fourth Estate in 2012 and her second Lay Me Down was published by Cape in 2014.
