It’s a growing trend to  place the care of children at the heart of a thriller as it seems a good way to get  the reader to care quickly about the characters. Here is one which considers the relationship between mother and child.

The NIght Olivia Fell by Christina McDonald

It’s every parent’s worst nightmare – to be woken in the middle of the night to hear your child has been in a terrible accident and is now on life support. But then Abi finds that her sensible, hardworking daughter is three months pregnant and she didn’t really know what was going on in Olivia’s life at all. How did Olivia get those unexplained bruises on her wrists, and did she really fall?

The story alternates between Abi in the present, trying desperately to find out what had happened in her daughter’s life and to convince the police to investigate her death, and Olivia in the recent past leading up to the accident. The author brilliantly balances the revelations in each half of the plot, which moves swiftly and it is written with great confidence for a debut novel. The relationship between Abi and her daughter, in particular the difficulty of being a single parent with a single child, is beautifully drawn and I felt all the characters were well-rounded and believable.

A really good story that gets you thoroughly involved.

HarperCollins pb £7.99