The Blamed Paperback / softback

'Insightful and astute writing ... Emily Hourican has a wonderful understanding of human nature' Louise O'NeillThe summer she turned twenty-five, Anna felt invincible. In love for the first time, in a strange city far from home, she could be a new person.

All that she had ever wanted was there for the taking.

But the glorious possibility of those long sultry days ended in a reality far starker than she could have imagined. Now, fifteen years later, Anna is struggling to get through to her teenage daughter Jessie -- named in memory of Anna's best friend -- who has developed an eating disorder.

Mother and daughter were once close, but now Anna feels as if Jessie's every word and action is a mystery.

Though sometimes she wonders if Jessie can see right through her. And when her daughter starts to report dreams about the namesake she never met, Anna -- increasingly unnerved by just how much her daughter seems to know -- is forced to face the secrets of that summer when her life changed in one unravelling moment, and the brutal truth about the part she had to play.