The questioning she undergoes in court is astonishingly brought home how a child brought up with overbearing, mind turning parents can have an effect on your psychological mind when she is listening out behind a screen for just the breathing sounds of her mother. After witnessing her Mother commit abuse and murder- abuse that is only ever alluded to and not detailed (so clever as it leaves your mind to wonder - and the mind of imaginings can be much more scary and brutal) Millie can no longer watch on and goes to the police - a decision she struggles with throughout the text- her love for her Mum, despite what she did to her and to the nine bodies, is still there. And like most humans, she presents her good side to the world, so is she showing the reader only her good side?

The story is told through the eyes of fifteen- year old Milly, who has just turned her own mother, a serial killer, over to the authorities.I have a feeling that this is one book that’ll spark debate and it is ripe for wide-ranging, and heated, book group discussions. Phoebe and her best friends, Clondine and Izzy, send her abusive messages and tease her relentlessly. Sleep continues to evade her as her mother invades her dreams turning them into nightmares, and even during waking hours she senses her presence all around her. I found the storyline - although a distressing one as a whole - totally captivating and I was hooked from the very first page until the brilliant and apt ending. Mom’s arrested after Milly tips off the cops, and in the run up to mom’s trial, Milly’s placed into foster care with Mike (Milly’s shrink), Mike’s weirdo wife, and their nightmare daughter, Phoebe.

That’s when I started thinking, Oh no, this is young adult fiction, not the controversial adult psychological suspense I was hoping for. As a result, we as the reader get an in-depth insight into the human psyche of an incredibly damaged young individual. When Annie informs the police of this at the tender age of only 15 you can gasp and feel her emotions. Milly’s foster father, the well-intentioned psychologist Mike, makes a habit of rescuing children and is valiantly trying to hold his unappreciative family together: his fragile, unsuited-to-motherhood wife Saskia and their vindictive, insecure daughter Phoebe who develops an instant hatred of Milly and starts bullying her at school. The style of writing can be slightly unusual at times with extremely short sentences, but this is because we are reading Annie's thoughts.

I could understand that her case warrants someone with his skill-set because of the severity of the trauma she’s been through, but I still didn’t believe that she’d necessarily be placed with him. The story opens with a brilliant premise: Teenaged Annie turns her serial killer mother in to the police.