The Girl in the Story

Matilda Andrew is just trying to survive.

She was only fourteen when she climbed the stairs out of the basement she'd been locked in by her father. It's been fifteen years since she walked across to her neighbour's house, knocked on the door and asked them to call emergency services. Fifteen years and at least, by now, the media has well and truly lost interest in telling stories about her family.

Only - it turns out they haven't.

Because there's a journalist who won't leave Mattie alone. A journalist who claims she has uncovered something groundbreaking about the time Mattie spent trapped in her own house, something that everyone else missed. Who insists there is more to this story, and will stop at nothing to be the one to tell it.

With her life thrust once more into the spotlight, and the precarious stability of her existence again shaky beneath her feet, Mattie finds herself forced to examine the stories surrounding those dark years of her life - both those told by others, and those she's told herself. What is truth? What is fiction? And what do we do when the two have become so entangled it's impossible to tell which is which?