Blood Family Award-winning author by Anne Fine (author)

Does bad blood always win out? Edward spent three years locked up by his mother’s abusive partner, Harris. From the ages of four to seven, all he knew was fear. Years of foster care and therapy haven’t fully healed the scars. Then one fateful day, the teenage Edward glimpses himself in a photo. What he sees shocks him to the core: a vision of Harris. Was the monster who brutalised him really his father all along? Could there be a monster inside Edward too, waiting to break out?

By former Children’s Laureate and Carnegie Medal winner Anne Fine

A dark, disturbing tale of family ties and the aftermath of abuse

Anne Fine’s other books include The Tulip Touch and Madame Doubtfire

She has won the Whitbread and Guardian prizes and the Carnegie Medal twice

This book contains language and subject matter that may be considered objectionable. We believe this book covers themes important for teenagers to engage with but is not suitable for younger readers.

Product Details

Format

Paperback

ISBN

9780552567633

Publisher

Corgi Childrens

Date published

April 3rd, 2014

Accelerated Reader

AR book level: 5.0; Upper years; 10.0 points

Other details

304 pages

Condition

New

Author/Illustrator

Anne Fine

Anne Fine is a multi award-winning novelist, and was Children’s Laureate from 2001-2003. Her novels range from the wickedly funny Diary of a Killer Cat for young readers, to the provocative_Road of Bones_ for teenage readers.

Speaking about her work, Anne says: “A lot of my work, even for fairly young readers, raises quite serious social issues. I believe that many personal decisions have a social or political resonance, and the way people try to pick their way through tricky family situations interests me. But people won’t (and shouldn’t) read books that don’t hold their interest, and I still adore funny books. So since I write for the reader inside myself, I always end up with the kind of book I would have loved to read (if only someone else had bothered to write for me.”

More about Anne: “When I was young, it never occurred to me that I might be a writer. I think I must have thought that books were born on the library shelves. But I was good at writing stories, and I had a good deal of practice.

At school, I enjoyed languages most, and took French and Spanish, along with History, for A levels. That meant there was no room for English, and so for my whole life I have been able simply to read what I want when I want, and only for pleasure or interest. I suspect that this has been really important for the way I write, making it so much easier to think always of the reader.

I studied Politics and History at University, and the interest in political issues shows up in many of the books. After university I taught in a girls’ secondary school for a year — exhausting! — and then moved with my husband to Oxford, where I worked as an Information Officer for Oxfam. Though I was only in this job for two years, it changed my attitudes to money, to ‘things’, and to what is truly important in life, for ever.

In 1971 my first daughter was born. Unable to get to the library in a snowstorm to change my library books, in desperation I sat down and started to write a novel. Clearly this was the right job for me, for I have never stopped writing for more than a few weeks since.

My husband’s job took us to California, Arizona, Michigan and Canada, where our second daughter was born. In 1981 I returned to Edinburgh, and a few years later moved to County Durham, where I now live quietly in a stone house beside a river with Richard, my partner of fifteen years.”