When Susan first meets Vicki, her new baby sister, she puts a hand on her tiny forearm, and Vicki stops screaming. Just like that.

If only it were so easy forty-five years later.

Susan has always been the quiet, nice sister, but her husband's sudden demand for an open marriage - and a rather large purple object she'd forgotten about - provokes a slow-dawning epiphany: being the 'good' girl doesn't always mean it's good for you.

Just down the road, Vicki listens at the door of her seventeen-year-old daughter's room - her only child - and is shocked at what she hears. Her old urge to scream builds. As she listens to a true crime podcast and doom scrolls the news headlines, she can feel a terror building in her bones. She can't help believing something very bad is going to happen.

It's January in suburban Australia - stinking hot, the sound of tennis and cricket on telly, the threat of bushfires in the air. Vicki is right, something is unravelling. Rage, desire, fear, wonder (and the occasional nipple) are unleashed. In the aftermath, will Susan and Vicki ever find out what's possible when no one's looking?

Brooke Davis is a novelist and bookseller. She grew up in Bellbrae, Victoria and currently resides in Perth, Western Australia. Her bestselling debut novel, Lost & Found, was published in 28 countries and received two Australian Book Industry Awards for General Fiction and New Writer of the Year, as well as the WA Premier's Book Award for Emerging Writer.

Jeremy Lachlan was born and raised on Wiradjuri country, in Griffith, New South Wales, Australia. A former bookseller, he completed his honours degree in creative writing at the University of Canberra, and now calls Sydney home.

Contact the host of Brooke Davis in conversation with Jeremy Lachlan

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