Blood Family
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5.0 • 4 Ratings
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- £1.99
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- £1.99
Publisher Description
Edward is four years old when he is locked away with his mother by her abusive, alcoholic partner, Harris. By the time an elderly neighbour spots his pale face peering through a crack in the boarded-up window and raises the alarm, he is seven.
Rescue comes, but lasting damage has been done. Sent to live with a kindly foster family, and then adopted, Edward struggles to adapt to normal life. Even as a teenager it’s still clear to his new family and schoolmates there’s something odd about him.
Then one fateful day, Edward catches a glimpse of himself in a photograph. What he sees shocks him to the core – a vision of Harris. Was this monster his father all along? And does that mean that, deep down, another Harris is waiting to break out?
Every step of progress Edward has made swiftly begins to unravel, and he has to decide whether his blood will determine his future.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
When police enter the squalid apartment of petty criminal Bryce Harris, they discover seven-year-old Eddie and his catatonic mother. Taken into custody, Eddie leaves the apartment for the first time in years. Despite loving foster parents and, later, a supportive adoptive family, Eddie now Edward struggles to hide the damage done by years of abuse and neglect, even as he tries to present a front of normalcy. Selected to assist in an anthropologist's demonstration of age-progression software during a school trip, Edward, now 15, is horrified to see Harris's face staring back at him. The realization that Harris was his father sends Edward spiraling out of control. Could he become the same inhuman monster his father was? Rotating among the perspectives of Edward and various people in his life (neighbors, social workers, foster parents, etc.), Fine (The Road of Bones) movingly traces Edward's long struggle to cope with a world he was ill prepared to enter. The realistic and varied viewpoints of the many characters she introduce will keep readers fully invested in a story that's tragic but not hopeless. Ages 14 up.
