DO NOT BECOME ALARMED

THE STORY

What begins as the holiday of a lifetime turns into every parents’ nightmare in this up-all-night, rollercoaster ride of a novel. Liv and her cousin Nora book a two-week cruise from California with their husbands and young children. On board they team up with an Argentinian couple and their two teenagers. When the women and children go ashore in a Central American country for a day trip, a combination of unforeseen circumstances and inattention by the parents results in the six children disappearing; one minute they are there, the next they are gone, swept upstream by a tidal river.

What follows is a thrilling story told from the perspectives of the children, aged from six to 15, and their desperate parents. The resourcefulness of the youngsters, who end up held hostage, contrasts with the helplessness of the adults, whose relationships fracture as they turn on each other and blame themselves for what has happened – none more so than Liv and Nora. Gripping and convincing, it is a reminder of how vulnerable our lives can be.

THE TASTER

‘She remembered talking to the news cameras in that clearing in the trees. Babbling, crying, begging. If she had seen these parents on TV, these parents who had lost their children on a cruise, she would have thought how irresponsible they were, how careless. No one deserved such a fate, of course, but she would have judged them, and found them wanting. She knew that Nora must be suffering the tortures of the damned for wandering off looking for quetzals with the flirty guide, but all she could think was that Nora, her best friend, her almost-sister, should suffer.’

THE AUTHOR

Award-winning writer Maile Meloy has worked as a river ranger, taught swimming and represented the USA in the sport of canoe polo. Maile (pronounced My-lee) is named after a vine that grows in Hawaii, where her parents lived before she was born. She reveals more about the background to her new novel at youreadinggroup.co.uk, where you will also find suggested topics for your own book club discussion.

That perfect combination of a luminous writer and a big, page-turning story HELEN FIELDING