In the arid summer heat, four children - Jack, Julie, Sue and Tom - find themselves abruptly orphaned. All the routines of childhood are cast aside as the children adapt to a now parentless world. Alone in the house together, the children's lives twist into something unrecognisable as the outside begins to bear down on them.
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[I DID NOT kill my father, but I sometimes felt I had helped him on his way]***
(Vintage Digital, 11 March 2010, first published 1978, ebook, 144 pages, borrowed from @GlasgowLib via @OverDriveLibs)
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I think I need a shower and a hug after reading this book because my flesh is seriously crawling right now. This book is chilling at times. The siblings seen to grieve their mother's death but the way they respond after the initial shock, burying the body under cement and not telling anyone really disturbed me. There is just something not normal about the way they behave. Also, Tom comes across as a clearly unhinged person and his feelings for his sister's verges on sexual, another thing which disturbed the hell out of me. I enjoyed this book but found it unpleasant at times so I'm glad it's so short.
