Description
Everybody is a pawn on somebody else's chessboard...
Little Child is a hard-hitting thriller which strips bare the impact mental illness and abuse can have upon the relationships within a family, and beyond the family.
The story is set in the South East of England and portrays a mother and daughter grappling with their identities. Lost and overcome, striving to be the best they can be, the pressure of expectation weighs heavily. Both are running - Maggie from the power she's been entrusted with by her father's company and all that it brings; Emily from her mother's relentless abuse and keeping up the facade that her home life is normal. As Emily and her father make plans to escape, Maggie finds herself embroiled in a tangled web of lies, deceit and corruption, which will eventually lead to the ultimate betrayal. Both mother and daughter will be pushed to the brink of despair through events out of their control, but only one will claw her way back again.
Lurking on every corner - survival, power, instinct - and laced with gripping plot on plot, Little Child effortlessly combines a gritty underworld with raw, delicate emotion.
About the Author
Piara Strainge was born in Bath on the 6th November, 1982 and educated at Warmley Church of England and at the Sir Bernard Lovell School in Oldland, Bristol. Leaving home at 17, she moved to Fleet in Hampshire where she has been living ever since. The last 11 years have been spent travelling all over the world as Piara works for an Adventure tour operator in Farnborough. Writing is her first passion, closely followed by travel. It took 10 years to plan her debut novel Little Child and finally, in September 2009, she sat down and wrote the story during a 6-month break.
Little Child deals with different types of abuse and touches it on all levels. On a personal level, Piara has experienced and witnessed emotional and mental abuse and it weaves itself through her family, passed on from one generation to the next. The different forms of abuse are widely acknowledged in the family and her generation is working hard to stop the cycle as they create a new generation - primarily by being aware of it. Piara accepts they won't all be successful because traits are ingrained, but at least the acknowledgement is there. Mental abuse fascinates her the most as it is so subtle.