Profound, real and extremely enjoyable. Robyn was great company

— Carol Birch, author of Jamrach’s Menagerie

A remarkable first novel – both heartbreaking and wonderfully lacking in any sentimentality

— Alan Bleasdale

Wonderful and compelling. It’s about a community I know well, set in a time I know well, and I can vouch for its authenticity

— Jimmy McGovern

‘When they first sent me out to steal I was ten years old . . .’

The second floor of a Liverpool tenement block, past nosey Mrs Naylor’s and the grotty rubbish chute, is where ten-year-old Robyn calls home. From her bedroom window she watches families where love matters, as she dreams of dolls and make-up – and parents who don’t force her to steal.

But when the random cruelty at home escalates into heart-stopping violence she knows it’s time to disappear.

Deborah Morgan has managed to capture something very real about the profound seriousness of growing up and finding out, all too soon, that life is unfair. Robyn was great company, an engaging and fully-realised character who sticks in the mind, and the rough world she lives in is familiar and completely believable. Deborah Morgan gets it just right

— Carol Birch