Vivid, page-turning and passionate – the characters leapt off the page

— Catherine O’Flynn

Masterful, poignant, powerful and true. Ashton’s is a remarkable voice and this is a wonderful novel

— Christos Tsiolkas

Ashton’s vivid, page-turning prose, married to passionate hopefulness, gives this debut a redemptive glow

— Marie Claire

A haunting and craftily-crafted first novel, with really valuable stuff about people having to let go of pasts they have no chance of understanding

— Dazed and Confused

The danger game is not a winning game . . .

Alice and Louise are sisters united by a distant tragedy – the house fire fourteen years ago which their brother lit and burned to death in. Alice teaches dirt-poor students at a state high school that the government wants to close, while pursuing a relationship with a married man. Louise, a habitual liar and recovering heroin addict, has been playing a game of dares – ‘the danger game’ – with herself since she was a child, and now she can’t stop. When they reunite in Melbourne to unravel the truth about their twin brother’s death, and seek out the mother who abandoned them as children, they’re forced to face the danger of their family’s past.