Phoebe stands on Pulteney Bridge, tights gashed from toe to thigh. The shock of mangled metal and blood-stained walls flashes through her mind as she tries to cover her face so she won’t be recognised. It wouldn’t do to be spotted looking like this. She’s missing a shoe. She feels sick.

Phoebe thought murder and murder happened. Thoughts are just thoughts, they said. Now she knows they were wrong.

At home, Phoebe arranges the scissors and knives so they point toward her mother’s room. She is exhausted, making sure there’s no trace of herself – not a single hair, not even her scent – left anywhere in the house. She must not let her thoughts unravel, because if they do, there’s no telling who might be caught in the crossfire, and Phoebe will have to live with the consequences.

Review:

Gloomy, tragic, and consuming!

Crushed is an ominous, gritty, character-driven tale that takes you into the lives of three teenage friends, Phoebe, Orla, and Grace, as they each struggle to find some semblance of control, power, and love in a life littered with dysfunction, self-destruction, insecurities, and lack of affection.

The prose is tight and intense. The characters are vulnerable, damaged, and impulsive. And the plot is a slow-burning, immersive tale full of life, loss, deception, desperation, friendship, familial drama, manipulation, jealousy, obsession, emerging sexuality, abuse, violence, and murder.

Overall, Crushed is a dark, eerie, astute, coming-of-age tale by Hamer that does a remarkable job of delving into the complex dynamics between friends and family and highlights just how parasitic and toxic some of those relationships can truly be.

This book is available now.

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