Extract: The Fear by C.L. Taylor

The Fear by C.L. Taylor

Release Date: 22nd March 2018
Publisher: Avon

Genres: Thriller / mystery / crime

Sometimes your first love won’t let you go…

When Lou Wandsworth ran away to France with her teacher Mike Hughes, she thought he was the love of her life. But Mike wasn’t what he seemed and he left her life in pieces.

Now 32, Lou discovers that he is involved with teenager Chloe Meadows. Determined to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself, she returns home to confront him for the damage he’s caused.

But Mike is a predator of the worst kind, and as Lou tries to bring him to justice, it’s clear that she could once again become his prey…

The million copy Sunday Times bestseller returns with a gripping psychological thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat.

Praise for The Fear:
‘A skewering portrait of obsessive love and psychological manipulation, this book gets under the skin from the outset and won’t let you go until you’ve gasped at THAT ending. This is Taylor’s best book yet.’
CJ Cooke (author of I Know My Name)
‘Wow! Such a fast-paced, gripping, tense thriller. My heart was in my mouth at the end. Her best yet!’
Claire Douglas (author of Local Girl Missing)

EXTRACT

It’s Sunday afternoon now. Her dad hasn’t said a word to her all day, not even when she went down to get breakfast and asked if her mum had come back yet. Now Chloe’s back in her bedroom. Last night, before she fell asleep – broken and exhausted – she scrawled I should have jumped on her bedroom wall in eyeliner. She tried to scrub it off with a make-up remover wipe when she woke up but there’s still a greasy stain on the wall and the word jumped.

    ‘Chloe?’ There’s a tap at her bedroom door. ‘Chloe, can I come in?’

    She sighs and swings her legs off her bed. Before she opens the door, she glances at the patch of carpet by the wardrobe but the diary’s not there. It’s under the bed, where she shoved it after her dad got back.

    ‘Yes, Jamie.’ She looks down at her little brother and his pale, pinched face.

    ‘Where’s Mum?’

    ‘I don’t know.’

    ‘Is she coming back?’

    Chloe sighs. ‘Probably.’

    ‘When?’

    ‘I don’t know.’

    ‘Chlo?’

    ‘Yes.’

    ‘Can I have a hug?’

    ‘Why?’ Chloe can’t remember the last time she and her brother touched, never mind hugged. When he was a baby he’d fall asleep in her arms. When he was two he followed her everywhere. She loved him back then, back before he became their dad’s little mimic. She loves him now too, she’s sure, she just can’t feel it anymore.