The Unknown Bridesmaid

When Julia was eight, she was asked to be a bridesmaid at her glamorous cousin's wedding. Her mother saw this as a chore - expensive, inconvenient - but Julia was absolutely thrilled. When the time came, even the fact that her bridesmaid's dress didn't fit, and was plain cream rather than the pink she'd hoped for, couldn't ruin the perfection. But after this day things started to go wrong for Julia, starting with an episode involving her cousin's baby, a pram and an unauthorised trip around the block. A lifetime later, Julia is a child psychologist who every day deals with young girls said to be behaving badly. Some are stealing, some are running away from home, some are sullen, some won't get out of bed or are on strike. But one day, Julia's own past starts to creep back into her present. And as she struggles to come to terms with this, she must confront the possibility that the truth may not be as devastating as she feared.