Dripping in blood, this is a story of family secrets so terrible that they shouldn’t be uncovered...Rowan and Clara think they are ordinary teenagers. They live quietly with their ordinary Mum and Dad doing all the things that their friends do. But, the Radley parents are hiding a secret; they are abstaining vampires and, one day, their abstinence will fail. Rowan’s teenage anxieties and sense of being an outsider take on a whole new dimension in this insight story of adolescence with a difference.

A message from the author:

"This is a story about growing up, first and foremost.  About how we learn to come to terms with who we are, independent of the ideas our parents had for us.  About how we decide our own identities.  As well as what shapes those identities - who we choose to love, and hate, admire and fear.  It is about how denying ourselves can sometimes be more dangerous than succumbing to tempation.  This is the story I wanted to tell. I never set out to write a vampire story, but vampires were the obvious choice.  After all, as family secrets go, you can't get much bigger than finding out you are actually a full-blown creature of the night.  And hopefully it fits as a metaphor for teenage life.  A life full of physical changes, forbidden cravings, and feelings of being an outsider.  In that sense, we've probably all been vampires at some stage.

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Synopsis

Meet the Radleys: Peter, Helen and their teenage kids Clara and Rowan. An everyday family who live in a pretty English village and juggle dysfunctional lives. So far, so normal. Except, as Peter and Helen know (but the kids have yet to find out), the Radleys happen to be a family of abstaining vampires. When one night Clara finds herself driven to commit a bloodthirsty act of violence, her parents need to explain a few things: why is their skin is so sensitive to light, why do they all find garlic so repulsive, and why has Clara's recent decision to go vegan had quite such an effect on her behaviour...? But when mysterious Uncle Will swoops into the village, he unleashes a host of shadowy truths and dark secrets that threaten to destroy the Radleys and the world around them.

About the Author

Matt Haig was born in Sheffield in 1975 and grew up in Nottinghamshire. He has lived in London and Spain, and now lives in north Yorkshire. His writing has frequently appeared in the UK press. He is the author of The Last Family in England, a UK bestseller narrated by a Labrador, The Dead Fathers Club, an update of Hamlet featuring an eleven-year-old boy and The Possession of Mr Cave. He has also written two children's novels, Shadow Forest, and its sequel The Runaway Troll.   Matt Haig on his teen novel, The Radleys: "This is a story about growing up, first and foremost.  About how we learn to come to terms with who we are, independent of the ideas our parents had for us.  About how we decide our own identities.  As well as what shapes those identities - who we choose to love, and hate, admire and fear.  It is about how denying ourselves can sometimes be more dangerous than succumbing to tempation.  This is the story I wanted to tell. I never set out to write a vampire story, but vampires were the obvious choice.  After all, as family secrets go, you can't get much bigger than finding out you are actually a full-blown creature of the night.  And hopefully it fits as a metaphor for teenage life.  A life full of physical changes, forbidden cravings, and feelings of being an outsider.  In that sense, we've probably all been vampires at some stage."   Author photo © Clive Doyle More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation