The Fallout by Rebecca Thornton

At the school gates, there’s no such thing as yesterday’s news . . .

When Liza’s little boy has an accident at the local health club, it’s all anyone can talk about. Was nobody watching him? Where was his mother? Who’s to blame? The rumours, the finger-pointing, the whispers – they’re everywhere.

And Liza’s best friend, Sarah, desperately needs it to stop. Because Sarah was there when it happened. It was all her fault.

And if she’s caught out on the lie, everything will fall apart.

Rebecca Thornton is an alumna of the Faber Academy Writing A Novel course, where she was tutored by Esther Freud and Tim Lott. Her writing has been published in The Guardian, You Magazine, Daily Mail, Prospect Magazine and The Sunday People amongst others. She has reported from the Middle East, Kosovo and the UK. She now lives in West London with her husband and two children. The Fallout is her third novel.

Review.

This is a novel about judgement, prejudice, misinterpretation, jealousy, anger, hurt, betrayal, parenthood and love.

You can’t take anything for granted in this book. All three of the main characters have secrets to hide, make judgements of each other which will have far reaching consequences.

The characters were well formed, I actually really liked Ella! The plot was good. I can’t imagine that guilt knowing that you should have checked on a child but didn’t and then they were hurt. I do think this books target audience is aimed at parents, which is just not me! At points I was wondering why this was happening but then again I don’t know the terror of mums waiting at school gates etc.

One thing I did love about this book was that it dealt with male parents and how they also struggle with life after becoming a parent. That’s not something I have personally seen in a book before and it was very refreshing. I thought the author did a marvellous job on this part of the story.