Every Thing We Keep

Book excerpt: Trailing her orange suitcase and a heart full of worry, thirteen-year-old Agatha is about to go home. She has been in and out of foster care for years now, but her latest new life – lived with naval precision with Katherine, Lawson and their dog, Chief – has proved to be the salvation that Agatha needed. She has new friends, a sense of place and space to breathe. But when the social worker says it’s time to return to her parents, Agatha’s world comes crashing down. ‘Home’ has always made her anxious and ashamed . . . and she can’t understand why she is being forced to go back. Is it possible to find a way to love her parents without having to live with them?