Megan Walsh is running, but not toward safety. She runs only so she can choose the ending herself, before they catch her.
What she escaped inside the walls of her children’s home is never far behind. Memories she cannot name claw at her when she closes her eyes. Her body carries the evidence. Her silence keeps her alive.
Then Jo finds her. Jo, the one adult Meg once dared to believe in. Taking her in seems simple, an act of kindness, but Jo soon discovers that Meg’s nightmare isn’t over. The people who destroyed her childhood have reach that stretches into the very institutions meant to protect her: police, social care, even Parliament.
Meg is suddenly at the centre of a deadly game of cat and mouse. To survive, she must battle crippling flashbacks, piece together the truth of what happened, and identify the faces that still hunt her. Every misstep could mean being silenced forever.
But the fight isn’t only outside. Living under Jo’s roof forces Meg into unfamiliar territory, trust, routine, warmth. When Jo’s grown children return home for Christmas, chaos collides with comedy, and Meg is confronted with something alien yet magnetic: family.
Paradigm is a relentless, character-driven thriller that pushes you to the edge of your seat and holds you there. It’s a story of power and corruption, survival and betrayal, but also of resilience, laughter, and the fragile hope that healing might be possible.
Trigger warning: This book contains a detailed self-harm scene, alongside depictions of assault and traumatic flashbacks.