AustLit

'How much do you know about the people who keep you safe?

'Madeline Kyle is putting her life back together, throwing herself into a new library job after years of restrictive psychiatric care. Ready to put her past behind her and prove she can stand on her own, Madeline cleaves to personal rules and routines in order to hold back the paranoia and anorexia nervosa that first derailed her life.

'For the first time, Madeline feels safe and in control of her future, but an encounter with a library security guard threatens everything she works for. Madeline’s instincts scream that his furtive interest is a harbinger of danger, but her therapist suggest it’s all in her head and perhaps she’s not ready to move out on her own.

'As the growing threat of the guard eclipses her work, Madeline finds herself struggling to navigate daily interactions that grow murky as the depths of a river in flood. When she retreats into the tunnels below the library for safety, things accelerate towards a violent endgame where Madeline risks everything on a single choice around whose instincts are correct.

'Does she fight back and risk her liberty, or accept the reality others push upon her and risk her very life?'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Brain Jar ed.).