What Binds

Some girls run away from home to find freedom. Jess runs because staying feels impossible. Fifteen years old Jess thought she knew what home was – until her mother walked out and everything she trusted started to fall apart. Angry, hurt, and desperate for answers, Jess shuts out her father and brothers and goes looking for her mother, the one person who might explain why she left. But the truth doesn’t come easily, and neither does forgiveness. One bad night becomes another. A sofa becomes a shelter. Then the streets of Melbourne become the only place Jess knows where to go.

Told in alternating voices by Jess and her father, this contemporary story follows a girl trying to survive the choices she never meant to make, and a father trying to understand how love can still reach a child who refuses to come home. Raw, honest, and full of fragile hope, Jess’s story asks what it really means to lose your way – and whether you can find your way home  when you do.

Anna Burns is an author of educational articles, poems, novels and two collections of short stories. Skewed (2017) and Tangents (2018).

Resilience (2015) a non-fiction, describes her family’s deportation to Siberia and Katyń.

Lost Years her mother’s dairy publisher earlier this year.

Essence of Trust (2019) a Romance followed s by YA novel What Binds.

A retired teacher, she lives on the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria.