Secrets exposed, betrayals confronted

A story of two girls living in Johannesburg.

Two acts of betrayal, set more than 50 years apart.

Johannesburg, 1963. Nelson Mandela is on trial and the nine-year-old Margaret Channing-Court unwittingly attracts the attention of the security police to her home. Forced to make a choice, she watches helplessly as her family is destroyed.

More than 50 years later, Jenna Moore, a troubled 15-year-old, is packing up her Aunt C-C’s Johannesburg house. She prises open a locked drawer and finds an old letter addressed to her aunt. One of a few words stands out clearly: MURDERER.

As Jenna discovers the clues which reveal the secret her aunt has attempted to keep hidden all her life, she is forced to confront her own shameful act of betrayal.

Edyth Bulbring attended UCT, where she completed a BA and edited the university newspaper, Varsity.

Having worked as a journalist for 15 years, which included covering the 1994 elections during her position as political correspondent at The Sunday Times, Bulbring eventually moved into writing full time. She is the author of Pops & the Nearly Dead (Penguin, 2010) and The Club (Jonathan Ball, 2008).

Bulbring gained recognition for her young adult novels, The Summer of Toffie and Grummer (OUP) and Cornelia Button and the Globe of Gamagion (Jacana). Melly, Mrs Ho and Me and Melly, Fatty and Me (Penguin SA) were published in the UK by Hot Key Books in 2013. She lives in Stanford, Western Cape.

• Article provided by NB Publishers