Eve Ainsworth is a public speaker, creative workshop coordinator and award-winning author who draws from her extensive work with teenagers managing emotional and behavioural issues to write authentic, honest and real novels for young people and adults. Eve's adult debut, Duckling, was published by Penguin Random House in 2022. She has had short stories published in magazines such as Writers' Forum and Prima and articles posted online for the Guardian, Metro and BookTrust. Eve is also a champion for working class voices, has set up the Working Class Writers Network and is an experienced mentor.

My name is Maisy Malone. I'm seventeen years old, live in a ratty council house with my 60 year old near-alcoholic Dad and a dog with a leaky bum.

This is my blog. You can either like it, or you can... well... blog off!! ;o)

Maisy is seventeen and has reason to be seriously fed up. Her Dad spends his days stagnating in his armchair, watching re-runs of Bargain Hunt, shouting abuse at their neurotic dog, Dave, or nursing his pint down at the Pride. Her mum fled the place years ago, on the back of a clapped-out old bike, and is now planning the wedding of the year, to a man so damp you could grow mushrooms on him.

And now Maisy has dropped out of sixth form in an attempt to bring some money into the family home. But will a range of eye-opening temporary assignments provide Maisy the freedom she is searching for? And what secret is her idiot older brother hiding?

Is she better going alone? Or is home really where the heart is?