The evidence of pretending I know anything about Micah at all. I’ll destroy the evidence before I go to bed. I look at those pretentious words for all of two seconds before scrunching up the paper and launching it into the bin to join my growing pile. I know what it’s like to live in a compound. You may think I know nothing of your life, but you’re wrong. Picking up the abandoned pen, I shuffle taller in the wooden chair that’s been worn down by a century of girls’ backsides. In the safety of my dorm, I turn back to the paper.

But no one gives a shit when you’re shackled by your own mistakes. In my mind, Micah’s huddled in a grimy corner of his cell, his face heavy with regret. On the hockey field below, under a full moon, jacaranda trees cast shadows along the grass. What do you say to a guy you’ve never met, whose life is the complete opposite of yours? I drop the pen on my desk, flex my fingers and peer through the second-storey window of my dorm. The pen’s been poised in my grip the last half hour. It was a stupid idea and none of us ever heard back. And I’ve never written one, unless you count Year Seven English when we had to write to the person we most wanted to meet. Nobody has ever sent me a letter in the post. ALSO FOR CHAD, AND OUR FIVE LITTLE MASTERPIECES – MIA, ZARA, SOPHIE, HEIDI AND LACEY. AND DAD, FOR TELLING ME I WAS GOOD ENOUGH. TO MY PARENTS, KAREN AND IAN – MUM, FOR ALWAYS BELIEVING IN ME AS A WRITER. But is she setting herself up for more loss? And will loving him mean losing the people who mean the most to her at home? It’s not because her father is a politician.īel writes to a Death Row prisoner as an easy way out of an assignment.ĭrawn to Micah’s world inside a Thai prison, Bel finds herself falling for the boy with ragged hair, shackles and a terrible past. It’s not because Bel’s mother was murdered. A powerful first novel dealing with life, loss and the redemptive power of love.

Inside the Tiger by Hayley Lawrence