Our Little Secret, Allayne Webster

When the news swept the little town of Wattleton that sixteen-year-old Anne-Marie Cooper had been raped on her way home from school one summer afternoon, some townsfolk said they weren't surprised. They could have seen it coming. Some even said that Anne-Marie had asked for it. I know this, because one of those people was my own mother.

When fourteen-year-old Edwina Saltmarsh hears the news that her best friend's sister, Anne-Marie, has been raped, she doesn't know what to think. Does she side with her mother and the other adults around her? Did Anne-Marie really have it coming? Was it even her own fault? But when Edwina develops an interest in Tom, a colleague of her father's, she has to re-evaluate her opinions. This is a powerful and emotionally challenging story about innocence, predators, and small-minded country towns.

Our Little Secret is longlisted for the Golden Inky.