Reaching Zero

At fifteen, Niamh Young has experienced more than any teenager should. She is the odd one out. The third Young sister. The forgotten daughter. The outcast in her own family. With one dead sister and a sister who is mentally ill, there is no room spared in her parents' hearts for her.

There is no time for her mother to realise where the mysterious bruises come from, or why Niamh always skips lunch, and has stopped eating cake on birthdays.

Wanting to be someone her father is proud of she constantly moulds herself to be someone he might notice. Someone who is worthy of being his daughter. Someone who isn't always on the receiving end of his whiskey tantrums.

Being sent to Tommen College's boarding school, Niamh spirals completely out of control. And when she finally wants to give up she encounters the last person she would have expected.

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Fionn Holland wants nothing but to get out of his house, for sixteen years his mother has been his sole motivation to stay but when a bout of illness kills her he has nothing left to root him at home. If you could even call it that. With his drug addict father and older brothers being his only relatives, he grasps at any escape he can get.

He has always been the straight-A student, the golden boy, the prodigal son. His aspirations have been the ones to drive him forward and keep him from giving up. His desperate need to escape and show the world that is more than his family's drug emporium. More than the name they have made for themselves in Ballylaggin.

When he receives a chance to attend Tommen College's boarding school and escape his wretched home-life in the form of a one in a lifetime scholarship from the school he grabs it with both hands.

What he didn't expect was to meet the girl who would send his whole world balance off-kilter.