Bad Blood

Written by Julie Shaw

Narrated by Nigel Peever

It’s 1971 and seventeen-year-old Christine is about to give birth to her son. When her family throw her out, Christine has the biggest fight of her life to bring up her son safe on the infamous Canterbury Estate in Bradford, rife with crime, alcohol and drugs, a place where family is everything and nothing.

It's Friday evening on the Canterbury Estate in Bradford and Christine, who's been rushed to hospital by her friend, Josie, is on the maternity ward giving birth. She's 17 and terrified. Not just of the pain, which is ripping her in two, but because she knows that once the baby arrives, her family is never going to speak to her again.

Her beautiful baby boy is about to start a chain of events that will lead to tragedy – and only her own family can save her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Jul 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9780008142865

Reviews for Bad Blood

[atticusfinch1048 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Bad Blood – A Great Story

Bad Blood is a gritty story of love and family redemption set over the last few months of 1981 and up to April 1982. The characters are authentic voices from the hard council estates before Margaret Thatcher had started to sell them off, in Bradford, with the windswept Pennines as the back drop.

This was a time when families were breaking down, but still most people knew your business, and could give a running commentary of what was happening on the estate. Mobile phones were in the future and if you did not have your own phone, you needed a pocket full of change and waiting for the ‘pips’ tone before pushing your money in to the public phone. That is if you found one that was working.

Social historians today would give the commentary that the social fabric was breaking down, the idea of community was history and a Labour had gained control of the council from the Conservatives. The Canterbury Estate even in the early 1980s was where there was a high concentration of poverty and deprivation, where drink and drugs were plenty, police and politeness were on another planet.

Christine Parker is 17 years old, pregnant and about to give birth, her mother Lizzie, is not known for her maternal nature, and she knows when she gives birth things will only get worse. When her friend takes her to the maternity ward she gives birth to a young boy, who is half-caste and clearly fathered by her mother’s boyfriend, Mo.

The birth of Joey splits her family about, her mother throws her out of family home and via her friend Josie, she ends up sharing a flat with her brother Nicky and his mate Brian. The problem is that they are both junkies and so begins a spiral out of control in to a pit of desperation for Christine. She cannot get a flat of her own, Social Services are involved and there are regular visits of the police.

When the inevitable happens, and Social Service snatch Joey to place in care, Christine’s life hits rock bottom. When she stabs someone in a drug fuelled hell she fears that the worse will happen. Little did she realise that this may just be the making of her family.

This is an authentic gritty thriller set in a time when some in society were being left behind and forgotten about, unless they were causing trouble, had to fight against the odds. This book shows the harshness of the life decisions we all make, and you can never escape your family however much you try.

This is a fantastic read that draws you in and keeps you hooked all the way through, this may have been set in the 1980s it could still be happening today. All too real, closer to the truth than we may know and I am sure you will enjoy it.