Deveney's debut novel bound to thrill readers

Award-winning journalist Catherine Deveney is best known for her feature writing, which for many years has graced the pages of Scotland on Sunday.

Ties that Bind is her first novel - an exploration of the loneliness, secrets and silences that haunt families. The novel follows a woman who feels invisible to her husband and teenage son, knowing the former has had an affair.

To add to her stresses, her mother, an alcoholic, has just had a stroke and will now be completely dependent on her. But a life-changing opportunity comes in the form of a 30,000 secret win on the horses - and she takes it.

One of the great achievements of Ties that Bind is how Deveney successfully features a second narrator, an ambitious policewoman who is trying to find the missing housewife, to weave in a sub-plot which helps keeps things moving.

Melvyn Bragg has already revealed his enjoyment, saying he was "driven to the ending" of this stunning debut which is reminiscent in style and in the drawing of characters to the work of the best-selling US writer Anne Tyler.

TIES THAT BIND by Catherine Deveney is published by Old Street Publishing, priced 7.99.