Bantam £6.99 (351pp) (free p&p) from the Independent Bookshop : 08430 600 030

Meanwhile Street, By Miranda Glover

Connor Ryan is a 15-year-old with an alcoholic dad and a mum who vanished when he was four; Melina is a Polish au-pair who has come to London to grow up.

The two misfits live separate lives on the same street in West London, until a series of apparently unrelated incidents force both young people to flee.

Glover's busy, if at times overwritten portrait of inner-city life looks at what happens when a group of diverse Londoners are forced to confront tragedy on their doorstep. Teenagers in partiwill be drawn to this sympathetic treatment of outsiders on the run.

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