Two new young adult novels explore the complexities of family. While Maureen McCarthy’s Somebody’s Crying details a daughter’s painful loss of her mother, Alyssa Brugman’s Girl Next Door negotiates the hardships of teenage life while coming to terms with family bankruptcy.

Despite an unsolved crime being at the centre of Somebody’s Crying, Maureen McCarthy’s new novel is not a murder-mystery. Instead, it focuses on the traumatic aftermath of a murder three years before. Similar to McCarthy’s When You Wake and Find Me Gone (2002) and Chain of Hearts (1999), Some-body’s Crying carefully explores the fragility of family relationships – in this instance between mothers and daughters, fathers and sons.