Set in urban Manchester, Running Scared is a nerve-shredding thriller by bestselling author Mandasue Heller.

When teenager Alexis ‘Lexi’ James falls out with her best mate Nicole over ‘bad boy’ Ryan King, it’s just the beginning of a chain of events that go from bad to worse to deadly.

Returning home one night to her high-rise flat, she is faced by a terrifying scene that changes her life forever, and matters are made worse when she is put into care in another town.

Years later, Lexi has left school and is back in Manchester. A chance meeting with Nicole and her so-called ‘other half’ Ryan ends in disaster, and she vows never to see them again. Then one night she is saved from a vicious attack by a charming stranger. He takes her home and their acquaintance blossoms into something much deeper.

When her new man receives a call in the middle of the night and leaves in a hurry, she is horrified when he returns with someone she never thought she would see again. It soon becomes obvious that Lexi doesn’t know her new lover as well as she thought, and she is forced to make a decision that will have devastating results . . .

'Heller doesn’t mince words, her gritty plots create a Manchester underworld to rival Martina Cole’s raw and rough East End – Peterborough Evening Telegraph