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Lorna was 12 when she was sent home from school, watched the unfurling events of 9/11 on her TV and recognised her father's office block aflame and falling. Her fight for mental survival started at that moment and the use of alcohol to quell the memories came soon after but then she meets Danny – her life saver. Shortly after this they marry and Danny joins the army. He's sent to fight the monsters, the fundamentalist organisations, which destroyed Lorna's childhood. However when what's left of his unit becomes lost in the desert without food, water or equipment, the focus changes from military victory to personal survival and those monsters are still out there…
Brit [[:Category:Liam Brown|Liam Brown]] has done many mundane jobs; flipping burgers and balloon selling being just two. He's in a band called the Freelance Mourners. He lives in Brighton Birmingham with his wife and two children. Although all this is important to Liam, it may not live long in the memory of the global book buying public. To them/us he will soon be known as that bloke who wrote ''Real Monsters''; it's that kind of novel demanding and deserving that kind of audience.
We're eavesdroppers as the story unfolds via alternating letters from Danny and Lorna to their son (poignancy in itself). Each uses a different font but even without that, we can tell these two voices apart. Danny's words are inexplicably bitter (initially that is - ooh just wait!) and written from the war zone. Whereas Lorna takes us back to the beginning, telling us of her childhood, their meeting, falling in love, how Danny turned her life around and then joined up…