Bothelford's Gone

Over the past thirty years, it is estimated that tens of thousands of English girls, some as young as six, have been "groomed" by gangs of primarily Pakistani men in England. Groomed... as in raped, beaten, drugged, sold into prostitution, forced into illegal marriages, and, in some cases, killed.

In Bothelford's Gone, Edward Mclaren offers one of the first fictional treatments of the grooming gang scandal, telling the story of Jack and Agatha, two young English people caught between the violence of the gangs and the indifference of the authorities. At once unflinching coming-of-age story and searing indictment of multicultural Britain, Bothelford's Gone will stand as literary testament to one of the most egregious instances of mass rape in modern memory outside of wartime.