As a result, Maya and Lochie have become the father and mother of their family, supervising homework, doing the washing-up, desperately trying to keep Social Services at bay. They have three younger siblings and a mother who is a drunk and neglects them half the time to hang out with her boyfriend. Maya is 16 and has never been kissed Lochie is 17 and shy and intelligent.

Before you start thinking that this is a paranormal romance, I’ll stop you there – for this is a book which explores a modern-day Romeo and Juliet scenario, a tale of forbidden love – but the hero and heroine are brother and sister. I bought this novel because I loved the cover, black with a thorny heart patterned on the cover, which perfectly captures the dark romance of the book. ‘Forbidden’ is Tabitha’s fifth novel and the first I’ve read by her. I’ve been looking for a modern day author to inherit his crown for some time – and I may have just found that writer in Tabitha Suzuma. He had a talent for taking the most outrageous or controversial subjects and exploring them with a brutal honesty, avoiding preaching, moralising, or sensationalism. His writing was thought-provoking, edgy, daring he relished tackling dark and difficult scenarios his endings were often bleak and uncompromising and Cormier went on to become one of the most celebrated YA authors – as well as one of the most banned by US librarians. He broke new ground in the 70s when he published his debut novel, The Chocolate War, and, along with other notable authors such as S E Hinton, radicalised the young adult genre. When I was a teenager, my favourite author was Robert Cormier.

Forbidden book by tabitha suzuma