Touching on mental health, family, friendship and the pressures that teenage carers face, as author Cat Clarke says, TENDER is "a compassionate, compelling and unflinching novel". Marty and Daisy spend their lives pretending. Marty pretends his mum's grip on reality isn't slipping by the day. Daisy pretends her parents aren't exhausting themselves while they look after her incurably ill brother. They both pretend they're fine. But the thing about pretending is, at some point, it has to stop. And then what?