Borders Book Group

'What do I remember of being a prostitute? I remember the other girls being like sisters, and realising that telling them my real name was dangerous. I remember opening my heart to strange men and stroking their faces gently. I remember being pounded so hard my face was white with pain. I remember being a prostitute, and being proud of it, liking it.'

Kate Holden is used to being summed up at a glance: arts graduate, history buff, middle-class daughter, dreamer, innocent. But she is a young woman who understands better than most the secrets that people keep hidden. This astonishing debut follows her journey from the safe and leafy suburbs of Melbourne to the all-consuming attractions of heroin and the sex industry.

This is a story - confronting and utterly compelling - of survival and resourcefulness; an unflinching look at the consequences of addiction and the struggle of power and control that addicts face. Holden's journey leads her to a world of sex for money, from the seedy netherworld of back lanes and backseats to the security, both real and imagined, provided by brothels.

This is a moving, at times brutal, memoir from a prodigiously talented new voice. Kate Holden has produced a searingly honest and wonderfully written account of a life on the streets, on drugs and on the skids.