CHARACTER
Sometimes I Lieby Alice Feeney

Madeline Frost

Madeline Frost

Quick Facts

  • Role: Longtime host of Coffee Morning; primary antagonist; public face of Crisis Child; secretly Amber and Claire’s aunt
  • First appearance: Early in the novel at the Coffee Morning studio (p. 7–8)
  • Occupation: National radio presenter; charity ambassador
  • Family: Aunt to Amber Reynolds and Claire; stole their inheritance after their parents’ deaths
  • Status by novel’s end: Publicly disgraced and fired
  • Thematic role: Central target of Justice and Revenge
  • Key relationships: Amber Reynolds (employee/niece), Claire (niece), Matthew (boss), Coffee Morning team (staff she intimidates)

Who She Is

At first glance, Madeline is a media institution: the crisp, commanding voice of Coffee Morning and a glossy ambassador for a children’s charity. Behind that facade stands a ruthless tyrant who rules her office by fear and contempt. The novel gradually reveals that this professional nemesis is also family—Amber and Claire’s aunt—whose theft of their inheritance turns a workplace feud into a deeply personal reckoning. Madeline becomes a living contradiction: the on-air do-gooder whose private cruelty makes her a magnet for retribution.

Personality & Traits

Madeline’s power runs on image: a polished public brand concealing a petty, punitive, and deeply hypocritical person. She embodies the split between what the world hears and what her colleagues endure, perfectly aligning her with the novel’s exploration of Deception and Unreliable Narration. Her nastiness is not incidental—it’s a tool for maintaining control.

  • Tyrannical and bullying: She cycles through “three personal assistants this year” (p. 8) and “barked at and bullied” her producers (p. 7), running the office on fear. Even basic human interaction is withheld as power play: “I’m not ready to talk to people yet” (p. 8).
  • Arrogant and self-important: Her longevity breeds entitlement. “Madeline is Coffee Morning” (p. 13) captures how she and the institution are seen as inseparable, which she relishes—reading her own fan mail and scorning public transport as for “germ-ridden commoners” (p. 99).
  • Hypocritical: As the face of Crisis Child, she publicly champions vulnerable kids while privately despising them; Amber notes she “hates children and never had any of her own” (p. 9). Her career-ending tirade—the mask finally slipping—reveals her true values (p. 129).
  • Manipulative: To secure her position, she tries to turn Amber into an informant, warning, “If they get rid of me... They’ll replace you too” (p. 72). It’s a textbook move in Manipulation and Control, weaponizing job security to conscript loyalty.
  • Curated persona vs. physical disarray: The unkempt reality undercuts the glossy brand—“ugly short hair, gray roots... chins rest on top of each other” (p. 8), with “dark-rimmed glasses... dead eyes” and “witchlike nails” (p. 45). The description doubles as Amber’s indictment, but it also signals a neglected interior beneath the polished broadcast.
  • Fearful when cornered: As rumors and anonymous threats mount, her bravado crumbles into paranoia—an unfamiliar vulnerability Amber has “just never seen... before” (p. 125).

Character Journey

Madeline begins untouchable—a two-decade media monarch whose authority dictates who rises and who is discarded. Amber’s calculated campaign pries open the gap between Madeline’s public halo and her private contempt: anonymous letters crack her composure; whispers online seed panic; a hot mic catches her bile and broadcasts it to the nation. The result is a swift unmasking and a very public fall from grace. Only afterwards does the fuller truth emerge: the tyrant at work is the aunt who robbed Amber and Claire of their future. This revelation retrofits the entire conflict—from office politics to ancestral debt—turning Madeline’s fall into the culmination of long-harbored revenge.

Key Relationships

  • Amber Reynolds: What begins as managerial hostility—Madeline “hates” Amber (p. 12) and demands her firing—ignites Amber’s precisely engineered retaliation. The family reveal reinterprets every barb and ultimatum: Madeline isn’t just a bad boss but the architect of Amber’s childhood loss, making their rivalry both professional and ancestral.

  • Claire: Claire supplies the missing backstory, explaining how Madeline “saw to it that she never got a penny” after the fire (p. 220). Through Claire, Madeline’s abuse is reframed from present cruelty to an ongoing pattern, transforming suspicion into certainty—and motive.

  • Matthew: He voices the industry’s complicity: “Madeline is Coffee Morning” (p. 13). Torn between protecting the brand and doing right by his staff, Matthew becomes a barometer for Madeline’s institutional power—and how quickly allies evaporate once the mask slips.

  • The Coffee Morning team: Madeline isolates herself from the “laughably small” converted cupboard office (p. 8), enforcing distance as hierarchy. Staff churn and constant intimidation signal a workplace shaped by her contempt, where proximity to power means proximity to humiliation.

Defining Moments

Madeline’s arc is the unspooling of a carefully guarded image—each rupture exposing what her authority rests upon.

  • The ultimatum to fire Amber (p. 13): By forcing a choice, Madeline turns a rivalry into open warfare. It underestimates Amber’s capacity for strategy and sets the plot’s engine in motion.
  • The campaign of intimidation backfires (p. 7–8, 72, 125): Bullying staff, attempting to recruit Amber as an informant, and then spiraling into paranoia reveal a leader whose control depends on fear—and collapses without it.
  • The live TV hot-mic gaffe (p. 129): Calling vulnerable kids “little shits” and proposing sterilization shatters her charity front. It’s the narrative’s moral reveal and the practical end of her career.
  • The identity reveal as aunt and thief (p. 220): Claire’s disclosure reframes Madeline as the long-standing antagonist of Amber’s life, not just her job. The downfall becomes restitution as well as retribution.

Essential Quotes

A lot of people would think I have a dream job, but nightmares are dreams too. (p. 7)

Amber’s line recasts glamour as a trap: the dream job is a nightmare because of Madeline. It primes the reader to distrust appearances—themed perfectly to Madeline’s dual persona—and frames Amber’s eventual revenge as waking up from that dream.

“You have to understand that Madeline is Coffee Morning, she’s been presenting it for twenty years. I’m sorry, but if I have to choose between the two of you, my hands are tied.” (p. 13)

Matthew’s apology encodes institutional power: Madeline isn’t merely an employee; she’s the brand. The quote clarifies why her abuses go unchecked and why toppling her requires a strategy that attacks reputation, not just behavior.

“Vulnerable, my arse. Most of these kids are little shits and it’s the parents I blame. There should be some sort of IQ test to identify people who are too stupid to have children and then those with low scores should be sterilized.” (p. 129)

This is the mask dropping in real time. The venom exposes the chasm between her charity image and private contempt, converting whispers of hypocrisy into irrefutable evidence—and ensuring the public and professional consequences are immediate.

“I see straight through you, Amber. Never forget it. Work-shy and clueless, just like the rest of your generation. It’s why you'll never amount to anything.” (p. 220)

Madeline’s taunt is dramatic irony: she misreads the person orchestrating her downfall as incompetent. Her certainty—“never forget it”—captures the hubris that blinds her, making her humiliation feel both inevitable and earned.