"Beautifully written and deeply moving" Guardian.
Life has been hard for Shell since the death of her Mam. her Dad has given up work and turned his back on reality, leaving Shell to care for her brother and sister. When she can, she spends time with her best friend Bridie and the charming, persuasive Declan, sharing cigarettes and irreverent jokes.
Shell is drawn to the kindness of Father Rose, a young priest, but soon finds herself the centre of an escalating scandal that rocks the small Irish community to its foundations.
Siobhan Dowd has, in her debut novel, written a haunting tale which will appeal to both adults and younger readers. Shell, the heroine, is a delight and an inspiration. Her life is a drudge, and she sorely misses her Mam, yet she soldiers on, looking after Jimmy and Trix, her younger brother and sister, and the relationship between the three is incredibly moving. Her father has been little help to Shell, yet the reader begins to sympathise with him, and his plight, realising that he is a vulnerable and fallible man. The novel really captures smalltown life in Cork, and the prose and dialogue are lilting and lyrical. Although the novel is full of loss, it has at its heart a sense of hope, and an ending which did make me cry.
It is currently shortlisted for the Children's Books Ireland/Bisto Book of the Year Award and the Sheffield Children's Book Award and longlisted for the 2007 Carnegie Medal.
"Written with a fluent, lyrical sprightliness, this poignant novel invests tragic events with humanity and even, in places, humour" The Times.
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