BfK the world-famous costume


14+Secondary/Adult continued award-winning


designer, Miriam Parker.


Her determination springs from her heartfelt wish to make her own mark on theatre life and not rely on her mother’s name to get her work. Harcourt’s


own knowledge and


involvement in theatre shines through on every page. She manages to give the reader an intimate picture of the work of the backstage team, pack it full


of often complex technical


detail and yet avoid being dull or professorial. Her talent for creating memorable


characters comes to


the fore, here-the reader wants to know what the people they have come to know and like do to make a production successful. Tension is skilfully created through


both characters and situations. Hope must respond to the whims of the star of the production, Tommy Knight and this often involves last-minute forays to retrieve a vital prop or, at the other end of the spectrum, some expensive dry cleaning. Tommy’s brother Rick is the show’s director and the two often clash-another


source of credible


tension. Perhaps Harcourt’s most impressive use of this narrative tool is her ability to convey the theatrical miracle


of actors becoming the


character they play, then shedding that fictitious skin at the end of a rehearsal or performance. There


is, perhaps inevitably, a


romance threaded through this story. Hope finds herself deeply attracted to Luke, a student at drama college who is playing a part in the show-and the attraction is mutual. Yet, even here, Harcourt has a sure touch and the


developing relationship never


descends into comic-book fantasy but instead gives her a vehicle through which she can delve more deeply into the two characters to show how their lives and personalities have been shaped. I have to resort to the old cliché-I


couldn’t put this book down-because it is absolutely true. At 439 pages it is a long read but an absorbing and richly rewarding one. VR


Jiddy Vardy HHH


Ruth Estevez, Zuntold Books, 434pp., 9781999863302, £7.99, pbk


The story opens with a fairly horrific account of a birth on a ship in 1779. The ship is under attack from pirates and the new born baby girl is hidden away as her parents and her father’s friend are dropped overboard. The story then moves forward where the reader meets Jiddy Vardy, living in Robin Hood Bay’s Bay in a village dominated by smuggling. The whole village from the squire


down is involved and soon Jiddy is too. But she is different, not having been born in the village, although she does not know her origins. When Thomas, husband of Mary, the couple who took her in, dies, Jiddy is given a


job as seamstress to the squire’s wife and finds herself being made over in modern parlance, learning to dance and dress as a lady. The reason for this is revealed after a smuggling trip that went wrong, and Jiddy is taken to London to meet her real mother. Up to here the reader is carried


along by the strength of the writing, the lilt of the Yorkshire dialect, well heard in the speech of the characters, but suddenly as she is taken to London by the mysterious Captain Ryethorpe the


plot descends into


a predictable pattern, where Jiddy decides that life in London is not for her and returns to Jason’s arms. Jiddy is a strong character,


grounded in love for the women who care for her, and by her attachment to


the community, even though


some do not think she belongs. The development of the love between her and Jason is told slowly, as it would happen, but the reader can see the outcome well


before the


end of the story, which does make it lose its depth. This is a picture of a community rooted in smuggling, although the reasons for this are not clearly explained, who are bound to each other by this nocturnal activity and their hatred of the ‘preventive’ soldiers. There is the added menace of the arrival of the Dragoons under the command of Captain Ryethorpe, who also turns up in Mrs. Farsyde’s drawing room to teach Jiddy to dance. This is a very readable story but


could have been so much better with some strong editing so that the signposts as to what will happen to Jiddy are not so clear to the reader, and which would have lifted it to a very good novel. JF


The Lost Witch HHHHH


Melvin Burgess, 336pp, 978-1783446902, £12.99 hbk


Beatrice Wilder, known as Bea, is 13 years old as the story begins. She does not


at this stage know


that she is a witch. She struggles with her own ability to summon the spirits of humans and animals out of their bodies, a rare gift even among witches. A group of malevolent people known as the Hunt are in pursuit of the witches,


intent on stealing


their magical powers for their own purposes. The reader does not know which of the magical characters on display are genuinely using magic for praiseworthy ends and which are secretly conspiring with the Hunt. Before she knows she has magical


talents, Bea meets a boy named Lars. He can do amazing tricks on his skate board. He sees Bea as beautiful and talented. She also meets Odi, a very old and very talented witch, and Silvis, the granddaughter of Odi. Bea, Odi and Silvis become friends almost instantly But Bea faces a problem. When she informs her parents of her magical


30 Books for Keeps No.231 July 2018


talents, they think she is unstable. They take her to hospital to be treated. The hospital is infested with members of the Hunt. They try to put Bea in a machine which will separate her witch spirit from her non-magical spirit, reminiscent


used by to split children’s souls by Philip Pullman’s


of the machine Oblation


Board.


Bea escapes, ostensibly with the aid of Lars but in fact as a result of her own magical powers. The reader is now obliged to ask who in reality is Lars and what will be the result of his involvement in Bea’s life? Burgess, as might be expected,


creates a fictional world that is coherent and credible. The plot twists are numerous and skilful. He guides the reader’s sentiments with a confident hand, leading to a situation where the reader has little idea who is trustworthy and who might be a betrayer. Some authors excel at gritty realism, others at fantasy. It is rare for any author to command both sets of skills. Burgess is undoubtedly one of this elite band. RB


White Rabbit, Red Wolf HHHH


Tom Pollock, Walker Books, 396pp, 9781406378177, £7.99 pbk


Preposterously and plotted and with a


highly disturbed 17-year old maths genius Peter as its main character, this extraordinary novel yet radiates energy


conviction. Happy to


quote from mathematical formulae as one way of solving characters’ current problems, it also deals with kidnapping, ruthless


government


spying agencies and murder. That tradition in former adventure stories for younger readers whereby villains in the last chapter are either tied up before being delivered to justice or


else contribute but to their own


demise has no place here. Peter’s otherwise sympathetic twin sister Bel has already settled into a steady killing groove,


since she has


been programmed to be that way by her


sinister, manipulative scientist


mother, her moral culpability remains an open question. Things start slowly with too much description of Peter’s recurring anxiety states.


There are also numerous


jumps forward and backwards in time that follow, which can become confusing in an otherwise long story. But stick with it; how often does a Young Adult novel succeed in making maths interesting while also raising urgent philosophical points directly relevant to the action in hand? Peter himself moves from victim to action hero, becoming more attractive as a literary companion while making this somewhat unlikely


that, he is badly bullied at school. Like almost every other novel


journey. Before involving


bullying, rather than complain to the authorities he suffers and almost dies at the hand of his chief tormentor (who then gets his own grisly come- uppance from angry Bel). Might there be a story one day where savage bullying at school is promptly reported


to the relevant authorities and then stopped? If we can respect whistle- blowers in the rest of society, why not in education as well? Not splitting on one’s contemporaries under any circumstances seems an increasingly pointless philosophy these days. Much else arises from this weird,


quirky, utterly original and splendidly eccentric story, well written and ever- unpredictable


Read it and prepare to be constantly surprised


and amazed. NT


Are We All Lemmings & Snowflakes?


HHHH


Holly Bourne, 400pp, 9781474933612, £7.99 pbk


Olive Newman is a British teenager of sixteen. She has a mental health condition which she does not wish to have specifically defined, but which has serious effects on Olive. It causes her to make a bed under her desk at home and refuse to sleep anywhere but there.


It also causes Olive to


experience violent mood swings from ecstasy to deep depression and self- loathing. Her doctor invites Olive to go to


a new camp for teenagers, which is on trial because it has not yet been officially licensed. When the licence


is granted, the centre will


charge thousands of pounds for an admission. In this situation Olive can attend Camp Reset for free.


Olive


agrees to go to the camp. The novel poses the questions


whether attendance at the camp will make Olive better or worse, and what kinds of people will she meet there? For the most part, Bourne presents


a readable account of an important subject. Olive does eventually learn the nature of her difficulty. The first person narrative gives the reader the opportunity to look at life through the eyes of a person with that specific difficulty, a valuable though not necessarily a comfortable


reading


experience. But at certain points Bourne’s own


experience, valuable as it is to inform her narrative, obstructs the flow of the story and masks the importance of the characters. The publisher explains that Bourne has direct experience of working with young people who have mental health issues. At certain points in the book the accounts of the treatment take hold of the narrative and obstruct its flow. At one point it reads more like a text book than a novel. This single defect detracts from what is otherwise an excellent novel. RB


Hope Is Our Only Wing HHH


Rutendo Tavengerwei, Hot Key Books, 243pp, 978 1 4714 0686 7, £6.99 pbk


This debut novel focuses on two Zimbabwean and


teenagers, Shamiso Tanyaradzwa, battling their personal demons. Shamiso’s father


from page to page. sometimes


even


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