Saturday, 19 July 2014

Julie McLaren

This is the third book of Julie's that I've read and I love her style. Each time she has changed genre. This, to me, is the true strength of indie books.


Chickens

Amazon.com Chickens

My review -

Tony's girlfriend has just left him, telling him that he's socially inept. He is left in charge of her three rescued ex-battery hens. He decided to fill the hollow in his life by offering to join a mentoring scheme and befriending Justin, a young man in care. We begin to see parallels between Tony's and Justin's lives and watch as Justin takes himself rapidly off the rails. One aspect I particularly enjoyed was Tony's emails to his ex in which he tells her the highs and lows of his relationship with Justin. He saves them all to a file because she has told him that if he contacts her she'll just change her email account. It’s like having an invisible person in the story.


I loved the interplay of characters here. Tony has his eye on the girl who runs the mentoring courses. As the story progresses he gets his life together and learns social skills and this is wonderfully observed and recorded. I read this book in just a couple of days because the characters came alive for me and I felt I needed to know the outcome. This is a great story and quite different from the author's previous work. I do love to see versatility in an author and Julie McLaren demonstrates it brilliantly.

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