Memories of Mum are the only thing that make Holly Hogan happy. She hates her foster family with their too-nice ways and their false sympathy. And she hates her life, her stupid school and the way everyone is always on at her. Then she finds the wig, and everything changes. Wearing the long, flowing blonde locks she feels transformed. She's not Holly any more, she's Solace: the girl with the slinkster walk and the super-sharp talk. She's older, more confident - the kind of girl who can walk right out of her humdrum life, hitch to Ireland and find her mum. The kind of girl who can face the world head on. So begins a bittersweet, and sometimes hilarious journey as Solace swaggers and Holly tiptoes across England and through memory, discovering her true self, and unlocking the secrets of her past. SOLACE OF THE ROAD is a wonderful novel from one of the UK's most talented new writers for teenagers. Holly's story will leave a lasting impression on all who travel with her.
Siobhan Dowd lived in Oxford with her husband, Geoff, before tragically dying from cancer in August 2007, aged 47. She was both an extraordinary writer and an extraordinary person. Siobhan's first novel, A Swift Pure Cry won the Branford Boase Award and the Eilis Dillon Award and was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and Booktrust Teenage Prize. Her second novel, The London Eye Mystery, won the 2007 NASEN & TES Special Educational Needs Children's Book Award.
Title: Solace of the Road
Author: Dowd, Siobhan
ISBN: 9780385609722
Binding:
Publisher: Penguin Random House Children's UK
Publication Date: 2009-02-05
Number of Pages: 272
Weight: 0.2995 kg
Unexpectedly life affirming, wise and mature -- Amanda Craig The Times A memorably touching story with a suitably emotional ending -- Julia Eccleshare Guardian Julia Eccleshare -- Nicholas Tucker Independent Real, touching, at times gritty, but laced with humour throughout it will delight teenage and adult readers alike Irish Post This gritty, realistic novel which deploys Dowd's talent for humour, will appeal to the older teenage reader Daily Telegraph