Archive for November 14th, 2009

16 year old Tamara Goodwin had it all - a loving set of parents, a huge house, enough money to buy whatever she wanted whenever she wanted it. But when she finds her father dead in his office and uncovers a huge load debts that he was hiding from her and her mother, Tamara’s world comes crashing down around her. She’s forced to leave her beloved home and move in with her mother’s brother Arthur and his wife Rosaleen who are a tad strange to say the least.

Tamara hates living in the back of beyond with no shops around or social life to speak of. When the travelling library pays a visit, Tamara decides to give it a go, and uncovers an unusual book. It’s got no author or title, and it’s locked too. Eventually Tamara manages to get the lock open and is shocked to her core by what she finds inside the pages. The book seems to be telling her what’s going to happen in her life tomorrow… but can Tamara believe it?

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Sarah May’s books are billed as black-hearted soap operas and her latest, The Rise & Fall of the Wonder Girls, sounds as if it’ll follow the same track as her previous two. It’s due for release on November 26th and here is the synopsis:

Four teenage girls – Grace, Vicky, Ruth and Saskia – all at the same school; all with the same secret. October. Burwood. The corridors of Burwood Girls School are once more full of oestrogen; Platform number one at Burwood Station is packed with commuters waiting for delayed trains to London; the gym at Oasis Leisure centre is full of fading tans while leaves fall and pile up on lawns ripe for raking.

Just like any other October. Until life gets turned inside out in this affluent South-eastern town when not one but four teenage girls fall pregnant. As the media descends on Burwood with unprecedented ferocity, headlines such as: WHO ARE THE BABIES’ FATHERS? DO ALL FOUR BABIES SHARE THE SAME FATHER? GIRLS REVEAL PREGNANCIES WEREN’T ACCIDENTAL! ARE THE BURWOOD GIRLS PART OF A TEENAGE PREGNANCY CULT? !at first seem to corrupt this small, leafy, affluent community until we realise that the corruption was there all along, bubbling just beneath the surface.

Before things get better, they’re going to get much, much worse. But then, at the end of the day, the last thing anyone in Burwood wants is life to return to normal.