Levitation for Beginners

This is a novel about everything and nothing, sour and melancholy, with elements of sheer comedy and almost unbearable beauty... The older Deborah reflects that "Im surprised any of us lived to tell the tale", and if this subtle book has a message, it is how alien and yet how relatable the past remainsGuardian Book of the Day

A glorious writer... witty, well-observed and full of heartIrish Independent

A bittersweet, nostalgia-tinged adventure... with a steadily growing voltageDaily Mail

A deliciously unsettling read Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures

Lovely Patrick Gale

A sharp eye and keen wit are brought to bear on the secrets and lies of a small rural community - secrets and lies that may prove deadly.

Its 1972 and ten-year-old Deborah is living a ten-year-old life: butterscotch angel delight and Raleigh chopper bikes, and Clunk Click, and Crackajack and Jackanory, Layla and the Bee Gees, flares and ponchos.

But new girl Sarah-Jayne breezes into school, pretty as a picture and full of gossip and speculation, as well as unlikely but thrilling stories about levitation. The other girls are dazzled but Deborah is wary and keeps her distance. That same week, eighteen-year-old brickie Sonny turns up on her doorstep with a stray tortoise and begins an unlikely friendship with her young widowed mum. Thats bad enough, Deborah thinks, but then Sonny starts work on a site opposite the school and Sarah-Jayne decides hes the latest love of her life. Nothing escapes Sarah-Jayne, and Deborah fears what shell make of her mum. Its good to be different, her mum often says; but not, Deborah knows, too different.

So, Deborah changes tactics, keeping her friends close and her enemy closer, even stepping up for some of Sarah-Jaynes levitation sessions. Then shes invited to Sarah-Jaynes lovely house, where she meets her charming family and encounters Sarah-Jaynes big sisters fiance, Max, which is when she senses that all isnt quite as it seems.