Synopsis: When people with children re-marry, creating a new family, the adults are often so wrapped up in themselves and their new found happiness that they fail to notice that they have brought together a set of children with nothing in common but mutual jealousy and anger. When two of those children are teenage girls with very different personalities but sharing the same name, then fireworks are sure to ensue. Pack them all into an old neglected house with more than its fair share of sinister goings-on and the result is an electrifying and often terrifying read.

Review: In Bad Blood the antagonism of the two girls underpins the whole story yet it is not a typical gritty realist novel. If anything the story borders on magical realism as the girls and their brothers find themselves caught up in a fantasy world not of their own making.

This is a wonderful novel which sweeps you along, constantly springing surprises. Whilst the two girls take centre stage in the drama of the family, with their arguments and resentments, it is the two boys who provide the characters the reader engages and most empathises with. Roley, sixteen, and trying to establish his own identity as an adult away from the chubby shy boy he was, and John, quiet, serious and ignored by everyone except Roley. The story twists and turns and the outcome is never obvious. Many of the secondary characters are seriously enigmatic like Fox – who is he? What does he want? Or seriously scary like Delilah the doll who seems to be able to move around of her own accord, stealing from shops and clipping hair from someone’s head without them noticing.

 I thoroughly enjoyed this book which was a real page turner. It is aimed at the upper end of the secondary school age range and I think would appeal to girls and boys alike. The characters are realistic and engaging, if not all likeable. Their development and growth is genuine and not over-done and their movement away from childish self-centredness to a more mature tolerance and understanding seems natural and not forced. A book I’d be happy to recommend to any reader.

2007-08-13