When Isla Meets Luke Meets Isla

‘I didna want to leave really. I wanted to push the red emergency button like they have on trains to stop and you have to pay a fifty pound fine if you didna mean it. I wanted to make the pilot turn the plane around. I wanted to go back to ma school. I didn’t even know what Maidstone looked like. It sounded grey. Grey, dull and dreary. No music, no Castle, no Firth of Forth, no Lucy, no Helen, no Saturdays into Princes Street on the bus for GBP1, we get on for half I folded ma arms, arranging ma face into a permanent sulk with a clear ‘No Entry’ sign on it.’ Isla moves down with her parents from Scotland to England and instantly feels herself in an alien land. But then she meets Luke and slowly their friendship blossoms into love. Each chapter reveals the alternate viewpoints of Isla and Luke – Isla the motormouth, Luke more measured. With the potential to appeal to both boys and girls, this is a brilliant first novel from a very talented author, also a teacher, who was discovered on the ‘slush’ pile.