Are The Stars Hot Or Cold?

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(These reviews are of the original Running On Sand edition.)

The Norfolk coast can be a bleak and unforgiving place at times, such as during the North Sea flood of 1953. It serves as a perfect metaphor for the life of a teenage girl trapped between an uncaring mother and abusive step-father. Her one great love, her escape, is her older brother, whose footsteps in the sand she is constantly trying to follow.

The author's emotional and poetic prose wrap tendrils of tension around the reader and serve to perfectly mirror the claustrophobic situation the understated heroine seeks to break free from. Her final solution is both shocking and effective and the sun breaks through the coastal clouds.

An unusual, intriguing and compelling novel, well worth diving into. Just remember to come up for air!

Linda Atterton is a poet. Even if you've never read any of her poetry you would soon come to that conclusion by the time you were only a few pages into this novel. Linda is also a psychologist and understands how minds can use disassociation to escape from an abusive reality. She has used both skills to weave a story that will both captivate and shock. Linda's use of language and metaphor twists meanings into beguiling patterns that entwines the reader within the mind of the book's young protagonist.

Set in the stark beauty of the Norfolk coast and countryside of the early 1970s, Running On Sand takes you back to a time of childhood innocence where that innocence will soon be dashed away. Barely into her teens and having lost her father, with a mother indifferent to her needs, Grace (follows in/is) the shadow of her older brother, Christopher. Into this world comes disruption in the form of a stepfather but this is no Cinderella fairytale. How Grace deals with what follows will keep the reader hooked until the end.