Age 13+

When 15-year-old Daisy arrives from New York to be met at the airport by her younger cousin Edmond, who smokes, has hair that “looks like he cut it himself with a hatchet” and drives her to his unconventional family home in idyllic countryside, an unforgettable adventure begins. Daisy has a sassy and cynical voice, and is determined to be cool. In reality, she feels plain and unwanted, and doesn’t eat, undermined by her mother’s death and her father ’s new relationship. With Edmond’s eccentric family she finds an acceptance that cures her hurt. When Daisy’s aunt goes to a peace conference in Oslo, the children’s expected few days of independence turn into forever as international tension escalates, borders close and she can’t get home. At this point, Rossoff achieves a remarkable feat. Without wavering from the lightness and irony of Daisy’s narrative tone, she recounts a story of intense, underage first love, and of a war that turns England’s country lanes into killing fields. The novel, set “three or maybe seven weeks in the future”, describes terrorism and the disintegration of society, while Daisy still sounds like a disaffected teenager. Yet this extraordinary balancing act does not diminish the emotional force.

(Penguin £10.99)

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