Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Categories
Children’s, Teenage & Educational

A SMALL MADNESS

Dianne Touchell

This powerful novel reads like a cross between Margo Langan’s Sea Hearts and Rebecca James’ Beautiful Malice. Its sometimes dreamy prose also has undercurrents of madness, horror and the confusion brought on by an unreliable narrator. The story has that ‘it could happen to me’ feel to it, presenting a compelling psychological portrait of these innocent teenagers whose world spirals so quickly out of control, trapped by the seeming impossibility of asking for help or telling the truth.

Dianne Touchell has written one earlier novel, Creepy and Maud. This was published in 2012 by Fremantle Arts Centre Press (based in Perth, Western Australia). The novel was shortlisted in 2013 for our most prestigious award - the Children's Book Council of Australia Awards. Dianne Touchell was a bookseller for many years - and YA books are her particular passion. She is also a poet and is clearly a brilliant writer. She describes herself as a middle child who feared Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy – and any other stranger who threatened to break into the house at night.

Available products
Book Published 2015-02-01 by Allen & Unwin

Comments

I read this on the beach in one nail-biting sitting… I literally couldn't tear my eyes away from this riveting novel, even as the sea sparkled before me! I was with Rose and Michael and Liv the whole way. Every single character, large and small, was flesh and blood real to me. Her writing is masterful and has so much to say to young people and those who live and work with them.

An amazing piece of writing. I could not put it down. It's very dark and deeply confronting, although strangely there are some beautiful truths in there, too.

Wow – what a mesmerising story. I tore through the story with a sense of impending doom and then that car-crash horror that kept me riveted as I realised there was no way this was going to end well.