Books by and for independent women

Soul Beach by Kate Harrison

Working recently at a publishing house, I was posted next to the slush-pile of teenage fiction and encouraged to get going.

For two weeks, I flew through pages of stories that reached far into the realms of the improbable.

Almost without exception, they contrasted the dull monotonous life of their heroines (the parents who just don’t understand her, the best friend and the boyfriend who are nice enough but easily forgotten once the adventures begin) with far-fetched or remote scenarios accessed through time portals or meetings with otherworldly creatures.

There is nothing wrong with this formula. It works – just look at the Twilight series – and if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

As a teenager I read all 132 of The Babysitters Club books, skimming through the introductions that I could repeat almost word for word to get to the juicy bits.

The reason people often stick to certain genres of books is that they know what they like. In terms of children’s or young adult books with less-defined genres, authors recognise what their readerships know and like.

In the case of YA fiction in particular, it is a series of themes. What do young people know best? School. What do they most frequently dream of? Life outside of school, escaping from school, blowing up the school. What do girls dream of? Boys.

There is an unavoidable area of experience that YA fiction must engage with, and some of it does so with mind-boggling predictability and tedium.

In Soul Beach however, we are thrown straight in. The embarrassing parents and forgettable friend and boyfriend exist, but they are cleverly interwoven into the story proper.

The idea – that the heroine Alice Forster is invited via email by her recently deceased sister Megan to visit a virtual beach (loosely, paradise) consisting of the souls of murdered and beautiful teenagers – is executed with power and vividity.

The language is clear and compelling, a necessary element of good YA fiction, and whilst I was tempted to roll my eyes at the fact that everyone on the beach was beautiful beyond belief, I instead found myself developing a crush on Danny, a boy on Soul Beach who Alice finds herself falling for.

The plotline is clever and well considered, Alice’s incredulity at the online beach world was convincing enough not only to make me suspend all disbelief, but become absorbed by the novel as it progressed. I took it everywhere with me, and against all expectations I found myself longing each time to pick it up again.

It is gripping and thrilling and the best thing is that it’s the first of a trilogy. Take a peek at the promotional video below – it gave me goosebumps.

I will be buying the second book, despite the fact that I should probably have moved on to some form of ‘serious’ fiction a long time ago. Want to do the same? Soul Beach was published last month by Orion Books. Buy it in paperback or Kindle edition for £5.99.

Rating: 4/5

Other recommended reading: For more fantastic YA, try the Angel books by L.A.Weatherly. Or if you’re too grown-up for that sort of thing, then get stuck into The Secret Shopper, Kate Harrison’s adult series.

Clare Hammond