I’ve had the pleasure recently of proofreading a debut novel by David O’Reilly, a fellow who runs two women’s football teams in Belfast, and whose day job (well, evening job) is being a radio personality with a pseudonym on an ‘indie guitar bands’ sort of show. I don’t know David, really – just a friend of a friend who asked for my services – but I was struck by how fantastic his book, ‘Lottie the Raven’, is, and I’d like to commend it to Afterworders.
It’s aimed at a teenage audience, being the story of a 14-year-old girl (a soccer prodigy who is ambivalent about whether she even likes the game, and who has other matters to deal with in the tale) in an under-18 team. Her dad – a single father – is a sort of Tom Bombadil figure, an effervescent, almost absurd character with a thread of profundity under the surface, who used to be a Premier League player until mysteriously leaving the game.
Even though it’s aimed at teenagers, I found it a page turner (I would have kept turning even had I not been hired to do so!) with drama, humour, pathos and heart. I know nothing about football, and have no interest in it bar being a casual viewer of the odd World Cup, but that wasn’t an impediment to enjoyment.
David has just launched a Kickstarter today, towards self-publishing the book, with a helpful promo video. If you have and children or nephews/nieces, give it a punt. You’ll enjoy it yourself! 🙂
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lottietheraven/lottie-the-raven
Here’s the Kickstarter page:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lottietheraven/lottie-the-raven
Hmmm… strange: the Kickstarter URL keeps defaulting to just posting the promo. I guess if you’re interested you’ll have to Google ‘Lottie the Raven’ to find the KS page and all the info…