“Dowd writes with economy, sympathy and an unflagging perceptiveness about the human condition: Holly’s odyssey could have been far more harrowing than Dowd’s first novel about teen pregnancy, but becomes something unexpectedly life affirming, wise and mature’”  The Guardian

Memories of Mum are the only thing that make Holly Hogan happy. She hates her foster family with their too-nice ways and their false sympathy. And she hates her life, her stupid school and the way everyone is always on at her. Then she finds the wig, and everything changes. Wearing the long, flowing blonde locks she feels transformed.

She’s not Holly any more, she’s Solace: the girl with the slinkster walk and the super-sharp talk. She’s older, more confident – the kind of girl who can walk right out of her humdrum life, hitch to Ireland and find her mum. The kind of girl who can face the world head on. So begins a bittersweet, and sometimes hilarious journey as Solace swaggers and Holly tiptoes across England and through memory, discovering her true self, and unlocking the secrets of her past

Solace of the Road is published in the UK and the US by David Fickling Books, and imprint of Random House.

To buy click here

 

Foreign Editions:

Solace of the Road has also been published in translation in Germany, Holland, Japan and Korea.

 

Rights Enquiries

All rights enquiries should be forwarded to Hilary Delamere at The Agency (London) Ltd: hd-office@theagency.co.uk (is this the correct email for Hilary?)

 

Awards

Winner of the CBI Bisto Honour Award 2010

Shortlisted for the Costa Book of the Year Award 2009

Shortlisted for the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize 2009

Longlisted for the 2010 Carnegie Medal