FLIGHTSEND

Just when her life seems to be falling apart, an English teen gains fresh perspective when she and her mother relocate to a rural village. After her baby sister is stillborn, 16-year-old Charlie watches her mother’s depression spiral into a midlife crisis. Seeking total change, Charlie’s mum pushes away her partner, Sean, resigns her teaching position and moves to Flightsend, a gloomy cottage she hopes will signal the end “to everything that’s gone wrong.” Charlie tries to be supportive but fears her mother’s plans will dissolve along with Charlie’s own social life. Gradually, however, Charlie finds a job, new friends and artistic talents and discovers she’s a country girl at heart. To her surprise, life at Flightsend may be just the beginning she and her mother need. Set against the contemporary countryside and teeming with English idioms, this is a quiet, reflective story of a remarkably mature teen who confronts her challenging modern life with lots of old-fashioned sense and sensibility. Should appeal to like-minded female readers. (Fiction. 12-16)