One of my favourite things to do whenever I'm in Ireland or the U.K. is pop into as many bookstores as possible and scour the shelves for books that aren't (yet) available in Canada. Broken Soup by Jenny Valentine was one of the YA novels I picked up in London in December.I always have a backlog of reading material so just got around to starting it last night and finished it up first thing this morning. About a third of the way through I fell into a state of awe that never let up. No surprise, then, that author Jenny Valentine won the Guardian children's fiction prize with her debut novel, Finding Violet Park (which I have to get my hands on ASAP!).
What a shame, I thought after I'd read the final page of Broken Soup, that readers in North America are missing out on this breathtaking novel. But I'm very happy to say that just minutes later I read on Wondrous Reads that Broken Soup is being released in North America! In fact, having looked it up on Amazon, I can tell you that it's available on March 24th. I hope you'll ignore the new nondescript cover (which you can check out on Wondrous Reads) and trust me that there's a warm, original, intelligent book lurking underneath—a book about loss, friendship, family, memory, a book with three dimensional characters that you'll admire and care deeply about and be sorry to say goodbye to.
The year is young but I'm already betting this will be one of my favourites reads of 2009.
You can read more about Broken Soup and Jenny Valentine here:
* Times Online review of Broken Soup
* The Guardian review of Broken Soup
* BBC Interview with Jenny Valentine
*** March 23rd Update***
I spotted a copy of Broken Soup (complete with U.K. cover) at Chapters in Toronto on the weekend and it turns out the novel was published in Canada by Harpercollins in January 08. Come tomorrow U.S. readers will also be able to check out the book.
