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Written by a former school-teacher, this lovely children’s book is a gentle look at the sometimes frightening, always expectant, world of the young, – a world where change-without-explanation can be as bewildering and it is distressing.

Chloe is a smart, self-sufficient and curious eleven-year-old, living with a mysterious mother in a small and cramped apartment. Chloe worries about her mother’s secret smoking and learns to tip-toe around her abrupt mood-swings, dreaming about a nicer home (one with their own un-shared bathroom), and wishing (only sometimes) that she had someone she could call a friend. An avid reader, Chloe likes to keep herself amused by watching the world around her, taking her cues from much-loved characters like MIss Marple, and Sherlock Holmes.

Never having really known her father (a man her mother refuses to talk about), Chloe and her mother must face together the scary and isolating rules of this new and unsettling “virus thingy”, – a time in her life that is marked by a borderless kaleidoscoping of strange and baffling discoveries: the sudden acquisition of a cherished new and scruffy dog; an increasing sense that her mother has been hiding something important from her; a barrage of peculiar and disconcerting strangers; and a postcard from the past, – one that seems to be the key to much that is currently confusing and disorienting in her young and worrisome life.

A tender and poignant look at the things we do for those we love, and the crazy mixed-up ways we try to keep each other safe – a process made especially difficult these past few years – in a world where the much-to-fear has reached epic proportions, a truth which is particularly harrowing from the perspective of the young and vulnerable.

A great big thank you to the author and @Olympiapublishers for an ARC of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.