SYNOPSIS
Just two months after her mother abandons her family, leaving her gruff, introverted father to raise two children alone, Iris watches a family of gypsies set up an illegal camp in the paddock by her house. The gypsy boy, Trick, is restless and warm and full of life—he’ll settle when he’s in his grave, he tells Iris—and she feels as though she understands him completely.

Yet even as Iris’s secret friendship with Trick blooms into something more, tensions run high between their families. Iris’s father is bent on evicting the travelers, and her beloved brother Sam is impulsive, lost, and headed for trouble. But Trick might not be everything he seems, and as Iris struggles to find where her loyalties lie, all of the prejudice, vulnerability, and anger that surrounds her collides in an unspeakable tragedy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
C.J. Flood, also known as Chelsey Flood, graduated from the University of East Anglia in 2010 with an MA in creative writing. She has won several prizes and awards for her writing, including the Curtis Brown Award, and also received funding from the Arts Council to complete Infinite Sky.