Infinite Sky

Iris's mum has taken off to go travelling and find herself in Morocco, leaving her to look after her older brother and dad, neither of whom is coping well. When a family of Irish Travellers park up in the paddock of the family’s farm, an already eventful summer becomes even more dramatic. As her family falls apart, Iris becomes more and more involved with the oldest traveller boy Trick. But tensions between the families boil over with tragic results.

C J Flood tackles topics of family loyalty, grief, abandonment, first love and clashes of culture in this teenage novel. Well rooted in sense of place, it conjures up the Derbyshire countryside in the middle of a sweltering summer with skill and attention to detail. The simmering tension between travellers and the settled community is deftly evoked, and the portrayal of traveller life is a welcome antidote to often caricatured representation in the media.