Farewell, Fifteen

A British coming-of-age story, set in the summer of 2007, incorporating ethical - and surprising cultural - differences, told with humour and a light and empathetic touch, by an author well acquainted with the clash of academic parental ambition and teenage striving to comprehend the sometimes secretive adult world.

Alice is approaching important changes - not only in herself but in the world around her. The daughter of a GP and an academic research scientist, she has spent what others might call a 'privileged' childhood in Oxford, attending a good private school, and spending regular holidays at her maternal grandmother's beautiful home in West Cornwall. What is there to rock the boat beside her sister Zoe's annoying new friend and the approach of important exams and career choices?

Over the late spring and summer when the weather is unusually cool and wet, she has more on her mind. Firstly, concerning her mother's stepsister, a feisty aunt, an artist, whom they now seldom meet. And who is the woman her supposedly gay godfather is seeing, and why? And why do her parents insist she renews friendship with a girl who was her 'bestie' at nursery? What is wrong in that family?

And throughout this time, can she see a way to avoid being 'tram-lined' into a scientific career, as a clone of Dad or Mum, now that she has realised the importance of the arts, as complimentary to science, in human flourishing?