Waiting on Wednesday: Out of the Blue by Sophie Cameron

Synopsis (taken from Goodreads):

 

Sometimes, I imagine alternate endings to the story: last-minute miracles, touches of magic. I picture how things might have gone, if I wasn’t there. If I’d left just a few minutes later. If I hadn’t been alone. It doesn’t make any difference. One way or another, the crash always comes.

Ten days after Jaya Mackenzie’s mum dies, angels start falling from the sky. Smashing down to earth at extraordinary speeds, wings bent, faces contorted, not a single one has survived.

Hysteria mounting with every Being that drops, Jaya’s father uproots the family to Edinburgh intent on catching one alive. But Jaya can’t stand this obsession and, struggling to make sense of her mother’s sudden death and her own role on that fateful day, she’s determined to stay out of it.

When her best friend disappears and her father’s mania spirals, things hit rock bottom and it’s at that moment something extraordinary happens: An angel lands right at Jaya’s feet, and it’s alive. Finally she is forced to acknowledge just how significant these celestial beings are.

Set against the backdrop of the frenzied Edinburgh festival, OUT OF THE BLUE tackles questions of grief and guilt and fear over who we really are. But it’s also about love and acceptance and finding your place in this world as angels drop out of another.

 

Why I can’t wait to read Out of the Blue:

 

• I read an extract last year, when the novel was listed for the Bath Novel Award. The story has been in my imagination all year, from the angel-hunting app, to the Dad desperate to find an angel following the loss of his wife. It’s the sort of novel which gets under your skin, and stays there. It’s the sort of novel you think about during random moments, six months later.

 

• Angels, crash-landing. Angels had their run alongside Vampires and faeries, and a lot of it was predictable. Done differently, angels make fascinating subject matter, (see Phillip Pullman, David Almond and Pat Walsh for interesting interpretations of angels.) There is something different about Sophie Cameron’s crash-landing angels.

 

• The world in hysteria. To my memory, people have downloaded an angel-hunting app, and are tracking angels for monetary gain. I love it when authors think about how events of their story would affect the wider population, (see Astercote by Penelope Lively, or The Great Chocoplot by Chris Callaghan.)

 

• The Edinburgh Festival. What a setting, and one so specific it is possible to visit, and walk through the story. As regular readers of WoW know, I love stories set in specific locations.

 

Out of the Blue by Sophie Cameron

Macmillan Children’s Books

March 2018