Infinite Sky by C.J. Flood

Pages - 272

Published by Simon and Schuster in February 2013

Book kindly sent by publisher for review.

You can't tell that the coffin holds the body of a boy.

He wasn't even sixteen, but his coffin's the same size as a man's would be.

It's not just that he was young, but because it was so sudden. No one should die the way he did: that's what the face here say.  

Goodreads Summary

Iris Dancy’s free-spirited mum has left for Tunisia, her dad’s rarely sober and her brother’s determined to fight anyone with a pair of fists.
When a family of travellers move into the overgrown paddock overnight, her dad looks set to finally lose it. Gypsies are parasites he says, but Iris is intrigued. As her dad plans to evict the travelling family, Iris makes friends with their teenage son. Trick Deran is a bare knuckle boxer who says he’s done with fighting, but is he telling the truth?
When tools go missing from the shed, the travellers are the first suspects. Iris’s brother, Sam, warns her to stay away from Trick; he’s dangerous, but Iris can no longer blindly follow her brother’s advice. He’s got secrets of his own, and she’s not sure he can be trusted himself.

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Sometimes a book touches your soul enough to leave a wound. This is one of those books. A poignant, heart breaking tale that jolts one carefree child instantly in the world of adulthood, leaving her childhood in tatters, engulfing her in pain, like she has never experienced before.  The main character Iris is young for her age, but by the time the book reaches the end she has grown emotionally beyond her years.

This book should come with hankies because the as the story unfolds the sadness weeps out of the pages. An unfortunate accident, a game of misadventure entwined to create a tale of tears.

Iris lives an idyllic life on a farmland where she can happily watch the seasons come and go as the harvests appear and disappear. Her life is fine until her mother decides she needs freedom – freedom to be herself and not belong to anyone else. Without another care or worry, she leaves Iris, her dad and her brother to fend for themselves and they are just about managing to cope, walking that very thin line before falling in chaos.  The situation goes from bad to worse when the gypsies move into the paddock field. Her father is about to reach boiling point, her brother has stepped onto the wrong wayward path, with no way of finding his original route and Iris, well Iris has fallen for the kind, gorgeous gypsy boy against her father’s wishes.

The gorgeous friendship that grows between Iris and Trick, is innocent and yet meaningful. It has a Romeo and Juliet feel to it, as it obvious from the start that neither set of parents would approve. Yet they enjoy each other’s company and want to spend time together. They were not to know what would happen in the near future.

As the story progresses, their lives spiral out of control and things come to a head. The situation could have been stopped, but no one was watching for the signs, all too busy surviving their own problems.

I was completely caught up in the emotion and drama of this tale. Reminiscent of Annabel Pitcher’s novel’ Ketchup Clouds’ and Celia Rees ‘This Is Not Forgiveness’. Don’t expect to leave this book without tears and don’t expect to walk away unscarred. This will leave a memory in your mind for weeks to come.  A stunning debut that blends the cruelties of life with fiction.