March 2012 Debut of the Month. A beautiful and bittersweet love story set in the real village of Oradour-sur-Glane which was cruelly and apparently randomly destroyed during the Second World War. Teenagers Luc and Arianne meet and fall in love. Ari is willing to do anything to stop Luc from joining the French Resistance movement but will it be enough? The absolute romance of first love is touchingly captured and made all the more poignant by the terrible circumstance in which it arises.
Faber, the publisher of this brilliant debut novel, is looking for short stories, poems or opinion pieces on the theme or love or war (or both). For more details on this take a look on www.facebook.com/thesparkpage - n.b. if you 'like' it you will be able to see all the content.
France: February, 1944. Arianne knew Luc as a child, of course she did. Everyone in Samaroux knows each other. But he's been away, and five years really makes a difference to a boy. A young man. As they fall headily into love - first love - their world starts to crumble around them. German forces are closing in, and the village is torn between cooperating to save themselves or putting up resistance and entering unknown danger. Arianne will do anything to make Luc stay. Luc wants to prove he is a man. And Romy, who has loved Arianne all the time that Luc has been away, can see a way of removing his rival, at any cost. How far will they go to protect what they believe in? And what will they do for love?
Natasha Farrant is a major new talent in YA literature and this stunning debut inspired by real events in World War II is a devastating story of resistance, heartbreak and betrayal that portrays the horrors of war and celebrates the strength of love.
'..an impressive fable about the loss of innocence and the consequent descent into hell. Farrant's prose is lucid.. her story has a savage bite. It is also a grim but fine memorial to the half-forgotten victims of a peculiarly savage atrocity.' - Mal Peet in The Guardian
Author
About Natasha Farrant
Natasha Farrant has worked in children’s publishing for almost twenty years, running her own literary scouting agency for the past ten. She is the author of the Carnegie longlisted and Branford Boase shortlisted YA historical novel The Things We Did For Love, as well as two successful adult novels.
She grew up in London where she still lives with her husband, their two daughters and a large tortoiseshell cat. She is the eldest of four siblings and has never dyed her hair pink.
