Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published May 2014
256 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
True love is never lost - but how much loss can it endure? Iris confronts the complexities of family and prejudice in this exquisite and searing debut novel.
Just two months after her mother abandons her family, leaving her gruff, introverted father to raise two children alone, Iris watches a family of gypsies set up an illegal camp in the paddock by her house. The gypsy boy, Trick, is restless and warm and full of life - he'll settle when he's in his grave, he tells Iris - and she feels as though she understands him completely.
Yet even as Iris's secret friendship with Trick blooms into something more, tensions run high between their families. Iris's father is bent on evicting the travelers, and her beloved brother Sam is impulsive, lost, and headed for trouble. But Trick might not be everything he seems, and as Iris struggles to find where her loyalties lie, all of the prejudice, vulnerability, and anger that surrounds her collides in an unspeakable tragedy.
Like love, and like sorrow, the blue summer sky is infinite in this coming-of-age story that is both breathtaking and heartbreaking.
"Starred Review. Flood's debut novel is a slow burn. Its beauty, like that of the book's rural England setting, grows on you, building with every scene... Flood's understated, gently embellished prose cuts to the bone. 12 and up." - Booklist
"Tragedy emerges from the commonplace miseries of everyday life in this evocative mood piece... Readers who don't need endings tied up with tight little bows will find much to think about here." - Kirkus
"Iris is forced to confront the confusing intersection of love, loyalty, and culpability. Told in the first person, this is a moving story of a young English girl's coming-of-age." - School Library Journal
"Iris and Trick and their families are all sympathetically portrayed in this debut novel that skillfully balances moments of introspection and action, loyalty and betrayal, and, most indelibly, happiness and heartbreak." - Horn Book Magazine
This information about Infinite Sky was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
C.J. Flood, also known as Chelsey Flood, graduated from the University of East Anglia in 2010 with an MA in creative writing. She has won several prizes and awards for her writing, including the Curtis Brown Award, and also received funding from the Arts Council to complete Infinite Sky. She blogs as a member of the Lucky 13s and at CJFlood.blogspot.co.uk, and tweets as @cjflood_author. Infinite Sky is her debut novel and she is currently working on her next book in Bristol.
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