The Gulf

My mother had morphed into versions of all kinds of boyfriends before Jason. She'd been a cowboy boot wearer and a biker chick and a Liberal voter. She'd been a person who went to raves in the bush and a person who watched horror movies and a person who had to sleep with the fan on. They'd come and go, and she'd snap back to herself.

But no one had shattered her the way Jason did.

When her mother falls for some guy that she met at the supermarket, sixteen-year-old Skye immediately senses danger. Jason is charming but secretive, prone to fits of temper. He comes and goes at all hours. He has strange friends. Soon he has convinced her mother quit her job and come to work with him... whatever he does.

When Jason persuades Linda that she and her kids should move into his place in Port Flinders - a struggling town in South Australia's Gulf region - Skye and her brother Ben do their best to settle into a new routine. But as Jason's behaviour becomes more unpredictable, and their mother increasingly absent, Skye finds herself forced to make decisions that will change all of their lives for good.

The Gulf is a tender, joyous, funny coming-of-age story from the inimitable, alchemical imagination of Anna Spargo-Ryan.

MORE PRAISE FOR THE PAPER HOUSE

"Magical ... In a novel singularly about loss, The Paper House dances through its subject, dealing intelligently with tragedy without becoming grim itself. Wildly imaginative." Sydney Morning Herald