29 Locks

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It was chosen by Suzi Feay, books editor of The Financial Times, as one of the ‘Best Books of 2021’ It is also on the longlist for the prestigious Branford Boase Award for outstanding first-time novelists. Locks is dark, the world within the book is gritty and one that opens the reader's eyes to the reality of the world some have no choice of being a part of but there is also hope.

The first part shows poverty stricken Donny’s early life with his drug abusing mother and the event that leads to him ending up in the foster care system. Life in the rural Home Counties is a bit like landing on another planet but doing work experience on the Hertford Union Canal, Donny feels like he’s finally found his purpose. August 2020 Reading: Small Pleasures; Echo Hall; The Vanishing Half; A Different Drummer; The Naseby Horses; For When I’m Gone; Inside The Beautiful Inside; Long Live the Post Horn! I’m a freelance teacher and adviser for Minority Matters, an educational charity supporting disadvantaged young people in Islington.Hotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site's pageview limit. I was a runner up in the Poetry Book Society poetry competition, judged by one of my heroes, Carol Ann Duffy. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. HopeRoad’s founder, Rosemarie Hudson, said: ‘Nicola is a fantastic new talent, and I’m so proud that HopeRoad will be publishing her debut. Her writing is gritty and gripping but full of compassion, and from the very first page I felt completely invested in Donny’s story.

Later in the book, Donny’s journey back to London to reunite with his mother has the fierce desperation of someone willing to do anything for those they love. In what is becoming a bit of a theme at the moment, I must apologise for the delay in posting this review! Growing up in Hackney with his loving but troubled single mum, fifteen-year-old Donny’s life has been shaped by poverty, crime and casual violence, including grooming by a local gang.Miles revisits the much-loved protagonist of 29 Miles two years after his canal boat adventure as a fifteen-year-old. I give regular talks for schools, libraries and colleges (including World Book Day), as well as prisons. But it is Donny's work experience with canals and helping out Andrew the gatekeeper of the lock gates who truly changes the lost boy into being the strong and determined young man he becomes. The story itself is great – there are moments of sadness and tragedy, but there is also an adventure, and one that is both unusual and very funny.