I love the south of Scotland setting in this read, which will appeal to both teens and adults. The characterisation is good, especially 13 year old Sal who narrates a good portion of the book. She is a feisty, determined young person who I had a great deal of sympathy for. There is a lot of honesty and hardship in this tale of survival, which is well worth reading. Thanks to Net Galley for my ARC.

I was apprehensive about this book but I didn't need to be. Sure, it's a very dark story but I read if from my perspective as the older sister and I know I would have been just as protective as Sal. Maybe not to murder but hey, if needs must I guess. Thank you for approving me for this title.

This was an enjoyable read and I would recommend it. thanks for letting me have an advance copy. I'm new to this author.

I was expecting action and suspense, but instead I got quite a serious story about trauma told in a matter-of-fact way, which worked really well.

I really enjoyed this coming of age / survival story with its unlikely Scottish setting. Aimed at young adults, but utterly absorbing for adults too. It flags up the realities of dysfunctional families and their misunderstandings with social services, but primarily it's a riveting story of wild survival and fierce sibling love.

This was really unusual but really really good. Poor Sal is clued in having spent so much time reading about and watching tutorials on survival on You Tube, Wikipedia and so on. She has all of the necessary equipment and when it becomes necessary to flee, having killed her mother's boyfriend, she and her younger sister Peppa, just a child of 10 years old, who she has been caring for because of the abusive home situation in which they found themselves, they run and survive as best they can in the wilderness. The language used throughout this book is beautiful. It is cleverly selected and intricately woven together to present this tale of hardship and suffering in such an ornate way. I loved Sal and Peppa. Although a lot of what they survived is highly unlikely it was so well written that Kitson carried it off. The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah came to mind quite often even though they are very different books, but that is a huge compliment for Kitson in my opinion as The Great Alone really was fantastic.

A very distinctive voice that stands out from the crowd, Sal is a fighter and a survivor. I really enjoyed this very different story of sibling love and the bonds that can't be broken.

A fantastic book that had me hooked from beginning to end! Highly recommended! I was fully immersed in the plot, the characters and their futures. A quick read - but a worthwhile one.

A beautifully written book, based in the wilderness of Scotland. A story of bravery and survival.
Thanks to Netgalley and Mick Kitson for the opportunity to read and review this book.

A deeply poignant bittersweet story of two young girls trying to survive on their own in rural Scotland.
This will warm even the coldest of hearts!
You may need to suspend reality slightly and be prepared to see Bear Grylls through the eyes of a thirteen year old girl trying to learn survival skills she will need to escape and to keep her little sister safe.

I absolutely loved this book. Going into it, I wasn't sure what to expect, but from the first page Sal's voice is so strong and authentic, it had me absolutely gripped. Kitson's writing is brilliant as he manages to perfectly portray a tender relationship between sisters, with an underlying macabre, sadness of their situation. The sense of place was so vivid, and I easily conjured images in my mind of the Scottish landscape..

Each character was clear and had their own rhythms, which isn't an easy feat, considering the strength of Sal's voice. Really looking forward to seeing what Kitson does next.

Poignant. Beautiful. Unusual.

Sal has finally put her years of preparation into practice. She knows that she cannot protect her younger sister, Peppa, for much longer from Robert, her (alcoholic) mother’s, abusive boyfriend. Living with the fear that should social services get involved they will be separated, she decides that the only way they can continue to be together is for them to disappear into the Galloway Forest and live as survivalists.

She’s taught herself how they can do this by studying the SAS Survival Handbook, watching Bear Grylls’ videos on YouTube and scouring the internet for anything else she might need to know about survival. Besides studying, she has spent time buying all the equipment they will need for this adventure to succeed.

The book opens with their first night inside their specially constructed bender deep within the forest. Sal has made sure that she’s followed everything to the last detail, their fire’s smoke won’t be visible and they are facing away from the winds. Their meat and fish will come from hunting and fishing and careful trips will be planned to collect other provisions from the closest town.

While away on one of the excursions Sal has made into town, a woman called Ingrid comes calling and befriends Peppa. She had retired after being the doctor in the nearby town but decided that she wanted to spend her retirement away from people and closer to nature. The girls realise that this is one person who they can trust and so move their bender to Ingrid’s site. It’s thanks to Ingrid and her calming influence that the girls finally start the healing they so desperately need after enduring so much trauma and abuse in their short lives.

It's so difficult to write a decent concise summary of this extraordinary story without giving too much away. Mick Kitson has given voice to thirteen-year-old Sal that shows she’s still a young girl just reaching puberty, who has such a deep love for her younger sister that the only solution she can see as working is to run away and live deep in a forest rather than let anyone know how chaotic and traumatic their home life is.

Peppa is still young and relatively undamaged by their upbringing and so her exuberance for life shines through, ensuring that Sal can relax enough to appreciate this adventure they are sharing, living off the grid.

Ingrid is like a fairy godmother who arrives to rescue the girls. She too has a story to tell about her past and the years she spent behind the Berlin Wall. It’s thanks to her that Sal can see a future and accept that life might in fact, turn out to be worth giving a second chance.

I loved this book. I loved the way the author had Sal, dear, kind, responsible Sal, tell us this story. I loved Peppa and her exuberance and her innocence. Her ability to see life as an adventure. And Ingrid? Who better to be the girls’ saviour and friend? One of the most beautiful books to be published this year.

Mick Kitson, I sincerely hope that we will be hearing more from you in the not too distant future.

Treebeard

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

When I heard about this book I knew i Had to give it a go it sounded very interesting and different to other book that I have read before. Sal is a very brave girl for her age she takes her sister and leaves behind a very abusive boyfriend of her alcoholic mother. She is a very determined young girl who has put it upon herself to learn the ways to survive so her sister can have abetter childhood then her own ..... Its powerful and gripping and so worth a read it wont disappoint.

This is an engaging story and although fiction, has a "ring of truth" about it as if the author has life experience of some of the events and storylines. I really liked Sal's toughness and her "Bear Grylls" approach to survival, carried over into survival on more than just a physical level. Her care and concern for her younger sibling is touching. The character "Ingrid" is introduced as a bridge for the girls to re-enter their mother's world. Altogether a good read, with Sal's voice shining through and getting the reader on-side.

I liked this book, but only liked it. The characters are all individuals and the story is not your typical happy ever after tale. I found the story at times slightly unbelievable and felt at times some of the descriptions of mundane things were too long.

It took me a few chapters to get into the flow of this book, I initially felt put off as it is narrated by a child and my previous experience with this hasn't always been great. However, before I knew it, I had been reading for two hours and was totally enthralled. A truly unique book, I wonder if Sal may have Asperger's syndrome, her attention to detail and intelligence was exceptional but believable. I loved the characters, even with (or because of their flaws) and the interesting sideline of Russin/German history increased my enjoyment, I love some history thrown into a novel. I loved reading about all the survival skills, it could have been a handbook as well as a story. Alongside all this was a genuine human story mixed with humour and many tender moments, I loved it.

Sal and her little sister Peppa are running away. They are running from a life lived with their drunken mother and her boyfriend Robert. They are running from what Robert was doing to 13-year-old Sal and they are running from what Sal did to Robert when he told her that, at 10, Peppa was old enough for him to be interested in too. They are going to survive too, because Sal has planned meticulously - buying the equipment and clothing they'll need with some of Robert's collection of stolen credit cards and has made a thorough study of survival techniques on YouTube - and because she is driven by a powerful urge to protect her sister. As the girls settle in to this life we see glimpses of what their life had been like - Sal being the one who made sure both her sister and mother were fed and protected, the difficulties of having an alcoholic mother and the fear of the family being split up if their situation were known to the authorities. What shines through is both this fear - which Robert, in particular, used to his advantage with Sal - and the girls' long term plan to be reunited with their mother. It is a reminder of how young Sal and Peppa are that they see this reunited life as taking place in the Scottish wilderness where they have escaped to.

This is book full of wonderful characters - the two girls are very different but both are engaging - and, it turns out, the family is not as isolated as they thought they were. So, alongside the awful past, we do see a hope for a better future. However, I worry about Sal's future. Her feelings towards her mother and sister are warm, fierce and protective and she shows fondness for some of the people who help her but her account of her own emotional reactions are oddly stunted. It was heart-breaking to think of a child that young having to live through such awful experiences: it was chilling to hear her speak of them so dispassionately.

I don’t often cry when reading but close to the end of SAL I couldn’t stop the tears. This a stand-out novel that I plucked on a whim from Netgalley (my thanks to the publisher, Canongate). Mick Kitson’s debut novel (published March in hardback) is literary fiction with an element of crime fiction – it’s also a coming of age novel narrated in the highly distinctive voice of 13-year-old Sal, who has fled from neglect and abuse to the wilderness of the forest of Galloway, Scotland with her younger (half) sister Peppa.

I admit that early in the first chapter the precisely detailed, emotion-avoidant account by a girl who apparently has some form of autistic disorder had me going ‘What the heck?’ But by the end of the first chapter, when Sal casually slips in what she did to her alcoholic mother’s abusive boyfriend – I was hooked. In this chapter we learn that Robert the drug-addict boyfriend has been sexually abusing Sal since she was 10; Sal fears he will start abusing Peppa soon. After months of meticulously planning their escape (reading the SAS survival handbook, reading Wikipedia entries and watching Ray Mears videos on You Tube on how to start fires and make shelters out of trees) Sal sets off to the UK’s ‘last great wilderness’ with Peppa, a Bear Grylls knife and other essential provisions in a couple of rucksacks.

*POTENTIAL SPOILER ALERT*
Oh yes, and before leaving the house she kills Robert, making sure that the police will know she was the one responsible. After talking about killing rabbits she says: “I wouldn’t mind killing one. I had never killed one. Or anything apart from Robert.” I was worried about giving too much away by referring to this, but have as it’s pretty important and comes early on, at the end of chapter one. (One of my few criticisms of the novel is that I didn’t feel that Sal’s motive for this was sufficiently strong, or sufficiently explained.)
*END OF ALERT*

The story begins a short period after the sisters arrived in the forest (visible from space as a dark patch, apparently, also a Dark Sky park for the astronomically minded). Sal has carefully chosen the exact spot in the forest and plans to survive there indefinitely with her sister. No one knows where they are, Sal hopes, especially the police who she thinks may well be after them. There’s copious detail about making ‘benders’ (out of larch and spruce I think) to sleep in and other survival stuff, which girly types may be tempted to skip. Not just women of course. However, I found some of the information quite interesting, and you never know when it might come in handy :)

The novel is carefully structured with much tension coming from the predicament of the two youngsters. Though the suspense mostly isn’t at nail-biting levels, I was constantly wondering if they would be caught and what might happen to them.

After getting used to it, I adored the narrative style which is refreshingly informal and appears childishly straightforward much of the time. Sal says it like it is, saying what happened without explicitly mentioning her feelings or anyone else’s. She may be a child still, one who has been deemed ‘vulnerable’ by her school, presumably due to her autism (this isn’t spelt out) but she has a great deal more wisdom than some of the adults she describes. Over the course of the novel we learn more about the girls’ situation at home and what led to their escape – their mother is shown without blame attached as a victim of alcohol who lets her own needs and those of her daughters come after her boyfriend’s. At one point, Sal takes issue with people who overvalue the importance of an emotional response; in her view actions and thoughts are more important than feelings. It is hard to argue with this. The extreme reining-in of emotion in the storyteller has paradoxically resulted in a strongly affecting novel.

The relationship between Sal and Peppa is beautifully shown. Sal’s need to protect her younger sister as she has from early in Peppa’s life drives her actions from the start. The snatches of conversation between them are full of earthy humour and teasing, as here when Sal describes how they set up camp below a hill with a stone circle on top, which she located using a ‘nicked’ Ordnance Survey map from the library.

“We were exactly half a mile into the forest behind a ridge that runs towards the top where it is just under 3000 feet. In fact, in another 28 feet it would be a munro and there would be all wankers in cagoules going up it. [The hill] “is pronounced Magna Bra. I told Peppa and she wanted to go there because I told her Magna means big in Latin and she was delighted and skipped about going ‘Big Bra… big bra’. She’s a dirty minded wee bastard and she wants to watch her swearing.”

We go on a journey with Sal – a physical one, also a psychological and a spiritual one – as she tries to keep her sister safe in an unfamiliar environment. Along the way they meet a German woman, a pagan, previously a doctor and a defector from the former GDR. There are many wonderfully funny moments that lift the tone well away from any lingering bleakness, and some unexpectedly tender and moving ones.

I found SAL inspiring. The novel will stay with me a long time and deserves to be a big hit. It’s interesting too that a man wrote it, given the female-heavy list of main characters.

The author has the Galloway are down to a "T". Clearly very well researched. I never thought I would sympathise with someone who had committed such a crime but I felt sympathy for Sal. I found the book through provoking and really made me think about life as it is for us all at the time. A great read.

This superb first-person narrative debut novel is a brilliant read. Sal, the 13-year-old narrator, tells the story of the adventure she has with her younger sister, 10-year-old Peppa, after Sal kills her stepdad, Robert. And so begins a tale told in a very distinctive young voice.

Sal and Peppa evidently had an unpleasant life with their Maw, an alcoholic, and abusive Robert. As they set up a new life in the Galloway mountains, they have many survival tricks up their sleeves: hunting, hiding and removing a horrible infection from Peppa’s skin, for example. Meeting wise Ingrid is life-changing in a different way to the crime committed by Sal but thi German doctor sets up the remaining events of the novel.

I am not sure I would choose to teach this to pupils in their early teens - the writer set out to write a book he wanted to teach. However, it deals with many contemporary issues and it provides readers with a great insight into a very troubled family’s existence.

A superb read which makes one consider the plight of many abused young people in our modern society - thank you, Mick Kitson, for writing this book.