It's Alice Broadway's debut novel, and it's an excellent read. (its also the first of a trilogy, which is nice, as it means that there's more to come)
The protagonist, Leora, lives in Saintstone, a city, within a wider world, in which everyone's life story is, quite literally, written on their skin. When someone dies, their skin is preserved as a book and is judged, and weighed as worthy or not. Leora is waiting, confidently, to hear that her father has been judged worthy..........
I won't spoil the book by saying more, but urge you to read it for yourself.
Hearing Alice talk about the book was very interesting, addressing issues around faith, and questioning it, about tattoos, and the preservation of human skin, was very interesting. She explained that she doesn't (yet) have any tattoos, due in part to the difficulty of choosing what to have permanently on one's skin. She also revealed that she knew from the beginning the 'A' and the 'Z' of the whole story, but not all of the other points on the way, and that she had started writing the book as part of NaNoWrMo, but never really dared to plan for parts 2 and 3 as it seemed so unlikely that the book would be published!
I am glad she turned out to be wrong about that one!
Alice read a couple of extracts from the book, and also answered questions, before signing copies of the book. I hope that when the 2nd an 3rd parts of the trilogy are published, Mr B's can persuade her to return.
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