The Alpha Box

Joss's life is in turmoil as he, Mum and sister Martha try to set up a new home. Asha lives a life of demure order with two maiden aunts until her absent parents neglect to send her a birthday present. Each aching in their own way, they are drawn inexorably to a strange shop in a rundown part of town. Asha parts with all she has in order to buy an ugly box which she knows she must own. Joss gets an incredible blue, electric guitar. They meet at school and their growing relationship is set against Asha's steady realisation, through talking to the goddesses of the Box, that she has a mission which is to defeat The Hoarsemen, a rock band who exercise a frighteningly malign influence over their Followers. Plenty of strong female characters and, at times, something of a celebration of female intuition, compassion and solidarity though the males in the story are just not tuned in. It never quite grips as it might and there's an awful lot of pseudo-religious teaching from the goddesses. Try it with keen readers from Year 9 up.