Solace of the Road

Holly Hogan is a 14-year-old with a whole host of problems. She is to be lodged in a new foster placement, with the bourgeois and highly organized Ray and Fiona Aldridge. There is nothing terribly wrong with Holly’s foster home, except that it feels as if ‘a nail bomb is about to go off’ in her head.

Holly finds a blonde wig, a relic of the period when Fiona was being treated for cancer. With the wig, Holly dons a new persona, Solace, and heads off to Ireland where she believes her biological mother is still waiting for her and will greet her with open arms.

Solace has a series of frightening adventures en route to the ferry port at Fishguard – some of which could have been described more concisely. Once on the boat she suffers from memory flashbacks that tell her the past is not quite what she believed. Her anguish is portrayed with conviction, a highly credible aftermath of all she has endured. Readers of Dowd’s earlier book A Swift Pure Cry will not be surprised by the powerful writing in this book, a narrative of pith and grit combined with poignancy.