Imprint
- Hodder Children's Books
For National Curriculum Key Stage 3, For National Curriculum Key Stage 4 & GCSE, Fiction, General fiction (Children's / Teenage)
A girl's obsession with finding her father - even if she risks all she holds dear.
Cora lives with her mother and grandmother in a hamlet in the Yorkshire dales. The three are close, but Cora longs to meet her father, whom she has never seen. She likens him to an unknown man who is reported to have disappeared - 'vanished in a puff of smoke'. Chance events lead Cora to build a fantasy that, in the past, her father has come back to the neighbourhood in order to contact her. A burnt-out car on the moor; burglaries; stolen food - all convince her that her father is nearby and wants to meet her. But the moor is prohibited, and to search for him she has to ignore her loyalty to her mother and grandmother, the warnings given by her mother about her father, and the sensible caution of her friend, Emma ...
More books by June Oldham
Praise for Smoke Trail
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A powerful new novel ... a dark but thrilling story. Oldham weaves a gripping narrative with evocative, lyrical prose. This is memorable psychological drama. - Elaine Williams, TES
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Oldham is a thrilling writer ... poised, precise and evocative. - TES
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An ambitious treatment of a familiar theme in fiction ... the search for a missing father. Characters and dialogue are convincing and the novel has a strong sense of place - School Library Association
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ESCAPE: 'This is a powerfully told story of bravery and survival.' - THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
June Oldham
June Oldham attended her mother's village school, a grammar school in Lincoln, then took an honours degree in English and a diploma in education. After some years' teaching, she had children and began to write. Although her award winning novel, Flames, was for adults, most of her books have been for children and adolescents. Many of them reflect her love of the Yorkshire Dales where she has lived for the last thirty years.
She has directed Ilkley Literature Festival, tutored for the Arvon Foundation, been a judge for the Constable Trophy (now defunct), encouraged imaginative writing in a gaol, held fellowships in creative writing. Occasionally she leads workshops, visits adult groups and schools.
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