Young Adult Fiction

Girl Saves Boy by Steph Bowe

by Peta Murray •

December 2010–January 2011, no. 327

Text Publishing, $19.95 pb, 280 pp, 9781921656590

Young Adult Fiction

Girl Saves Boy by Steph Bowe

by Peta Murray •

December 2010–January 2011, no. 327

Jewel Valentine saves Sacha Thomas when she pulls him, unconscious, from a lake. Girl resuscitates boy, and, for better or worse, their fates are sealed. Jewel and Sacha’s voices intertwine throughout this beguiling début novel from Steph Bowe. Written when she was just thirteen, Bowe takes the teen romance genre and gives it an edge. Here is a journey to first love between an enigmatic girl with a past and a sketchbook, and a grief-laden boy with a terminal illness.

Peta Murray

By this contributor

Peta Murray is a professional playwright, dramaturge, and teacher of scriptwriting. She is currently co-facilitating a pilot playwriting program for Ilbijerri Theatre.

Her theatre work encompasses main stage, youth, and community-based projects, and her best-known stage play, Wallflowering, has seen numerous productions in Australia and overseas. Other plays include AWGIE winners Spitting Chips and The Keys to the Animal Room, and Salt which won the Victorian Premier’s Award for Drama. Peta also writes prose, and her stories have been published in anthologies including The Sleepers Almanac and New Australian Stories.

She is co-founder and Creative Consultant of The GroundSwell Project.