Book description
Five-year-old Kerrie-Ann Hill has an unusual neighbour. Mrs Ivanovich
collects butterflies and she shows Kerrie-Ann how to catch them, take
care of them, and evenhow to kill them using a jar and some
funny-smelling liquid. Kerrie-Ann loves looking at these beautiful,
delicate creatures, and imagines them flying free...
This is Kerrie-Ann's story. She doesn't know who her father is, and
her mother is a junkie. By the age of ten, she's selling drugs at
school. By twelve, she's been beaten up by a customer, hidden stolen
guns, done time in a girls' home, and already has a taste for whizz.
And then there's Mark - her only true friend and the one person she
can trust. Their friendship turns into a powerful love and together
they are invincible. But in their world it's easy to lose control. On
the drug-riddled estate with an atmosphere as lethal as a killing jar,
it seems that Kerrie-Ann doesn't stand a chance. Unless she can make
use of what Mrs Ivanovich taught her all those years ago.
Nicola Monaghan graduated from the University of York in 1992, and
went on to teach for several years before taking a job in the City of
London. A career in finance took her to New York, Paris and Chicago,
before she gave it all up in 2001 to return to her home town and pursue
an MA in creative writing at Nottingham Trent University.
The Killing
Jar,
Nicola's first novel, was inspired by the lives she witnessed on the
council estates where she grew up - it won a Betty Trask Award and the
Author's Club First Novel Award. Her second novel is
Starfishing
. She is currently Fellow of the National Academy of Writing, based at
UCE Birmingham, where she runs the diploma course in Creative Writing
with a professional focus.
