Saint Valentine

Sensitive, gentle and perilously acquiescent, Neil Flack is growing up in the heart of Europe's largest housing estate.

His mother has left home to pursue her career as a full-time feminist, and he lives in an all-male environment with his father and older brother.

By day, he and his best friend Brendan think of ways of catching the attention of the school's most attractive girls; at night, he hides in his room, secretly indulging his addiction to the teenage romance novels he steals from Brendan's sister.

Neil's consuming ambition is to create the perfect Valentine's card which he plans to send to his dream girl, the strangely beautiful Adele. And so he lays his plans. Amidst the emotional and domestic turmoil caused when his mother returns for an ill-planned weekend of peace and reconciliation, Neil creates a Valentine destined to win him unexpected fame, precipitating his rude entry into the unforgiving world of romance.

Written with devastating accuracy and unerring comic timing, Saint Valentine is a wise and witty debut; a must-read for anyone who's ever been a teenager or massively embarrassed themselves in public.