Amra Pajalic

It’s all coming together. I’ve received the book cover from my publisher Text and it’s awesome. I’m also including the blurb that is going to be featured in the December catalogue. It will be cut short but I’m putting the whole thing here.

Initially I had a pick of 3 possible covers. This was the one that I liked the most. The editor was leaning to my 2nd preference but after a cover meeting this is the one that everyone settled on and I’m wrapped. I really think it captures Sabiha well and gives an indication of the flavour of my book.

Fifteen-year-old Sabiha has a lot to deal with. Her Bosnian family migrated before the Balkan Wars—but she was born in Australia and feels like a local. She has to put up with her mother’s mental health isssues, her interfering aunt, her mother’s new boyfriend, her live-in grandfather and his chess buddy, not to mention her arrogant cousin Adnan. They all want to marry her off, have her become a strict Muslim and speak Bosnian.

Her friend Dina is Bosnian too but she’s got a different take on her identity. And Sabiha’s Australian friends are not always friendly. She gets bullied by girlfriends and is anxious about boyfriends, when she just wants to fit in—and read stories (and maybe write one…) But two boys, Brian and Jesse, become her allies in the battle to survive her family feuds and her social life.

Any Young Adult audience is bound to enjoy Sabiha’s first fumbles with boys, her hilarious conversations about virginity, homosexuality and her religion, amidst the constant dramas of teenage friendship.

The Good Daughter is a coming-of-age novel written with sensitivity and humour. It confronts head-on the problems of cultural identity in the day-to-day lives of teenagers. Amra Pajalic has a wonderful ear for idiomatic dialogue and the dramatic moment.

AMRA PAJALIC is a young writer with a big future. The Good Daughter was shortlisted in the 2007 Victorian Premier’s Awards for Best Unpublished Manuscript by an Emerging Writer. She has published a number of short stories and won several awards for them. Amra lives in the western suburbs of Melbourne where she grew up. She is working on a sequel to The Good Daughter.