Kirsty Eagar’s YA novel, SUMMER SKIN, which has just been published to great praise in the author’s native Australia. Catherine Drayton is thrilled to be representing Kirsty Eagar here and abroad and Allen & Unwin are publishing in Australia.

Jess Gordon and Mitch Crawford are both at college but that’s all they have in common. Jess and her friends are modern day riot grrls. Mitch and his mates are rugby boys, renowned for predatory behavior. When their paths first cross they’re combative, but just for a moment Jess and Mitch recognize the outsider in each other. She feels old fashioned in a world of casual hook ups, sexting and internet porn, wary of getting involved again in the wake of a bad break-up. Mitch is finding it hard to live up to expectations after the death of his best friend, but he struggling more with keeping his own culpability a secret. So begins a slow, careful circling, a number of encounters they keep secret from their peers.

SUMMER SKIN takes an honest look at lust, trust, love and double standards. It asks the question: In a world where sex is pushed all the time, has intimacy become the risk?

 

Kirsty Eagar was raised on her mum's central Queensland cattle property, and spent most holidays at the beach with her dad. After completing a Master's degree in Economics, she worked at the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Bank of England before changing careers, wanting a life where she could surf every day. She travelled around Australia for a couple of years, living out of a car, worked a variety of jobs and began writing fiction. Her debut novel, Raw Blue, won the 2010 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Young Adult fiction. Her second novel, Saltwater Vampires, was shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Literary Awards. Her third novel, Night Beach, was shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards, the Western Australia Premier's Awards and a Gold Inky.