The First Book of Calamity Leek

Book excerpt: Brilliantly inventive and original. This debut novel tells the story of Calamity Leek: a girl who has never been allowed beyond the garden wall, until now. Lying in her hospital bed, broken, burned and scared, Calamity still believes that Aunty loved her. For as long as she can remember, Calamity, along with her sixteen sisters, lived in a Garden behind the Wall of Safekeeping. Like it said in Aunty's Appendix on the first page of the Ps: 'Everything has a purpose', and they were being trained for a very special one. In the Ns the Appendix said, 'Nosiness leads to nonsense'. As Calamity sees it, this is what led to their Garden's downfall, because when the sisters started questioning what was outside the Wall, they started questioning what was happening inside it too. But doubt is contagious. Watching your world crumble is frightening. And people who are frightened can be dangerous.