Sarah Epstein is a multi award-winning Australian author, illustrator, and designer who grew up in suburban Sydney and spent her childhood drawing, daydreaming, and cobbling together picture books at the kitchen table. Sarah’s short fiction is featured in the Hometown Haunts anthology, and she has launched a contemporary YA series, Leftovers, and a new YA thriller, Night Lights, under her own imprint. Her first two young adult novels, Small Spaces and Deep Water, have been translated into multiple languages, and Small Spaces has also been optioned for film. Sarah’s writing has been nominated for numerous literary awards, and she has been the recipient of the Adelaide Festival Young Adult Fiction Award, the Davitt Award for Best YA Crime Novel, and Honour Book from the Children’s Book Council of Australia. Sarah Epstein is an award-winning Australian author who resides in Melbourne with her family. If you miss this one you will kick yourself.Sarah’s surname is pronounced Ep- steen (rhymes with green).

Dialogue between the teenage characters is sharp and believable. The writing is rich in metaphor for example Morgan is described as having boy band hair and you can see it as you read. She starts a relationship with Mallory’s brother Morgan and subsequent events blow the whole disappearance of Mallory and the appearance of Sparrow into the open. In the present Mallory and her parents move back into the district and for Tash all the psychological damage comes back. Mallory stops speaking and her family move out of the district. The birth of Tash’s brother Tim and the disappearance and later discovery of 8 year old Mallory who was her friend and who she says was taken by Sparrow.Įverybody is upset especially Tash’s parents and the appearance of Sparrow is put down to “Attention seeking”. Sparrows appearance coincided with two events. Invisible to everybody else but visible to her and totally frightening. When Tash was eight she started seeing an invisible friend called Sparrow. For Tash there is no such thing as a fresh start because her past keeps haunting her in a continuous loop. She narrates the story in two time spells, the present and when she was eight.

The main character is Tash who is sixteen going on seventeen.

The finish will have you panting for breath and screaming at the characters to get a bloody grip. This first novel is a psychological thriller for high school students and young adults that will have you spellbound from start to finish.

Small Spaces by Sarah Epstein