NEW RELEASE
Hand Me Down - Michelle Holman (2011)
Twenty-six years ago, two girls were born in the small town of Pisa - not Pisa, Italy but Pisa, Otago in New Zealand. Home of the best cherries you have ever seen. One was a brunette, olive-skinned girl and the other blonde with blue eyes. Hand Me Down starts the day these two babies go home with the wrong set of parents. April Ritchie was a princess in her daddy's eyes and could do no wrong. Her family were wealthy and important - they owned the biggest house in Pisa. But when she is 17, her charmed life comes crashing down as rumours spread that she isn't the biological daughter of Heather and Grant Ritchie. Furious with rage, she is kicked out of home and leaves Pisa, vowing to never return. But first she makes a quick detour to the hospital and steals two medical records - her own and those of Nola Gutsell. Nine years later, April is flat-broke and making her living as a kissing telegram girl singing "happy birthday" to horny guys. When a job comes up, it takes April back to her hometown. Can she prove to them she has changed - that she's not the same person who left nine years ago? Once again, Michelle Holman has written a superb story that will have us in laughter in parts and tears in others as the cracks between April's tough exterior start showing and her true colours revealed. (PP)
Michelle Holman's latest novel, Hand Me Down, is set in a cherry orchard in New Zealand. The summary says: "April Ritchie has a bad habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Take the night she was born ... When bad girl April Ritchie returns home to Pisa after a nine-year absence, not too many of the townsfolk are glad to see her back. April's spoilt-brat behaviour had never won her many friends, and her fast exit from town the night of her 17th birthday left more questions than answers. So it isn't too surprising that people get a kick out of seeing Daddy's little princess reduced to earning her keep as a kiss-o-gram girl in a red rubber dress. It seems everyone has a bone to pick with April, especially Tarn Elliott, whose reputation she unfairly ruined. Tarn has a score to settle. April has secrets she doesn't want to share. Can the good people of Pisa, and Tarn Elliott in particular, see beyond the petite wee blonde's wisecracks to the real April underneath?" Hand Me Down is out in December.