Rain Town by Andy Donaldson Children's Fiction Review (age 9+) Sent by Matador

Rain Town has been sent to me by Matador for review and it made me laugh aloud. It's brilliant. Written in a very modern tone and full of comments and 'Dad jokes', it's actually a light-hearted look at modern life, corporate crime, middle age and redundancy.

The stars of the book are father and son Sidney and Stanley, and their respective friends. Stanley's schoolfriends are Billy and Chloe, and Sidney's initially more reluctant sidekicks are Terry and Billy's Dad, Bobby.

Sidney is a struggling single parent to Stanley. He's also The Raven, a nightime crime fighter alter-ego, sometimes described as "the crazy guy in the bin bag". No-one is entirely sure The Raven really exists, except Billy, who met him once and is his greatest fan.

The local school suddenly becomes an academy, and Greenstocks move in. They also take over the delivery company Sidney works for. He finds himself unexpectedly unemployed and not sure what he should do next.

While out on patrol one night, The Raven is witness to a theft from the school, before falling from a wall and losing his memory. Knowing something dodgy is afoot, Stanley and his friends Billy and Chloe decide to discover who robbed their school, and find out exactly what Greenstocks are up to...

Rain Town is very well written, funny, serious, morally upstanding, a little cheeky and overall it is full of flawed but lovable characters who really only want to help. They could all be people I know. If they ever make it into a film though, Toby Jones (The Detectorists/ Dobby / Truman Capote, Infamous) has to play Sidney.

A brilliant story which no doubt will prove to be only the first from author Andy Donaldson, I can't recommend Rain Town enough and I've discovered my own new heroes - the Shigbeth Justice League. Ideal for any competent reader around 9+, but not overly-complex and a good one for a child who hasn't yet read a lot of novels.

Rain Town by Andy Donaldson is available to buy now, paperback 284 pages, rrp £8.99, from all good book stores, including online at Amazon (handy affiliate link below). Take a look at the Matador website to find out more about what they do and how they work with self-published authors.

We were sent our copy of Rain Town by Andy Donaldson for review. Amazon links are affiliate, which never costs you a penny, but if you order through my link I get a few pence as a thank you.