Blog Tour: A Small Free Kiss in the Dark by Glenda Millard (review and interview)

Yup, still alive. Blog touring. Accidentally pressing the post button instead of the save button~ Just ignore that.

Two young boys, an old tramp, a beautiful lost dancer and her baby - rag-tag survivors of a sudden war - form a fragile family holding together in the remnants of a fun fair. This is a vivid, poetic story about life in the margins and the power of empathy and imagination to triumph over adversity. Skip's an outsider, a quiet observer. He draws pictures to make sense of the world. He's never fitted in. So he takes to the streets. Life there may be hard, but it's better than the one he's left, especially when he teams up with old Billy. Then come the bombs which leave little Max in his care, and also Tia, the sad dancer, with her sweet baby, Sixpence. Scavenging for food, living on love and imagination...how long can Skip's fragile new family hold out as war grips the city? (For a change of pace, I stole this from allenandunwin.com. Of course, that didn't surprise you at all.)


A Small Free Kiss in the Dark, along with having very long title to type out at any time of the day, was a very pleasant surprise for me. Since it seems my memory is entirely compromised of sugar, and it happens to rain a lot where I live, the synopsis of the book seemed to have melted out of the ears by the time I actually read this book, leaving me with nothing but my own interpretation of the title and enough sugar to fill several tea pots. (My own interpretation was, lamentably, a dull cliched romance revolving around a woman of questionable virtue, if any of you care to know. I'm sure you don't. Except from, you do.) Which is why the actual story was a pleasant surprise, but I'm slightly at a loss as to what I should do with the sugar. Although the books subject matter is anything but pleasant, hardly any dystopian survival stories are, the execution of the story is what makes this book such a pleasant experience. If, you know, a pleasant experience leaves you feeling like you've just been punched in multiple places. Why yes, I am able to utilize other words than pleasant.


As I was understandably mislead, the title implies a romance, or a book regarding women of a questionable nature, what you actually get is a story neatly divided into three parts dystopian survival story, a fraction of a part romance, and the three other parts are made up off diabetes-inducing sweetness that wants to punch me again for dubbing it that. Unlike the wounds the book would like to inflict upon my stomach, the combination of the aforementioned concepts was not a disaster. They blended together smoothly, even if that meant the reader was doomed to feeling happy one minute and like they wanted to sob in a corner the next. Anyhow, I had a box of tissues handy, so I am now willing to talk a little more about the book. Provided that it keeps it's hands to itself.


The plot was fueled not by the character's need for food, unlike many other books set in the lovely holiday destination of after some horrible disaster, but by Skip's desire to keep his friends with him. Not that this was an easy task, between the fact that they are all homeless and inclined to wander off randomly, attempt to dump each other in supposedly safe places randomly, and do other things decidedly less randomly, and the other fact being that this is a dystopian survival story and things going wrong are as inevitable as the sun rising or me running out of things to say and stumbling into non-sequitor as a solution. Yet, unlike my non-sequitur, this is all very self-contained, and doesn't do anything to burden the survival story or the rest of the plot. It just adds something positive when things were beginning to become increasingly bleak.

Of course, the book would probably attempt to make holes in my stomach again if I were to go without mentioning it's unique setting. Because I don't want me stomach to resemble Swiss cheese, I shall talk about the setting. Like many other things in this book, it was odd, but odd in a completely awesome way. An abandoned resort in the middle of no-mans-land. It was also conveniently situated near a beach, and a town. I found it very unlikely, and rather refreshing compared to the dusty wastelands or forests you see in other dystopian novels. When you think of the proximity to the soldiers, then it becomes a whole lot less shiny and quite a bit more creepy. I do commend the characters' for putting up with it, though. I do admit that it took a while for common sense to come and hit me on the head; I was three pages from the end when I realised that they might be in Australia.

In addition too nearly everything else in this novel, the characters were something of an unorthodox bunch. But there all lovable in their own way. Well, some of them. Arguably. Skip was lovable. Excuse the imminent fangirl rave, I shall try and give you some important details while I'm still able. Out of the rag-tag bunch of strange survivors I keep mentioning, Skip made up the 'homeless kid with a tragic past but still somehow manages to be determined and positive I'm not sure how the hell he does that' part. He has a very distinguishable personality and a delightful narrative. Everything flowed along so naturally, tension built up like the homework I'm not doing at the moment, and even the odd bit of humour decided to show it's face. For those of you who have misplaced their brains, then yes, I evidently liked Skip, and for those of you whose brains are still inside their heads, then I recommend you lose them. Anyhow. Skip had a lot of good development throughout the story, which made him all the more like-able, and ultimately quite odd. While his back story itself would be nothing special, the way it was told made it fascinating. Speaking of back story, Skip's experienced an awful lot for a ... twelve year old? In the whole scary scenario, it's very easy to forgot that he's that young.

Of course, there were other characters. I believe I may have mentioned that I liked a few of them too. Max is a prime example. A small, bespectacled boy who manages to become progressively more perceptive as the book went on. Quite adorable, yet still served a purpose and had positive development bestowed on him like a ... giraffe. Billy was cast as the beleaguered mentor who has given up on life, because he has run out of fish and chips. Or something like that. Strangely enough, he remained likable all while given negative development. I suppose that's because his reason was, more or less, justifiable. Ahhh, I see that I'm now left with a subject that I don't real want to talk about. Tia. Despite being mentioned quite frequently in promotional material, like the back of the book, she doesn't really show up very frequently. I suppose that's because she's a significant character in Skip's life. Significant plot device or not, I didn't really like her. I'm not sure if this is just a matter of opinion, but I found that she was irresponsible (yes, leave your child with people you hardly know. That sounds like a brilliant idea! Oh.), a little lacking in the common sense department (yes, let's go dance for these soldiers who you've been warned about! What could go wrong? Oh.), and her back story was kind of ... ambiguous (where exactly did this child come from?). Which, when misspell kind of looks like a Spanish word.

Anyhow. What made the characters all the more interesting was the way they acted towards each other. Max and Skip, Billy and Skip, Tia and Skip to an extent. The relationships between the characters were all very interesting. The ending kind of relies on the relationships to make itself work. Speaking of the ending, it was pretty shocking. Or at least, the certain twist that occurred a little before was, the end of the book was left open for speculation. I have to say, that was a pretty smart move on the part of the author. I'm lost for suggestions as to how it could have ended otherwise, so I'm not going to. I am instead going to forfeit a joke about muffins. Except from, I'm not.

Overall, A Small Free Kiss in the Dark was an excellent read, and to quote my bruises, and quite a few other reviewers, it packs quite the punch. I recommend you all have a look, as the cover is pretty, the characters are awesome, and the plot will never cease to surprise you. These like muffin jokes and giraffes, and unlike my bruises or this books violence against my stomach, are very good things. Or at least, I think they are. I enjoyed this book to ludicrous amounts, and I am certainly not afraid to mention it. In fact, you might too. And besides, even if there aren't radioactive plants, or the mafia involved, it's still a good book.

Thanks to Templar for sending me a copy to review.

★★★★★

And now, the author was kind enough to answer some extremely pressing questions that I felt needed to be answered. Yay~


First of all, can you describe A Small Free Kiss in the Dark in three words?

Tender, blue, hopeful.

ASFKITD has a very unique cast of characters, are they in any way based on/inspired by real people?

I think most humans are innately curious about one another. Why else would we spend so much time and money studying the rich and famous, watching them, reading about them? But the sort of people I’m most curious about are usually the opposite to celebrities. And although none of the characters in ASFKITD are based on real people, Skip, Billy and Tia are inspired by the people in our society who are disadvantaged, discriminated against, neglected or in other ways alienated.


What was your inspiration for A Small Free Kiss in the Dark? (Ugh, sorry, so predictable.)

Please don’t worry about the predictability issue!.. I’m sure the question elicits a broad range of responses every time it’s asked.

Three main things inspired ASFKITD:

A day spent with a man in a factory where he restored old carousels to their former glory. This piqued my interest in using one as a setting for a story. ( Just as a matter of interest - as a direct result of that day and well before I started ASFKITD, I wrote a picture book about a carousel horse. It’s called Lightning Jack and will be published early next year.)

A newspaper headline, ‘Urban Tribes’ made me consider what life would be like for a young, homeless person living alone in a city. I wondered if he/she might join a gang or tribe and how or if this might be helpful and in what ways. I wondered if loneliness or fear might be the catalyst for this relationship or if it might be something else. Something beyond that person’s control.

Later on I read an article about people known as freegans and discovered that, due either to necessity or for ethical reasons, freegans live on what other people waste. Things like food, clothing, furnishings and even accommodation such as derelict buildings. The two topics, urban tribes and freeganism seemed to go hand in hand. I began to write with the idea of a backdrop of unexpected war and the carousel and desolate fun park as a symbols of what war takes away; childhood, pleasure and freedom. In the writing of the book, the fun park became shelter and tribe became family, the thing that held the gang of five together until the very end.


Who's your favourite character to write about? (I totally adored Skip, and Max.)

I do love Max because he’s little and funny and innocent, but my favourite character to write about was Skip, simply because by telling the story in his voice, I felt as though I was able to get a real sense of what went on in his head and his heart and I liked what I found there.

Skip's a really refreshing detour from the typical dark and angsty main character that seems to be taking over the world at the moment - did you write him like that for a reason?

Perhaps Skip’s character comes from a desire to explore difference. I’m curious about people who aren’t typical or don’t see themselves as typical. I was raised in a way that made me feel I was very different to other children my age. Now I’m an adult I realise that at some stage most people have feelings of being different and that difference isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Another reason why Skip isn’t dark and angsty is because I don’t like fads and trends!

Given current-ish events, do you think the world Skip lives in could become reality any time soon?

I think it’s astonishing that there are children who’ve never lived a day of their lives in a country that’s at peace. For those of us who live in relatively safe countries (especially countries that have never experienced war, such as Australia where I live) the thought of invasion by an enemy is usually far from our thoughts. However the possibility is ever present. In ASFKITD I wanted readers to ponder on that possibility of one day living in safety in familiar surroundings and the next of having it all taken away in a matter of hours.

Finally, will there be a sequel? (Please let there be a sequel.)

When I finished writing ASFKITD I had no intention of writing a sequel. That said, I’ve just finished the sixth of a series of books for younger readers and that was only ever going to be one book! It might be slightly weird, but for a long time after I’ve finished a book I still feel somewhat connected to characters I’ve created. (That’s how the series came to be) I ask myself silent questions about what they’re doing, how it will all turn out for them, and (since writing ASFKITD) - is Max’s Mum still alive somewhere out there? In answer to your question...I don’t know if there’ll be a sequel to ASFKITD...not yet anyway, but I’m very, very tempted.

Thanks a lot!