Cloud Girls

November 1, 2022

Failed by her alcoholic mother and miserable at school, rebellious Dublin-based teenager Sammy is looking for comfort; the Eastern European family of beautiful 13-year Nico is so impoverished that they agree to her marriage to a friendly stranger. The two girls end up at a suburban Irish brothel, where they become fast friends. This is Harding's Kate O'Brien Award--winning first novel; her second work, Bright Burning Things, received U.S. publication--and multiple raves--in 2021. With a 40,000-copy first printing.

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February 27, 2023
Irish author Harding (Bright Burning Things) delivers an issue-driven story of child sex trafficking in this flat outing. Two girls, both of whom were caught up in the same trafficking scheme, narrate in alternating chapters. Sammy, 15, runs away from her suburban Dublin family to escape her abusive alcoholic mother. Brash and rebellious, Sammy “chooses” sex work, or at least she thinks she does, in part as a misguided get-rich-quick scheme. Nico, meanwhile, is a bookish 12-year-old from rural Moldova whose father tells her she’s to wed an older man who will take her to London, who then hands her father a large amount of cash. Soon Nico’s in a van with similarly vulnerable girls heading to Italy, where they are drugged and exploited. Eventually, Sammy and Nico end up sharing a room in Ireland, where the girls watch soap operas during the day before being taken by their traffickers to meet clients at night. Harding is a capable prose stylist and clearly feels for the characters, but she invests more energy in spotlighting a pressing social problem than on crafting a narrative. This lacks the power of the author’s other work. Agent: Clare Alexander, Aitken Alexander Assoc.

March 15, 2023
This heart-wrenching novel follows two girls' journeys into sex trafficking. At 13, Nico is at the top of her class in her village in Moldova. She loves climbing trees and swimming with her best friend. When she gets her first period, her father tells her it's time for her to get married and sells her to a man who, he assures her, will let her continue her education in England. As soon as she gets in the man's car, though, it's clear that the better life her father promised her was a lie. Meanwhile, the adult figures in fifteen-year-old Sammy's life don't believe her about her alcoholic mother's abuse. She can no longer stand any of it and runs away from her Dublin home. After a predatory older boyfriend grooms her for sex work, she tries to make money on her own. Inspired by firsthand accounts Irish novelist Harding (Bright Burning Things, 2021) encountered through her work with the Stop Sex Trafficking of Children and Young People campaign, this is a haunting look at exploitation.

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March 31, 2023

Following the 2021 U.S. publication of Harding's second work, Bright Burning Things, her Kate O'Brien Award--winning first novel recounts the lives of two young girls, one from Moldova and one from Ireland, who are duped into the billion-dollar global sex trade. Sold to traffickers by her father, Nico is told that she will marry the man who takes her away but soon finds out this is not the case. Sammy, the child of an absent father and a mother who's addicted to alcohol, eventually abandons her uncertain home life for work in the sex trade, thinking she can control what happens to her there. Both girls eventually end up in the same house outside of Dublin. They have no identification, no money, and no freedom; they are escorted to every job and locked in when they return "home." One night, Sammy is badly beaten by the man she is with, and witnesses take action, but her fate at the end remains uncertain. VERDICT Harding creates her central characters from the stories of many survivors of sex trafficking who were able to tell their stories. The result reflects the horrifying reality of a segment of underage sex trafficking, the people who run it, and those who buy its services. Difficult, eye-opening, and compelling.--Joanna M. Burkhardt

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.