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Shortlisted for the 2023 NZ Book Awards for Children & Young Adults – Young Adult Fiction Award category. Winner of the Ngaio Marsh 2024 award for the best YA novel.
For readers aged 12-14
Reviews
Catherine Robertson ~ Ingeniously plotted, with the best combination of grit and quirkiness, Miracle is sure to become a fast favourite with a wide range of readers.
AlysonTheBlog ~ As with her first novel, All Our Secrets, in Miracle, Jennifer Lane gives us great mystery storytelling from the point of view of a young woman. Gracie was 11 in All Our Secrets, Miracle is 14. It is a great device for an unreliable narrator, unreliable not due to pathology or ill intent, just because of the personal intensity with which many young people view the world: Taking all the blame, dealing with raw emotions, freely expressing prejudices, lying with ease, feeling responsible for those around them: “She might see that I wasn’t as mental as the rest of my family”. Read the full review.
The Sapling ~ Set in the back blocks of NSW in the 1980s, Miracle follows 14-year-old Miracle and her family through various mysteries and violent acts, and the drama of being a teenage girl living amid poverty and depression.
Jennifer Lane’s clear vision and understanding of her characters shine through, making what could have been a soap opera storyline real and affecting. Underneath everything is the love keeping Miracle’s dysfunctional family together and the perils of judging others based on circumstance. The plot twists are great, and, unusually, I didn’t pick them all. I was really gripped by this book—I’m not usually a huge fan of teen fiction without a fantasy element—but I honestly couldn’t put this down and finished it at 2 a.m. Read the full review.
About the author
Jennifer Lane lives in Wellington, New Zealand, with her husband and daughters, and feels equally at home in New South Wales, Australia, where she was born and Miracle is set. Her debut novel All our Secrets (Rosa Mira Books) won the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel in 2018.
