Sometimes love at first sight really happens...

It's Valentine's Day, so I thought I might share with you a story about love at first sight.

It happened to me during a Christmas shopping spree in December.

I was looking for a gift for my dad and popped into a local book store.

How cliched, I hear you groan, but trust me a little here; this story is more than a Hollywood Rom Com - I promise.

So there I am in the poetry section and suddenly I spot something dark and deliciously handsome over by YA fiction, wearing the most eye-catching jacket I'd ever seen and it's as if I'm being drawn by some invisible thread.

So I walk over and let myself get acquainted and before I know it I am utterly besotted.

Two months down the line and I have to tell you How Saints Die by Carmen Marcus is THE love of my literary life.

Set in the 1980s, it tells the story of fisherman's daughter Ellie Fleck, whose mother, Kate, is having a mental breakdown; a condition that horrifies (and terrifies) the local community of the small coastal village. Kate, a somewhat ghostly figure in the novel, is mourning the rejection and loss of her own mother and is unable to bond with little Ellie. "Who are you like?" she frequently asks of her daughter, holding her up to the light like some object she's found on the beach.

Ellie's father, Peter, grounded despite the loss of his sea legs, attempts to hold his family together - despite interference from school, the church, social work etc but unique, imaginative and unruly, Ellie becomes the main bait for a community of ravenous sharks. She attracts scorn from her busy-body neighbour, Mrs Foster, disapproval from teacher Mr Lockwood, who belittles and bullies her, rejection from her peers and is seen by most adults as 'mad Paddy's kid.'

Even her only friend, 'Fletch' is inconsistent - caught between a rock and a hard place as he himself tries to fit in.

The threat Ellie faces continually shifts beneath her eleven-year-old feet; school, home, the beach, nowhere is guaranteed safe. Yet somehow she manages to navigate the quicksand surrounding her and shines bright, despite the oil leaking out from those around her.

She develops an affinity with a lone sea-wolf that roams through the novel sporadically. The wolf is all teeth, fur and growl - the qualities Ellie needs to be able to protect herself in later life.

Issues of responsibility, parenting and the expectations of society rise to the surface of this novel, but more than that it is a little girl's quest for self that is at the heart of this story. Ellie not only finds her self, but perhaps more importantly for an imaginative and misread child, finds the courage to be herself.

A misfit, Ellie is a child of the sea and has the power of the ocean behind her and thankfully for all children like her, it's a power that, like the ocean, can not be moulded or contained to fit what society expects.

The magic of this book is not just Ellie and her all-weather spirit - although believe me, you will root for this character like no other. It's in the bewitching language which is as bright and fresh as a sea breeze. If you take your time to search along the coast of its pages, you can collect all sorts of phrases that you will want to carry in your pocket all the way home.

I've read reviews stating that this book surpassed its natural ending. There may be something in that - I did become aware of a possible end point of the novel around two thirds of the way in, but had it stopped there, I may well have missed a better view of the landscape.

The novel is aimed at younger adults - I'd say eleven-fourteen but it's an absolute delight for older readers too - most of whom have swallowed the pre-teen they once were, yet are still able to sense that vulnerable and impressionable youngster wriggling around inside their belly.

More specifically, How Saints Die is a novel for kids who are struggling to stay afloat in stormy seas. It might just offer the kind of life-raft that will save them.