Laurie lives on the banks of Loch Ness and since moving to secondary school has grown apart from her previous best friend, linking up with the cool girls instead. But their friendship can have its toxic moments, with sneers on their side and feelings of unease from Laurie.
To try to fit in Laurie shares her online friendship with Neon, whom she met the previous summer and who is planning to visit Scotland to meet up with Laurie. Hannah and Caitlin insist on accompanying Laurie to the station to meet him, but Laurie knows it won’t really happen as she has made him up. So when he steps off the train and into Laurie’s world, it’s as much a shock to her as it is to her friends who hadn’t really believed he was real.
Laurie suddenly has to face reality as she is now responsible for looking after an enthusiastic guest that she never anticipated meeting. When Neon decides that he wants to stay in the real world permanently it’s Laurie who sees the obstacles, not Neon. These problems are magnified when it becomes obvious that other imaginary creatures have followed Neon and are turning up, baffling the locals.
Despite the fact the protagonists are 14, they act much younger and the storyline of an imaginary friend is a concept of the young. Although I was impatient with the disbelief in the story at the beginning, by halfway through I was invested in seeing how it was resolved and how friendships evolved.

There is something with the writing of this book that got me completely hooked. It does not have any big words; it shouldn't have as it is written from the perspective of a teenage girl. The first chapter introduces us to a lot of characters, so naturally not all of them take up a lot of word count. But with the way it is written, they all seem so alive, so real. It is like a few sentences and we already know them. And that echoes the main plot -- how our imagination can make things seem so real.

An extra point to it being set in Scotland -- a place that will always have my heart.

I have just put all the books written by the author in my shopping cart. Will buy them all in my book order for December.

While, like many readers, I enjoy picking up new titles from authors with whom I am familiar, I also like to try those from writers who are as yet unknown to me sometimes, in the hopes of discovering some new favourites. Browsing the virtual shelves of NetGalley a few days ago, I spotted this title and with no cover art to tempt me but with the author’s name ringing a few bells, thought I’d check out what it was about.

Liking the sound of it, I downloaded it and was rewarded by a brilliant story as a result. Full of fun, this is a lovely, inclusive read – one that I really enjoyed and one that is perfect for readers in KS3 and 4 who are looking for something quirky that is fantastical without being what I would call a full-blown fantasy. Based on the idea of an imagined friend coming suddenly to life, this is a story about relationships, not making assumptions about others and overcoming fear of failure, and one that teenage readers will adore.

Surrounded by the books in the shop owned by one of her two mothers, 14-year-old Laurie scrolls through photos of her best friend Neon’s life posted to his socials as she thinks about his imminent arrival in her small town after flying to the UK from New York with his mother – a visit timed to coincide with her own parents being away for a few days. Distracted from thoughts of Neon when her friends Caitlin and Hannah arrive, Laurie quietens them as they ask if she is excited about it being the big day and insist on accompanying her to the railway station to meet her guest – something that she makes clear she wasn’t intending to do, having given him instructions on how to get to the bookshop.

After trying and failing to dissuade Caitlin and Hannah not to accompany her, the three of them arrive at Inverness station and an increasingly nervy Laurie tells them that she hasn’t heard from Neon for several hours and that perhaps he isn’t coming after all – something that her companions tease her about. But when Neon calls out her name and runs down the platform to meet her, Laurie is just as stunned as the other girls are because he is not real but entirely a figment of her imagination, created by her six months previously.

As she tries to get her head round Neon’s unexpected appearance, Laurie suddenly has to take responsibility for looking after the guest that she never anticipated visiting. When he comes to school with her and meets those who are part of her life, Neon decides that he wants to stay in the real world permanently but with no adults to take care of him and no possessions to his name, Laurie is unsure as to how he will manage to take care of himself. This though, soon becomes the least of his worries when other imaginary beings start to turn up, some of whom are far less welcome than he is. Can Neon and Laurie work out what to do to get rid of them? And if they can, will it mean Neon having to disappear too?

The idea of imaginary friends coming to life is not a new one – Guy Bass and Pete Williamson’s brilliant Skeleton Keys series for younger readers makes good use of it – but Neon is very different from those companions created by children. Here, he is the product of Laurie’s frustration at growing up and the pressures she feels to be in a romantic relationship with someone – pressures that, very unfairly, come from her friends. In the old days, when I was a teenager, pretend boy/girlfriends were much easier to create – there was no expectation of the many details of any budding relationship being shared on social media – but here Laurie has felt obliged to go to really elaborate lengths to try to keep up the pretence of Neon’s existence to fit in with her peers, giving readers much to think about.

After being forced to go along with Caitlin and Hannah’s plans to go to meet him at the railway station, Laurie is no less surprised than her friends are when he turns up and is suddenly thrown into a situation that she couldn’t possibly have anticipated, with wonderful results for the reader. As we watch the blossoming friendship between Laurie and Neon, we can only cross our fingers that somehow things will work out for the pair of them, not as a couple but just as two friends who totally get one another – something it is clear that Laurie is in dire need of as she tries to navigate her way through growing up and the confusion she feels about her attraction – or absence of it – towards others.

We are kept guessing right up until the end as to what will happen, but this really is treat – I’m so very glad I chose to read it and will definitely be reading more of Sophie Cameron’s stories in the future.

My enormous thanks go to both publisher Little Tiger Press and to NetGalley for my advance, virtual read. A Flash of Neon publishes 1st May.

Such a great book showcasing creativity imagination and the love of literacy. Perfect for YA readers and dreamers but also for those of any age.