SuitabookLove across a sectarian divide
Zee, a Protestant, and Conor, a Catholic, pursue a relationship while family and community expectations threaten to separate them.
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Book details
Kate MacLachlan - Author
A teenage romance becomes a confrontation with inherited sectarian hostility. Zee and Conor try to maintain their relationship across a divided community, while grief, family loyalty and surrounding prejudice intensify the danger.
A fast-paced and compelling teenage love story spanning the Protestant/Catholic divide in Northern Ireland.Zee (short for Zara) lives in a quiet suburb of Belfast, with an apparently idyllic family life. But Zee's father was shot dead in front of them all, and the whole family is still struggling with the extent of grief and pain that this has caused. Her brother Gary has become a rabid anti-Catholic, and a fervent Orange-man. And Zee? She's trying desperately to continue a normal life. Unfortunately as a teenager, this means finding boyfriends, and she is irresistibly drawn to local boy Conor, who's from the token Catholic family. Gary will kill him if he realises, and even the adults will separate them by all means if they are discovered. As Zee and Conor keep up a double life, and argue over the need to do so in what is, after all, their own hometown, the jealousies and petty hatreds of those around them come to a head. Conor is beaten up - but Zee pays for her 'disloyalty' by having her face slashed unmercifully and losing her looks forever.
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Sign in for personalised guidanceA teenage romance becomes a confrontation with inherited sectarian hostility. Zee and Conor try to maintain their relationship across a divided community, while grief, family loyalty and surrounding prejudice intensify the danger.
Zee, a Protestant, and Conor, a Catholic, pursue a relationship while family and community expectations threaten to separate them.
Zee’s father has been shot dead, while her brother Gary becomes strongly anti-Catholic and an enthusiastic Orangeman.
Be prepared for bereavement, religious bigotry, punishment beatings and a highly violent conclusion.
This is a grounded book brief while Suitabook strengthens the analysis: some draft conclusions still depend on unresolved evidence.
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