Saffron Wilson wants more. She lives in a busy house and has a big imagination. At Robi's Flying Saucer Drive-In, a fast food restaurant her parents buy, she discovers a world like no other. A group of aliens have moved into the back lot creating a carnival. Young Clair comes to Saffron's school and then invites her to meet the family. However, Clair is not young at all.
Clair's family is hard to find.
They have disappeared, and Saffron brings Clair home to live in the basement. Clair will rendezvous with her own people with information about earth. Their sun is soon to become a red dwarf and swallow their planet whole. No one knows if Earth is safe for the Extraterrestrials.
Saffron can't be two places at the same time. She is working on her lifelong dream so how can she also help Clair?
Review
Margriet Kemper, artist and writer
The Netherlands, june 2022
"Kelly Winsa wrote a sensitive and lively novel, in which we dwell in Saffrons world for a while. There is a kind of naturalness in her writing, as life it self is. Things come and go, as even the most strange things come and go. In her short and happy life little sparkles of angst and sadness can be felt too. Reading the dialogues is like being present in the room, or, again, seeing a movie:
"Can't you stop that?"
"Stop what?" Fred said, his mouth open.
"Close your mouth. I am not interested in seeing what chewed food looks like!"
"Oh." Fred looked hurt.
"Sorry. Just in case you want a girlfriend."
The book invites you to see life as it is. There is something of Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye in it, or The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 by British author Sue Townsend. Townsend wrote a series of ten diaries no less, ending by Adrian Mole: the Prostrate Years.
Winsa's novel has its own sphere and language, as girls bring a different 'atmosphere', different codes and words. I would happily read more about this girl Saffron, turning into a young woman."
