This was an okay story, centered around a teenage girl who works in a video rental store, and gets herself caught up in one of her co-workers DVD-Video-Computer-game pirating scheme. She gets quite a scare when someone breaks in as she is closing the store, and is determined to get herself out of the mess she got herself into, while exacting a little bit if revenge for herself.
In the end, she doesn’t get caught for her small involvement in the DVD-copying racket, she gets a different job for the summer, and her and her father have a better relationship.
There were some spelling and sentence errors, such as using ‘he’ where it should be ‘she’, or using the wrong person’s name. ‘Smelt’ was used for ‘smelled’ more than once. Such as if I were to say “It smelt like the candle burned out”.
I feel like this story had great potential, if things were expanded on. It was not horrible by any means, but I wouldn’t be likely to purchase one of this author’s books if I saw it on an end-cap at B&N.
(The image above was the only cover image I could find, and I do not think the person on the cover looks like a 15 year old girl. IMHO).
Could the use of the word “smelt” be a pevuliarity of the character in the context of the story? I recognize that in contrast to the overall spelling/typographical errors you mentioned it doesn’t seem likely, but I thought I would ask.
I was hoping it would be something like that, as the author is from Australia, and the book was set in Australia. But the only smelt I am familiar with is the kind you catch on a hook and fry up with some chips 🙂