Me & Mr Booker

Looking back, Martha could've said no when Mr. Booker first tried to kiss her. That would've been the sensible thing to do. But Martha is sixteen, she lives in a small dull town — a cemetery with lights — her father is mad, her home is stifling, and she's waiting for the rest of her life to begin. Of course Martha would kiss the charming Englishman who brightened her world with style, adventure, whiskey, cigarettes and sex. But Martha didn't count on the consequences. Me and Mr. Booker is a story about feeling old when you're young and acting young when you're not.

"Me and Mr. Booker...[is] about Martha, who, in her determination not to become like the stagnantly disappointed adults in her life, embarks on another rite you may find familiar: the probably painful, perhaps misguided, and definitely enlightening rush to grow up." Shelf Awareness

"Part Lolita, part Bridget Jones, Martha, witty and wise beyond her years, is lost in a world of dysfunctional adults, particularly the charming, alcohol-soaked Mr. Booker — a seductive chameleon who challenges the reader's assumptions and hopes every step of the way. Cory Taylor is a wonderful writer and Me and Mr. Booker is riveting — a disturbing, darkly comic coming of age story unlike any you have ever seen!" Jill McCorkle, author of Going Away Shoes

"There's not a false note in Cory Taylor's brilliant Me and Mr. Booker. Original, devastating, both sad and hilarious, this novel should be read alongside Lolita, giving interior life to the “nymphet” sexually involved with an adult. Cory Taylor's writing never calls attention to itself; the perfectly attuned voice rolls over the reader, a silent steamroller, flattening the breath from the body. Leslie Daniels, author of Cleaning Nabokov's House

"Restrained, surprisingly moving and compulsively readable, Cory Taylor's debut novel is a nuanced and touching portrait of a doomed relationship." Sun Herald

"Hands down, Me and Mr Booker is one of the best coming-of-age novels I've ever read. In it, Cory Taylor has given us an irresistible, whip-smart heroine who thinks and speaks like the 16-year-old you wish youd been. Me and Mr Booker is sexy, smart and brutally funny, and reminds us that while teenagers grow up fast, its only because they're surrounded by adults who behave like children." Benjamin Law, author of The Family Law

Cory Taylor is an award-winning screenwriter who has also published short fiction and children's books. She lives in Brisbane, Australia. Me and Mr. Booker is her first novel.