Snazzy Cover Art, Snappy Title: Marketing Earned Its Props This Time!

Man, if I’m good and turn in my homework and sit up straight and all, when I get to be a great writer, can I have Greg Paprocki do my cover art?? I just got done reading Black Taxi, and it just sings — and part of it has to do with the sweet black cover and the dashing driver on her cell, whipping through a starry blue landscape while a sinister shadowy type hunches in her back seat. Now, I don’t know from art — is this digital? is this Japanese-influenced? — but it’s almost like it’s cut out of construction paper. Everything is so stylized and outlined that it just pops off of the page.

The storyline’s not slouching, either. Written by Australian novelist James Moloney, who wrote the most recently YA-novel-trashed-by-TV book, A Bridge to Wiseman’s Cove (which I haven’t yet read), the plot revolves around Rosie Sinclair, whose Granddad is just a bit of a crook. When his crooked ways catch up to him, it’s granddaughter Rosie whose entrusted with his classic black Mercedes. Rosie also is inadvertently entrusted with his elderly riders, and she begins to feel like she’s got a black taxi as she ferries oldsters from the hospital to the grocery store.

I didn’t relate personally to Rosie as a character — she’s not much for school (and her mother is a hairdresser and wears fake animal skin skirts). I’ve noticed that quite a few of the books I’ve read from Australian writers are about teens who aren’t the most reliable students, and I actually think that’s cool — who says all of teen readers are good students, or even still bother to darken a classroom door?

Anyway, Rosie’s life gets more complicated fast, because since her grandfather’s gone for six months, she’s discovered that someone thinks he’s left a little business undone. Rosie needs help and advice — fast. She’s got both, since she’s got a great best friend and she’s mixed up with two guys, too — one a good cutie, the other a bad hottie. Of course, the bad hottie is more interesting. Lots more interesting. I won’t elaborate, but the ending will make you stand up and cheer. A fast, fun read with enough twists in the mystery storyline to keep me hooked. Check it out!