The Geek in Shining Armour is a powerful teenage novel about the struggle of a naïve young 15-year-old girl who is trying to cope with understanding how to respond to a fast-moving relationship with an older boy and his group of more worldy-wise friends. Still attempting to come to terms with the break-up of her parents’ marriage while looking after her partially senile grandmother, Emmaleen falls for the good-looking and sexually experienced Darrin. With her idea of ideal chivalric love being shattered by the reality of life about her, she is thrown into confusion and doubt when Darrin bluntly suggests they have sex. Isolated by having just moved home and surrounded by friends and her father who seem to challenge her view of love and faithfulness, she looks to her grandmother for advice…This is a book that every young person, who will face the same moral pressures that Emmaleen faced, should read. If you have a child on the cusp of sexual maturity, give them this book. In a world of increasing sexual looseness, it sends – without sentimentality or moralisation - a powerful message that it is OK to say no, to wait, to want more out of a relationship than casual sex, that trust and fidelity, although seemingly old fashioned, are qualities to be treasured.“It’s one of this year’s best on the local scene…” Pretoria News“If one has to distinguish between mere reading matter for the young and literature, this book certainly qualifies as the latter.”“Some surprizingly astute comments about the greening of relationships…”“Bransby’s grasp of teenagers and their problems is impressive...” B.dos Santos The Citizen“Bransby’s understanding of this age group is delightfully, and often sadly, spot on…” J.Rosenthal Weekly MailAbout the AuthorLawrence Bransby has taught English to both high and primary school children throughout his life, often taking his personal experience of working with young children and teenagers as the starting point of his novels – especially during the break-up of the hated Apartheid regime in South Africa when the all-white school he taught at became multi-racial.Of the eight teenage novels he has written, four have won literary prizes and one short-listed. Twice his novels were chosen by Book Chat as South African Children’s Books of the Year (Homeward Bound and A Mountaintop Experience). Down Street, his first teenage novel, won the prestigious MER Prize for Youth Literature and The Boy who Counted to a Million won the seldom-awarded Percy Fitzpatrick Literary Prize. Bransby’s writing includes novels both for teenagers and adults as well as travel diaries, begun when, in 1997, he crossed Africa with his 17-year-old son on old XT500 motorcycles. His diary of this amazing journey is published as Trans-Africa by motorcycle – A Father’s Diary. Since then, he has travelled by motorcycle to Russia three times (Venture into Russia), Albania (Albania by Motorcycle) and driven across part of the Western Sahara in an old Ford Fiesta (Plymouth-Dakar/Banjul Old Bangers Challenge). He now lives in Paignton, Devon, and keeps himself fit kayaking, cycling and, whenever possible, travelling on his motorcycle to remote places.e-Book formatting by The Web Agency (www.web-agency.com) - from Amzon