Sometimes Crissy's mum is her best friend, sometimes a woman to be frightened of. A diet of Hammer horror and cake mix has hardened her heart and her arteries and even Jehovah can't bring her into line. She's never going to be like other mums. One misstep and Crissy is ordered to pack her bags: she's off to live with Freddy Krueger on the other side of the woods...

The Vegetarian Tigers of Paradise is a heart-warming, occasionally scabrous insight into growing up wild in the 1990s when your family didn't quite fit in – a wise and witty debut from a talented and unusual voice.

"It's too tempting to call Crystal the new Rachel Trezise but her work is more than just the latest "dirty urban" fiction of south Wales. It's funny, it's fiery, it inhabits the voice of its unforgettable characters and imagines a world where no holds are barred."

Gwen Davies, New Welsh Review