The Winter Rose by Jennifer Donnelly

AZ: "Set in London and Africa in the early days of the twentieth century, "The Winter Rose" introduces some remarkable new characters. India Selwyn-Jones is one of the rare new breed: a lady doctor. Her family, her eligible, ambitious fiance, the male medical establishment all object but she insists on defying convention and finds a post in London's East End. There she meets a gangland boss called Sid Malone. Criminal he may be but he also has a hidden charm, and a devastatingly attractive personality, and when India is called to treat him after a dockside brawl, their friendship becomes more intense. But Sid Malone is not his real name: and he has a past and enemies by the score, including India's determined and ruthless fiance whose intention is to marry into the family money as well as becoming a leading political figure. The stormy, noisy, brawling docklands are a natural home to the political fight as the fledgling Labour Party gets underway, and the struggle for the women's vote becomes more strident. But the East End is also a place for those who have a past to hide, a new beginning to find. And so the complicated strands of betrayal and pretence, of ambition and family, are woven again into a new drama, in a new country"

Doorstep fo a book but a wonderful engaging read, kind of a sequel to The Tea Rose, which I've read but don't seem to have written in, focuses on a gangland leader and his changing life in Victorian London and later in colonial Kenya. Incredible detail as with her other book and, as Shakespeare wrote, 'a sad tale is best for winder'. I was driven on by wanting to know what happens to the characters.

Vanishing Acts by Jodie Picoult

AZ: "Delia Hopkins has led a charmed life. Raised in rural New Hampshire by her widowed father Andrew, she now has a young daughter, a handsome fiance, and her own Search and Rescue bloodhound - which she uses to find missing persons. But as she plans her wedding, she is plagued by flashbacks of a life she can't recall. Then a policeman shows up at her door, arresting her father for the kidnap of a little girl. And Delia's past and present fracture into little pieces. "Vanishing Acts" is a book about the very nature and power of memory. It explores what happens when the past we have been running from catches up to us, and questions who we trust to tell us the story of our lives before we are capable of remembering it ourselves."

Ouch, read in one day. About a grown woman who is making plans for her wedding to her fiance when her beloved father is arrested for abducting her as a child. Raises familiar ground of uncomfortable choices, the desperation of a father versus the rights of a mother to her child and about the fragility of memory. Also about learning that what you thought was right may not be so clear.

Plain Truth by Jodie Picoult AUDIO

AZ: "The discovery of a dead infant in an Amish barn shakes Lancaster County to its core. But the police investigation leads to a more shocking disclosure: circumstantial evidence suggests that eighteen-year-old Katie Fisher, an unmarried Amish woman believed to be the newborn's mother, took the child's life. When Ellie Hathaway, a disillusioned big city attorney, comes to Paradise, Pennsylvania, to defend Katie, two cultures collide and, for the first time in her high profile career, Ellie faces a system of justice very different from her own. Delving deep into the world of those who live 'plain', Ellie must find a way to reach Katie on her terms. As she unravels a tangled murder case, Ellie also looks deep within to confront her own fears and desires when a man from her past comes back into her life."

Long due to being an audio book but still held me the way her books tend to. Taught me a lot about the Amish, who call themselves Plain, and I identified with the Plain movement away from consumerist individualism. Plain is not being different but being the same, against the need to be an individual.

The Olive Readers by Chrstine Aziz

AZ: "I cannot recall the exact moment when I decided to become a Reader. This is unusual for me, as I am always precise about beginnings...Imagine a future without a past, a time without memory, a state in which nationality, ancestry, tradition, language, history have no place. Governing this world is a hyper-organised system of corporations, a network of companies, each responsible for a particular product, each with a workforce conditioned to one end...But, somewhere, a clandestine group is operating to preserve the past...In the Olive producing region of Olea, the Readers are smuggling and storing books in a secret library hidden away in the house of Jephzat and her family. When her sister disappears under suspicious circumstances, and her parents are hastily relocated by the Company, Jephzat is ordered to remain behind. Alone and facing the suspicion and hostility of the villagers, she falls in love with Homer, an olive picker she once rescued from the hands of Company Commissioners - and a long-time member of the Readers. As Homer introduces her to the library, and her hunger for knowledge grows, so do her questions, and soon she finds herself closely involved not only in the recovery and preservation of books, but in a secret plan which endangers Jephzat herself..."

Read for the book group and wouldn't have kept going on this fascinating dystopia otherwise. Felt the end chapters a bit unworked but the rest a profound meditation on the precious nature of reading and personal history. Nationalism does cause problems but a sense of place and your place within the world is also essential.

Tamar by Mal Peet

AZ: "When Tamar's grandfather, an intensely private man, falls from a balcony to his death, he leaves behind a box with Tamar's name on it. For a long time Tamar refuses even to think about it...until one hot June day she opens it to reveal a series of clues and hidden messages from her grandfather. She and her cousin Johannes follow the clues and discover that her name also belonged to someone else over half a century before; someone involved in the terrifying world of resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied Holland during the Second World War. As she pieces together the mystery her grandfather left behind, another Tamar's story is unravelled; a story of passionate love, jealousy and tragedy played out amongst the daily fear and horror of war"

Seem to be drawn to war stories at the moment, this one shifting between the Resistance and SOE operations in the occupied Netherlands and the SOE operatives' grandchild Tamar. I understood the switching between the presnt and past as a technique to engage current teenagers but felt the SOE story was powerful enough to stand alone. Good twist I just did not see coming.

The Penalty by Mal Peet

AZ: "As the city of San Juan pulses to summer's sluggish beat, its teenage football prodigy El Brujito, the Little Magician, vanishes without trace. Paul Faustino, South America's top sports journalist, is reluctantly drawn into the mystery. As a story of corruption and murder unfolds, he is forced to confront a bitter history of slavery, and the power of the occult."

Odd, about football and the occult, found it too foreign to take to

Sisterland by Linda Newberry

AZ: "Hilly's German grandmother, HeidiGran, comes to live with her family after she gets Alzheimer's disease; but as her mind becomes more muddled, secrets buried in her past start to emerge. Why does HeidiGran keep talking about a girl called Rachel? And why does she make racist remarks about Hilly's friend, Reuben? As Hilly struggles to cope with revelations about her family's past, she encounters racism and prejudice for herself when a friend becomes the victim of a mindless attack; she also falls in love for the first time."

Have read a couple of books by Newberry and found them intellgent explorations of mid to late teen life. Sisterland is the book I would like Cj to learn about the Holocaust through almost as much as The Diary of Anne Frank. The grandmother of the main character appears to be the only survivor of a German family but as Heidigran's Alzheimer's takes hold she reveals more and more of her past by acting as if she is there again. A book that links the Holocaust and resulting diaspora and the current issues of Israel and Palenstine with sensitivity and never allowing lapse into stereotypes, via racism and anti-Muslim feeling in the UK.

The Element of Water by Stevie Davies

AZ: "In pre-war Germany, two boys grow up together inseparable. However, as adulthood approaches and Nazism continues its inexorable march, Dahl and Quantz can no longer reconcile their childhood friendship as one becomes an SS officer and the other a pawn in the intelligence unit. Thirteen years later, their children meet: a woman and a man exposed to the sins of their fathers."

Found this a very long read. Interesting enough story, about the daughter of an Aryan Nazi deathshead and son of another solider forming a relationship after the war in a former SS hq but just lacked pace and interest for me. Didn't really sympathise with either character and felt there may be better books on the legacy of the war.

Nineteen Minutes by Jodie Picoult

AZ: "Sterling is a small, ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens – until a student enters the local high school with an arsenal of guns and starts shooting, changing the lives of everyone inside and out. The daughter of the judge sitting on the case is the state’s best witness – but she can’t remember what happened in front of her own eyes. Or can she?"

Didn't disappoint after Perfect Match. Again a female in the legal system, this time a judge, whose daughter is the childhood friend of a boy who kills fellow students at his High School. Utterly convincing depiction of the hell that is school and as good an argument for criminalising firearms as Bowling for Columbine. Accurate on the misery of the teenage years and interesting information on the psychology of the brain of a teenager.

Panic by Jeff Abbott

AZ: "Things are going well for young film-maker Evan Casher - until he receives an urgent phonecall from his mother, summoning him home. He arrives to find her brutally murdered body on the kitchen floor and a hitman lying in wait for him. It is then he realises his whole life has been a lie. His parents are not who he thought they were, his girlfriend is not who he thought she was, his entire existence an ingeniously constructed sham. And now that he knows it, he is in terrible danger. So he is catapulted into a violent world of mercenaries, spies and terrorists. Pursued by a ruthless band of killers who will stop at nothing to keep old secrets buried, Evan's only hope for survival is to discover the truth behind his past."

Cracking good read as fast as possible book about a man who discovers his parents are living secret lives. Convincing and involving.

Grasshopper by Barbara Vine

AZ: "Blamed by her parents for the tragic death of a friend, Clodagh has been banished from their home in the countryside to a dingy basement flat in the city. Her life is transformed when she meets the inhabitants on the top floor of 15 Russia Road. An exotic range of young people who explore a London of roofs, eaves and ledges, thrilling in the freedom and danger. Clodagh, haunted still by the accident, finds that running the roofs brings her back to life, but it seems that tragedy and misfortune may not be done with her yet"

Very good but I thought overlong, I understand that Vine was trying to speak about the characters as much as the precipitating events but although the events (the death on a pylon of a childhood friend and the stabbing of another character) were interesting and the characters did linger in my head I thought it was too long. Like Vine's Brimstone Wedding which I have on tape I felt it was missing something.

Perfect Match by Jodie Picoult

AZ: "Assistant DA Nina Frost prosecutes child molesters, and in the course of her everyday work she endures the frustration of seeing too many criminals slip through the system and walk free. So when she realises that her son Nathaniel has been sexually abused and is so traumatised that he has stopped speaking she takes justice into her own hands. Nina Frost may have killed the man who hurt her son, but has she destroyed her family in the process? And whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?"

A book that kept me turning the pages until the end, about a woman who kills the man she believes has raped her 5 year old son. It's a question of is it most courageous to inflict punishment on the perp or to allow the law to take its course even if the law is flawed and criminal proceedings will tramatise your beloved child still further. And what if you do go ahead and you are wrong. I don't think I could turn the other cheek. Picoult is brilliant at never allowing you to rest in a choice, always moving a seemingly black or white situation to shades of grey.

The Butterfly Tattoo by Philip Pullman

AZ: "Chris falls in love with Jenny the moment he sets eyes on her at an Oxford ball. She's beautiful but secretive and he can't help but want to be with her. But fate is cruel and, as their relationship blossoms, tragedy and violence wait in the wings. Chris's boss has a shady past that won't stay hidden. And his ruthless enemies will use two innocent teenagers to exact their revenge on him ..."

Cracking opening line, very Dick Francis: 'Chris Marshall met the girl he was going to kill on a warm night in early June, when one of the colleges in Oxford was holding its summer ball". Generally a much better coming of age book than The Broken Bridge, although I really disliked the lack of resolution. However, I understand this would be attractive to teenage readers.

The Broken Bridge by Philip Pullman

AZ: "Sixteen-year-old Ginny's life is secure. Her mother is dead, but she's inherited her outstanding artistic talent, and she loves her life with her father in a seaside village in Wales. But the day a social worker arrives and old files are re-opened, Ginny's world cracks apart. Everything her father has told her about her family is a lie. And Ginny must uncover the hidden secrets of the past on a journey that will ultimately lead her to the mother she's never known..."

A little thin, if this is his writing for teenagers I prefer the Dark Materials trilogy. I loved the inclusion of the loa Haitian gods and the slightly supernatural element but I found the lead character Ginny annoying at times and her slow walking towards self-awareness a little predictable. Interestingly, unlike Faulks, Pullman was unable here to make me interested in a character I did not like.

Pompeii by Robert Harris

AZ: "A sweltering week in late August. Where better to enjoy the last days of summer than on the beautiful Bay of Naples? But even as Rome's richest citizens relax in their villas around Pompeii and Herculaneum, there are ominous warnings that something is going wrong. Wells and springs are failing, a man has disappeared, and now the greatest aqueduct in the world - the mighty Aqua Augusta - has suddenly ceased to flow...Through the eyes of four characters - a young engineer, an adolescent girl, a corrupt millionaire and an elderly scientist - Robert Harris brilliantly recreates a luxurious world on the brink of destruction"

Was unsure how the days leading up to the reruption of Vesuvius in Roman times would make for a novel but Harris' sideways approach via the volcanic damage to an aqueduct, the tensions in the life of the aquarian Marcus Attilius sent to fix the aqueduct is set against the countdown to the eruption and the knowledge of what happened to the people of Pompeii and Herculaneum. A quick read but very interesting. Not the finess of Faulks but a good engaging story which has me caring about the main and periperal characters.

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

AZ: "Set before and during the great war, "Birdsong" captures the drama of that era on both a national and a personal scale. It is the story of Stephen, a young Englishman, who arrives in Amiens in 1910. His life goes through a series of traumatic experiences, from the clandestine love affair that tears apart the family with whom he lives, to the unprecedented experiences of the war itself."

Often heard people say this was brilliant but never attempted it because I'd already read one book on the effects of World War I on the minds of people (2 actually, Pat Barker's Regeneration which I either didn't get or found overrated, and Rebecca West's The Return of the Soldier which I found too good to want to read anything else on the subject) but then I read Engelby via the book group and was captivated by Faulks and decided to begin with the French trilogy of which Birdsong is the first novel. Plus, reverse snobbery I guess.

Birdsong is brilliant, I wanted so much to know more, hear more about the characters and yet opening as it does in 1910 knowing the Great War is only 4 years away and will come down like the wolf on the town of Amiens gives us a kind of narratorial omniscience and curiosity about characters so immersed in their lives and the politics of the fabric industry, unknowing unlike Damocles that the sword is about to fall on their head.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

AZ: "In this nightmare vision of a not-too-distant future, fifteen-year-old Alex and his three friends rob, rape, torture and murder - for fun. Alex is jailed for his vicious crimes and the State undertakes to reform him - but how and at what cost?"

In terms of plot ACO is quite thin, the lead character is a sociopath who gets his kicks from violence, goes to prison, is put into a rebab programme which makes him feel sick at the thought of violence. This programme includes music, he tries to commit suicide and ends up cured from his programming, but at the end of the book grows up and out of his taste for violence. The interest is in the language, largely in the nadsat which young people speak which is never explained and gives the text a vivacity It was touching but I believe Burgess when he says it's not his best work.

From Potter's Field by Patricia Cornwell

"Christmas had never been a particularly good time for Dr Kay Scarpetta. Although a holiday for most, it always seem to heighten the alienation felt by society's violent fringe; and that usually means more work for Scarpetta, Virginia's Chief Medical ExaminerI. The body was naked, female and found propped against a fountain in a bleak area of New York's Central Park. Her apparent manner of death points to a modus operandi that is chillingly familiar: the gunshot wound to the head, the sections of skin excised from the body, the displayed corpse - all suggest that Temple Brooks Gault, Scarpetta's nemesis, is back at work. Calling on all her reserves of courage and skill, and the able assistance of colleagues Marino and Wesley, Scarpetta must track this most dangerous of killers in pursuit of survival as well as justice - heading inexorably to an electrifying climax amid the dark, menacing labyrinths of the New York subway."

Paradise by AL Kennedy

"Almost forty and with nothing to show for it, Hannah Luckraft is starting to notice that her lifestyle is not entirely sustainable: her subconscious is turning against her, her soul is a little unwell. Her family is wounded, her friends are odd, her body is not as reliable as it once was and her drinking is frankly out of hand. Robert, a dissolute dentist, appears to offer a love she can understand, but he may only be one more symptom of the problem she must cure. From the north-east of Scotland to Dublin, from London to Montreal, to Budapest and onwards, Hannah travels in search of the ultimate altered state: the one where she can be happy - her paradise"

Think I need to read it again, don't think I understood it but her language is so wonderful. About a girl / woman called Hannah from her first person perspective, she's an alcoholic and Kennedy describes a level of addiction I've never experienced but the reaching for Paradise is something that is so at the heart of me, I always feel hurt when I read Kennedy's writing becuase it accesses a part of me I without meaning to carefully keep supressed because if I didn't I would never stop crying and that is why Hannah drinks, life cuts her as deeply as me and she drinks to black the pain of the wonder out. Utterly brilliant bit about Jimmy Shand which she read out when I saw her a couple of years ago when Indelible Acts came out.

Blitzcat by Robert Westall

AZ: "She made her way down the cliff, and on to the beach. At the edge of the waves, she stopped, shaking her wet paws. She knew that somewhere ahead was her person, but far, far away. She miaowed plaintively; stood staring at the moving blur of uncrossable sea. She led the way to safety, out of the blazing hell of blitzed Coventry. People touched her for luck; feared her as an omen of disaster. Wherever she went, she changed lives...From her beginning to her end she never wavered. She was the Blitzcat"

Realised when reading this have read it before but don't mind because very good, about a cat called Lord Gort psi tracking her (yes her) master during WWII and the people she meets and affects, written in third person but with a real feeling of dwelling in the cat's mind and with powerful descriptions of the bombing destruction of Coventry, life in Britain during WWII and what it was psychologically to be alive at that time, grieving, fearful, damaged, lonely, worn out, living with the very real threat of invasion at the time of Dunkirk/kerque.

Tanglewreck by Jeanette Winterson

AZ: "Time is big business, and whoever gets control of time controls life as we know it! In a house called Tanglewreck lives a girl called Silver and her guardian Mrs Rokabye. Unbeknown to Silver there is a family treasure in the form of a seventeenth-century watch called the Timekeeper, and this treasure holds the key to the mysterious and frightening changes in time. When Silver goes on the run to try and protect herself and the Timekeeper"

Was interested in this because I like Winterson's fiction anyway and my mum brought Cj Winterson's book The King of Capri which is beautifully illustrated and has a lovely mythical quality. Tanglewreck is like Pullman but also has those lovely mythic qualities, deliniating the connections between old and new magic (science) and raises the interesting question of the implications of the increasingly frenetic pace of 21st century life.

137: "In New York City the tops of the buildings tear the sky. When the snow falls the tops of the buildings look like mountain peaks. The most important people in the city live and work as high as they can on their man-made mountains. When they want to travel, a helicopter lands on the roof and carries them away, just as enchanters on glass mountains whistled for eagles."

Skellig by David Almond

AZ: "When a move to a new house coincides with his baby sister's illness, Michael's world seems suddenly lonely and uncertain. Then, one Sunday afternoon, he stumbles into the old, ramshackle garage of his new home, and finds something magical. A strange creature - part owl, part angel, a being who needs Michael's help if he is to survive. With his new friend Mina, Michael nourishes Skellig back to health, while his baby sister languishes in the hospital. But Skellig is far more than he at first appears, and as he helps Michael breathe life into his tiny sister, Michael's world changes for ever . . ."

Skellig is a creature trying not to be an angel. A baby clinging to lfe that you want to live as badly as the young boy narrator does. A reminder that although many times I wish I was 'ordinary' I don't have to be:

"They say that shoulder blades are where your wings were, when you were an angel ... They say
that they're where you wings will grow again one day"

"Sometimes I think she's never quite left Heaven and never quite made it all the way here to Earth."