The Pact by Jodie Picoult

AZ: "For eighteen years the Hartes and the Golds have lived next door to each other, sharing everything from Chinese food to chicken pox to carpool duty. Parents and children alike are best friends - so it's no surprise that in high school Chris and Emily's friendship blossoms into something more. They've been soul mates since they were born. When the midnight calls come in from the hospital, no one is prepared for the appalling truth: Emily is dead at seventeen from a gunshot wound to the head as part of an apparent suicide pact. The gun holds a single unspent bullet that Chris tells police he intended for himself, but a local detective has doubts. And the Hartes and Golds, in a single terrifying moment, must face every parent's worst fear: do we ever really know our children at all?"

Picoult is now an author I turn to with relief, becuase as with Francis, Koontz, Faulkner and Jasper Fforde, I know that what I'm about to read will be a pleasure. The Pact is the desperately sad story of two children who grow up next door to each other (Em and Chris) and as teenager begin going out together. Em is conflicted in two ways, one by loving Chris very deeply but there being incestuous elements of brotherly love, and by a moment of sexual assault that drives her to self-loathing and suicidal tendencies.

Kissing the Rain by Kevin Brooks

AZ: "In Moo Nelson's life it rains every day - a constant rain of spite and derision - and every day he walks through it all with his eyes down, wishing things were different. But knowing they're not. His only refuge is the bridge, where he spends his time thinking and dreaming and watching the world go by. Until the night he witnesses a car-chase - and a murder...Or does he? What is the truth, and who is it for? The police? The gangsters? The lawyers? The bullies at school? Moo must decide: between truth and lies, loneliness and loyalty, weakness and strength. And he must do it soon...Kissing the Rain is a story about the unique confusions of being a teenager: the turmoil of emotions, the complexity of relationships, the inner world of feelings, and how to express them. More than anything, though, the story is Moo Nelson - his mind, his body, his words, his truth"

"Kevin Brooks is a proper writer. He never lets you stop thinking. Caught in the brilliant dialogue and tense situations, his characters fumble and stumble with real-life dillemmas, just like us. But for them the threats are frightening and all too close. No easy endings, no bland half-truths - Kevin is the real thing" (Barry Cunningham, publisher)

The 'rain' is the verbal abuse that overweight Moo Nelson endures every day, keeping his head down like an umbrella. He witnesses an act of violence and, in his own awkward badly spelt speak, tells of his life where getting through each day is an achievement. I was there and no, adults had no idea.

Where Mermaids Sing by Brian Keaney

I had a real problem with teenage reading that week didn't I. Keaney's book is brilliant but it doesn't have a good ending, and that's my problem not his.

AZ: "Jasmine, Alice and Phoebe. As friends they were inseparable, but when friendship turns to rivalry and distrust, they begin to drift apart. Then tragedy strikes - and Alice knows life can never be the same again."

Teacher's Dead by Benjamin Zephaniah

I like Zephaniah's poetry but I found this a bit predictable and boring. The subject was interesting, but not the story or execution, disappointing

AZ: "A teacher is dead, murdered by two of his students in front of the school. He was a good man. People liked him. So how could this happen? Why? It just doesn't make sense to Jackson, and he is determined to investigate the case until he understands."

The Butterfly Lion by Michael Morpugo

Written for young readers, short and utterly beautiful

AZ (MM): "The Butterfly Lion grew from several magical roots: The memories of a small boy who tried to run away from school a long time ago; a book about a pride of white lions discovered by Chris McBride; a chance meeting in a lift with Virginia McKenna, actress and champion of lions and all creatures born free; a true story of a soldier of the First World War who rescued some circus animals in France from certain death; and the sighting from a train of a white horse carved out on a chalky hillside near Westbury in Wiltshire."

Nerve by Dick Francis

This is one of my favourites, I return to it again and again. Up there with Flying Finish.

AZ: "Robert Finn, a steeplechase jockey, finds himself the focus of a malicious campaign and when it begins to affect his friends as well, he sets out to uncover its source and remove it. This is the author's second racing thriller and was first published in 1964."

On Hitler's Mountain: My Nazi Childhood by Irmgard Hunt

AZ: "Irmgard Hunt was born in Nazi Germany and brought up in the Bavarian village of Berchtesgaden, just outside the fence that surrounded Hitler's alpine retreat. At the age of three, she was photographed sitting on the Fuhrer's knee - one of her parents' proudest moments. Irmgard grew up innocently accepting the Nazi doctrine, believing the lies of her teachers and joyfully singing anthems to National Socialism. In simple, powerful prose Hunt reveals the creeping Nazification of Germany and shows how ordinary people were seduced - and cowed - by the campaigns set in train by their leaders."

I got this for S as we visited the Eagle's Nest and Berchtesgarten I was interested in this book. An amazing story about growing up in Nazi Bavaria, a traditional life which differs not that greatly from alpine Austrian life today, and the indocrinations, food shortages and final defeats of WWII. To me, as important a chronicle as Carrie's War and The Diary of Anne Frank, and I felt brought an understanding of why Nazism flourished better than The Reader