MUSIC AND SILENCE

ABSOLUTELY AND FOREVER

A piercing story of thwarted love and true friendship from one of our greatest living writers Marianne Clifford, 15, only child of a peppery army colonel and his vain wife, Lal, falls helplessly and absolutely for Simon Hurst, 18, whose cleverness and physical beauty suggest that he will go forward into a successful and monied future, helped on by doting parents. But fate intervenes. Simon's plans are blown off course, and Marianne is forced to bury her dreams of a future together. Narrating her own story, characterising herself as ignorant and unworthy, Marianne's telling use of irony and smart thinking gradually suggest to us that she has underestimated her own worth. We begin to believe that - in the end, supported by her courageous Scottish friend, Petronella - she will find the life she never stops craving. But what we can't envisage is that beneath his blithe exterior, Simon Hurst has been nursing a secret which will alter everything.

THE COLOUR

Set against the backdrop of the New Zealand Gold Rush in the mid-nineteenth century, this is the story of pioneering immigrants Harriet and Joseph Blackstone.

THE DARKNESS OF WALLIS SIMPSON

A collection of short stories including one on the selectiveness of memory in which a fictional Wallis Simpson, bedridden and losing her mind, can only recall her first two husbands, but not her world-famous third.

THE GUSTAV SONATA

Gustav Perle grows up in a small town in 'neutral' Switzerland, where the horrors of the Second World War seem a distant echo. His childhood is spent in lonely isolation, but an intense friendship with a boy of his own age, Anton Zwiebel, begins to define Gustav's life. Jewish and mercurial, a talented pianist, Anton fails to understand how deeply and irrevocably his life and Gustav's are entwined.

LILY: A TALE OF REVENGE

Abandoned at the gates of a London park one winter's night in 1850, baby Lily Mortimer is saved by a young police constable and taken to the London Foundling Hospital. Lily is fostered by an affectionate farming family in rural Suffolk, enjoying a brief childhood idyll before she is returned to the hospital, where she is punished for her rebellious spirit. Released into the harsh world of Victorian London, Lily becomes a favoured employee at Belle Prettywood's Wig Emporium, but all the while she is hiding a dreadful secret....Across the years, policeman Sam Trench keeps watch over the young woman he once saved. When Sam meets Lily again, there is an instant attraction between them, and Lily is convinced that Sam holds the key to her happiness - but might he also be the one to uncover her crime and so condemn her to death?

MERIVEL: A MAN OF HIS TIME

The Restoration is over and Robert Merivel, renowned physician and courtier to Charles II, now faces the anxieties of middle age, until a chance encounter with a seductive Swiss botanist allows him to dream of an honourable future. But back home, his loyalty and medical skill are about to be tested to the limit.

RESTORATION

Robert Merivel abandons his studies to revel in gluttony, indolence and buffoonery at the Court of King Charles II. He is banished from Court after falling in love with the youngest royal mistress.

THE ROAD HOME

Lev is on his way to Britain to seek work, so he can send money back to Eastern Europe to support his mother and daughter. He struggles with the mysterious rituals of 'Englishness', and the fads of the London scene. We see the road Lev travels through his eyes and share his dilemmas. Orange/Baileys Prize.

ROSIE: SCENES FROM A VANISHED LIFE

Rose Tremain grew up in post-war London, where both food and affection were fiercely rationed. Briskly dispatched to boarding-school in Hertfordshire at the age of ten, she begins to feel like an imprisoned castaway. But slowly the teenage Rosie escapes from the cold world of the Fifties, into a place of inspiration and dedicated teachers, where a young writer is suddenly ready to be born.

SACRED COUNTRY

Mary Ward is determined to be a boy, to the astonishment of her Suffolk farming family.

SADLER'S BIRTHDAY

Today is Jack Sadler's birthday, or is it? It might be his last day or the beginning. He must find the key to his old room and unlock the secrets of the past.

TRESPASS (X Rated)

Anthony Verey, a wealthy but disillusioned antiques dealer from London, hopes to remake his life in France. From the moment he arrives at the Mas Lunel, an isolated stone farmhouse in the hills of Ce´vennes, a frightening and unstoppable series of consequences is set in motion. Richard & Judy Bookclub. X rated, contains offensive language and explicit sex.

THE WAY I FOUND HER

This is the story of a 13-year-old English boy who travels to Paris with his mother who is to translate a book. Lewis Little is growing up, sometimes faltering between becoming a man and sliding back into the insecurities of childhood.