Review, buy Romance: Come Rain or Shine (Soundings CD Library), The Colonel's Daughter, Girls in Tears, Silent Lady, the, Die SchneetÃÂ¤nzerin, Legacy of Sins, Act of Will, Persuasion. MP3-HÃÂ¶rbuch, A Practical Mistress (Historical Romance Audio CDs), The Liverpool Rose, Heart Song, CD: The House, A House Divided: Complete & Unabridged, Winter Wine, The Blue Bedroom: WITH the White Birds, Heart and Soul, A Ruthless Need, Forget-me-not: Complete & Unabridged, Royal Escape: Complete & Unabridged, Pride and Prejudice

Jacqueline Wilson's Girls In Tears is the fourth instalment in her successful Girls series, following the lives and loves of three buddies-Ellie, Magda and Nadine-each very different but each bound by an absolute bond of friendship. As ever, things are not running so smoothly for the girls. Ellie's romance is on its last legs, thanks to a persistent boyfriend, Nadine is "in love" with a boy she met on the Internet and is planning to go and meet him despite the other girls' insistence that things may not be quite as they seem, and Magda's hamster has died, leaving her less than happy with her friends' response to her grief. Each of them is shedding tears (rivers of them, in fact) and none of them can quite get to grips with the idea that their all-time best mates seem to be so absorbed in their own problems that communication between them is fast breaking down. Jacqueline Wilson, award-winning queen of tell-it-as-it-is children's literature, hits the teen spot with this straightforward, highly enjoyable novel, adding further flesh to the bones of the characters her loyal readers will have come to love in Girls In Love, Girls Under Pressure and Girls Out Late. She tackles the everyday issues that really count (school, boys, family life, friendship, bad hair, imperfect bodies. [+]

) perfectly capturing the raw emotions her characters endure through their daily lives, while telling a darn good story that will leave readers asking, "How soon can we read the next one?". Age 11 and over. -Susan Harrison.

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Silent Lady, the (Ulverscroft Large Print)

Authors

Catherine Cookson

Creator: Anne Dover
Publication date: 2001-09
RRP: ~~£47.50~~
Price: £47.50

Review Silent Lady, the / Ulverscroft Large Print:

A considerable number of her dedicated readers were saddened by the news of Catherine Cookson's death-not just for the loss of a much-loved woman, but also for the stilling of one of the most distinctive and reliable voices in fiction. Therefore the news that there were nine posthumous novels with her publisher was received with much pleasure. And rather than being evidence of the author winding down, they have shown that Cookson was ever refining her characterisation and the consummate plotting for which she was so noted. The Silent Lady has all of her characteristic touches, most notably a heroine at odds with herself and those around her. At a distinguished firm of London solicitors, a female vagrant who appears to have been sleeping on the streets, presents herself. With her filthy clothes and inability to speak, it's no surprise that she is initially shown the door, until the firm's senior partner, Alexander Armstrong, learns the name of his visitor. Irene Baindor is a woman with a remarkable past and her reappearance is the signal for the ending of a mystery several decades old. Irene (the eponymous "Silent Lady") has encountered benefactors who have helped her to rebuild her life. And now she is able to come to terms with a brutal, disturbed past and attain happiness with both old and new friends. As with all later Cookson books, it is difficult to predict the course that her constantly surprising narrative will take-clearly, the author had decided to retire some well-worn formats and strike out in entirely new directions. [+]

Although the customary romantic elements are well in evidence here, this is essentially a mystery in which the reader is swept through an intriguing narrative that moves from darkness into light. Irene represents something new in Cookson heroines, and her presence renders this one of the author's most thoughtful and affecting narratives. -Barry Forshaw.

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