With only 5 sleeps until christmas it’s holiday time for most of us – unless you’re in drought mode as we are, feeding livestock and checking watering points daily; plus I have another novel due to the publishers soon. So there won’t be alot of Ho Ho Ho for me! This year I have four books on my yearly ‘guide’. The first two are by much loved authors who sadly passed away during 2012. I haven’t read either of these two new titles but they will make up my summer reading list. So firstly here’s to Maeve and Bryce.

“High on the cliffs of the west coast of Ireland, overlooking the windswept Atlantic ocean, is Stone House. Once falling into disrepair, it is now a beautiful hotel specialising in winter holidays. With a big, warm kitchen, log fires and understated, elegant bedrooms, it provides a welcome few can resist, whatever their reasons for coming… Henry and Nicola are burdened with a terrible secret and are hoping the break at Stone House will help them find a way to face the future. Winnie, generally one to make the best of things, finds herself on the holiday from hell. Then there’s John, who arrived on impulse after he missed a flight at Shannon; eccentric Freda, who claims to be a psychic – and the silent, watchful Nell, who seems so ready to disapprove. But looks can be deceptive… ” A WEEK IN WINTER is full of Maeve’s trademark warmth, humour and characters you want to spend time with.

Born into the slums of Toronto at the end of the roaring twenties, Jack Spayd grows up with a set of rules for home, school and the street where the strong rule the weak. Jack is lucky in that he has a teacher who believes in him and a mother who protects him from his drunken father’s rages. But then an unexpected birthday present offers him a life-changing turning point. Could this really be his ticket out of Cabbagetown? Jack of Diamonds the last from a legend.

 Next are two novels that I read and loved this year. The fact that they eventually became prize winners Foal’s Bread – 2012 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction and The Song of Achilles winner of the Orange Prize are testament to their literary merit.

The sound of horses’ hooves turns hollow on the farms west of Wirri. If a man can still ride, if he hasn’t totally lost the use of his legs, if he hasn’t died to the part of his heart that understands such things, then he should go for a gallop. At the very least he should stand at the road by the river imagining that he’s pushing a horse up the steep hill that leads to the house on the farm once known as One Tree.
Set in hardscrabble farming country and around the country show high-jumping circuit that prevailed in rural New South Wales prior to the Second World War, Foal’s Bread tells the story of two generations of the Nancarrow family and their fortunes as dictated by the vicissitudes of the land.

 The Song of Achilles – Greece in the age of Heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the kingdom of Phthia. Here he is nobody, just another unwanted boy living in the shadow of King Peleus and his golden son, Achilles. Achilles, “best of all the Greeks,” is everything Patroclus is not—strong, beautiful, the child of a goddess—and by all rights their paths should never cross. Yet one day, Achilles takes the shamed prince under his wing and soon their tentative connection gives way to a steadfast friendship. As they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine, their bond blossoms into something far deeper—despite the displeasure of Achilles’ mother Thetis, a cruel sea goddess with a hatred of mortals.