My Favourite Book

Do you have a favourite book?  One you can return to again and again and yet it seems to tell a different story each time?

I do!

I read a few a lot of books and don't actually re-read very many of them - with the exception of my Christie collection.  I can read Agatha Christie books many times over!  I don't know why I don't re-read books to be honest, I think it's because there are always so many other choices to move onto next.

Anyway, I digress!  Back to the book in hand...

This is the version I have - can you see the spooky face in the background?

This is the one I can read and re-read.  It's by the wonderful author Diana Wynne Jones, and it's called Fire & Hemlock.  I can't remember how old I was when I discovered this, but I can remember it was because of a magazine review that I liked and made me want to go and get the book.  I'd not read any of her other books before, and I don't think it would have been a typical read for me either so it shows just how influencing a review can be.

Polly has always loved the fire and hemlock photograph, which hangs, above her bed, with its suggestion of mysterious dark figures and undiscovered secrets.
But now, it sparks memories in her that don's seem to exist any more. Memories of Thomas Lynn, who became her greatest friend… Memories of the stories they made up together – adventures in which Tom is a great hero and Polly is his assistant… Memories that these adventures had a nasty habit of coming true…
What has happened in the years between' Why has Tom been erased from Polly's mind, and form the rest of the world as well? And why is Polly so sure that she must have done something dreadful? Determined to uncover the awful truth, she casts her mind back ten years to when it all started .At the funeral…


I guess today, if you wrote a book about a ten-year old girl going off with a grown-man to have secret adventures with, it would cause suspicion, but then, it didn't seem questionable.  In fact, this book has it's own Wikipedia page!  The odd thing is, no matter how many times I read it, I can never remember the end.....!

What do you return to read?  Do tell.


Happy Reading


Miss Chapter x