Böcker av Michael Nye

On an otherwise ordinary spring day, Alice Witney thought she recognised a demon from her long buried past. She could have decided it was just coincidence but instead, as was her nature, acted on instinct causing a minor affray in a supermarket. Had she have thought for a moment, Alice may have sensed that life was not ever going to be quite the same after the incident. She could have taken her shopping back to the freedom of her narrowboat home and sailed away again. Life could have gone on as normal for her small but perfectly dysfunctional family for many years. Instead she was drawn into a bizarre adventure involving the two people closest and dearest to her as the past she had hidden, for the greater good, seemed to hit all concerned soundly in the face.

The offspring of a rock star may well know the feeling of living in the shadows. My parents are a good deal less famous though, and I really don¿t mind being associated with the pair of good hearted eccentrics that they are. I like being me as well, and I used to wonder where I fitted in all of this stuff. Scatterbrained, unfocussed, a daydreamer for sure is me. Comments like that coming from those teaching me usually questioned how I could expect to make anything of my life without changing my ways. I haven¿t done as yet and probably never will. After all, it doesn¿t bother anyone that matters to me. Here then is some of what I have made of life so you can make your own mind up.

Sharing a small wooden bungalow on an island could have been a dream come true had either Masie or Linda dreamt it. For over a year this had been their reality though, but they both realised that their time on the island was finite. The unlikely bond between Linda, from a northern mill town, and Masie, from a background of old southern money had a cause that both would have preferred not to have existed. The result was that they were completing their school education well away from their parents, both sharing the determination never to return to a situation they had left as a pair of rather timid schoolgirls almost two years previously. Now, at the dawn of adulthood, their first sixteen years on the planet were firmly in the past and a new adventure was about to begin.

What have you lost? A friend? A brother? A wallet? A memory? A meaning? A year?Each NightImages, dream news, fragments, flashthen fade.These darkened walls.Here, I say.Climb intothis story.Be remembered!Jay Bremyer 00-01 Tayshas High School Reading List Notable Children's Trade Books in the Field of Social Studies 2000, National Council for SS & Child. Book Council, 2000 Best Books for Young Adults (ALA), 00 Riverbank Review Magazine's Children's Books of Distinction Award Nominations, Winner 2000 Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award, and 01 Riverbank Review Magazine's Children's Books of Distinction Award Nominations

"Ludere per regulas" was the school motto and, having looked it up in her Latin dictionary, Em had decided that the time for playing by the rules was long gone. She and her elder sister had been left in the family home to fend for themselves due to circumstances neither understood. Though comfortable, both knew the situation could not go on any longer. In the absence of a plan, the memory of happier times caused a rather risky one to be loosely formulated. Feeling that there was no other option, the pair set themselves on an open ended adventure that started near the end of the summer term, and still continues.

Looking up at the sky did little to reduce the apprehension Amanda felt. Summer was over and what had been a whim was now reality. She also knew that a rather better considered plan was set to change their lives forever. After the summertime adventure, what lay ahead wasn't a game any more. Had she have thought that the future held another life changing discovery, or that events may make them seriously consider walking away from everything they jointly had, including their beloved boat Mayfly, her anxiety could well have become full blown panic. Continuing her train of thought as she studied the clouds, she decided it was time for her to make a confession.

Carrying cargo and living on a boat that wasn't much bigger than a large packing case was, of course, sheer folly. That was Amanda's considered opinion two days before she set off with Jim, whom she'd met only days previously, to do just that. Now, on a dull day in the low season, the need to pass exams and earn a living were paramount and the last year seemed like something out of a novel. Her life though, along with Jim's, had changed almost beyond recognition as a result of the adventure so that what was perfectly acceptable then, now seemed rather tame. Then, after her ill-considered offhand remark at school, and a rather worrying discovery by Jim at work, any plans either of them had for the future are thrown into disarray.