Labyrinth

Set both in the present, and at the beginning of the 13th century, the book has two heroines: modern-day Alice, who begins the novel helping out on an archaeological dig, and Alaïs, a teenage girl in Carcassonne at the time of the Fourth Crusade, which was launched against the Cathars on the grounds of their heresy, although it was always in reality a land grab by northern France against the south.

For Alice, the trouble starts when she falls into a mountain cave and finds two skeletons and an ancient ring with a labyrinth symbol, which it turns out that many (often unsavoury) people want to obtain. For Alaïs, it begins when her father entrusts her with one of the three books that are needed to summon the true grail.

Labyrinth is very much a Girl's Own story: a grail quest in which women aren't helpless creatures to be rescued, or decorative bystanders, but central to the action, with the capacity to change history. The villains, in both eras, are also women.

In July 2006, Labyrinth reached 1,000,000 sales of the UK editions.

Mocha Baked Alaska

• 4 1cm thick slices chocolate loaf cake
• 2 tbsp nutella
• 4 scoops vanilla icecream
• 2 large egg whites
• 100g caster sugar
• 1 tsp coffee powder

Preheat oven to 240 oC, 475 oF.

Cut out a disc of cake and place in a lined baking tray. Spread with nutella, top with icecream and place in freezer.

Whisk the egg white until it holds its shape. Gradually add the caster sugar, beating well after each addition until stiff and glossy.

Dissolve coffee powder in half a teaspoon boiling water and fold into meringue. Cover cake with meringue.

Freeze until needed, then cook on middle shelf for 2-3 minutes until meringue turns golden. Serve immediately.

July meeting

The July meeting of the Book Circle & Pudding Club will be on Tuesday 24th June (unless the baby comes first!)

Want to Play?

A group of five friends are creators of a company called Monkeewrench. They produce computer games for pre-school children and have made themselves substantially rich in the process. One of the team, Grace MacBride, decides they need to branch out and they create a game called Serial Killer. The player has to decipher clues from each murder, to enable them to get to the next level in an attempt to catch the killer.

However, one player seems to be slightly more excited by the game than the norm and begins to recreate the murder scenes, right down to the last tiny detail in real life.

It’s a real problem for the police and with four murders in as many days; they are running in circles trying to catch the real killer with the knowledge there are twenty murders altogether in the game. No one is free from suspicion and everyone, including the Monkeewrench team, is considered and the more the Detectives look into Monkeewrench, the more they find they need to know!

A debut novel that doesn't read like one. The Minnesota based mother-daughter writing team of P.J. Tracy (Patricia Lambrecht and daughter Traci) have hit the ground running.

Strawberry Fool

• 1 packet strawberry jelly
• 350g strawberries
• 75g sugar
• 500g fromage frais
  

Melt jelly in 150ml water.

Hull and roughly strawberries and mash in bowl with sugar, then stir in jelly.

When just starting to set, stir jelly and fold in fromage frais. Leave to set for about 2 hours.