The Food of Love, by Amanda Prowse

This is a very engaging, engrossing but harrowing and heartbreaking story about how a previously happy family copes with their daughter's mental health problem and the repercussions that this has on their relationships and lives.  As a mother, it was very easy to identify with Freya Braithwaite and the account of her marriage and the problems that unexpectedly beset their family.  She is  a food writer and food enthusiast, and there is an extreme poignancy in what happens to her daughter.  The story reads like a psychological thriller in many ways, and I found it a compulsive page-turner while dreading what would happen next.  It's a powerful piece of writing.

The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen aged 83 and a quarter years old by Hendrik Groen

This is a delightful book, and Hendrik Groen is a delightful if occasionally curmudgeonly diarist: a lovely book to dip into over a series of days, as his account of his year in his care home is told. He gives his account with charm and humour, which he needs to survive the stultifying routine and company there. However, you cannot keep a good man down for long, and Hendrik and his small band of friends find new ways to make life bearable. There is plenty to make the reader smile, and food for thought in the issues it raises about the practice and politics of the care for the elderly, in any country, as well as the practice of making the most of what you've got whe you've got it . The book is a tragicomic treat and I would love to hear more from the wonderful Hendrik Groen.