Dinah and her sister Lisa are growing up in 1950's South Africa, where racial laws are tightening.They are two little girls from a dissenting liberal family. Big sister Lisa is strong and sensible, while Dinah is weedy and arty.At school, the sadistic Mrs Vaughan-Jones is providing instruction in mental arithmetic and racial prejudice. And then there's the puzzle of lunch break. 'Would you rather have a native girl or a koelie to make your sandwiches?' a first-year classmate asks. But Dinah doesn't know the answer, because it's her dad who makes her sandwiches. As the apparatus of repression rolls on, Dinah finds her own way, escaping into rewarding friendships. Then there's the minefield of boys and university and finally, there's marriage and voluntary exile in London. As we follow Dinah's journey through childhood and adolescence, we enter into one of the darker passages of twentieth-century history. Balancing darkness and light with marvellous dexterity, this is Barbara Trapido at the top of her form — vibrant, profound and, as always, irresistible.

The moment Jem joins her class, Alice knows her life is irrevocably changed. Glamorous, different, a subversive, Jem seduces Alice — and then vanishes as abruptly as she came, leaving Alice bereft. Then, five years on, Jem blazes across her sphere again, trailing mystery, chaos and large-scale casualty. And the infuriating, demoniac Giovanni appears who, sharing Jem's gift for suffusing life with magic, becomes Alice's very own dangerous Sarastro, holding the talisman.

Sparky Christina and her saintly adopted sister Pam couldn't be more different. And when they meet similarly mismatched friends Jago and Peter, the four embark on a dazzling series of pairings and partings, outrageous coincidences and eleventh-hour entrances interrupted one disastrous Halloween when schoolboy revelry turns horribly wrong. Three years on, as Christina analyses the wit, cruelty and crossed genders of Shakespearean comedy, the cast of her own life reunites and the curtain falls on some gloriously unexpected partnerships.