How Sweet It Is

In an unexpected, but by no means unwelcome, departure from her usual cakery, the Cake-Maker Virtuoso has been cooking her way through this:

Every few days the biscuit jar in the kitchen is filled up with new morsels of deliciousness. Chocolate, date, peanut butter - such much! And the speed at which they disappear is bordering on scary.

In honour of the all the lovely sweet nothings we are being spoiled with, and because it's coming up to Valentines Day, here are some of our favourite literary romances.

Sabriel and Touchstone, Sabriel by Garth Nix

Romance is not high on Sabriel's list of important things to worry about now that her father, the Abhorsen, is dead and so is basically everyone else around her - only not dead enough, most of them. It also doesn't feature in her impressive list of past accomplishments. But then there's this handsome young man with a curse on him, and the poor thing desperately needs her help, and one thing leads to... a scene in an inn where Sabriel thinks Touchtstone is, ahem, having it off with someone in the next room - GENIUS!

Tom and Alice, Somebody's Crying by Maureen McCarthy

It's wrong in some fairly major ways. Wrong, and yet so right. The chemistry between them is extraordinary. The scene where he's developing photos of her in a dark room (A DARK ROOM, people) and she comes in - but he has a cold and his nose is blocked and... and... KISSING!

Jem & Mackenzie, Always McKenzie by Kate Constable

Jem is an Invisible Girl. Mackenzie is a Golden Girl. And at school camp they solemnly swear never, ever to be friends, as long as they both shall live. And we all know what tends to happen when rash statements like that are made...

Katniss and Gale... and Peeta, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

We are Team Both! They each give her such different things. She needs both in her life. We, the reader, need both in her life. What if, in the new world order, Katniss shacked up with Gale AND Peeta? Gale would hunt, Peeta would cook and Katniss would be the president of Panem, coming home to have her... um... feet rubbed.

Amelia and Chris, The Good Oil by Laura Buzo

She's young and inexperienced and head-over-heels. He is a bit older and a good bit more streetwise, but a bit lost and a good bit infuriatingly attractive. The shifting viewpoint of this novel lets you see both sides of this relationship - and boy is that interesting!

Anna and Flynn, About A Girl by Joanne Horniman

What happens when bookish, daydreaming Anna gets her girl, Flynn, a rock chick gleaming with light and danger? Uncertainty and heartbreak, that's what. But such beautiful, wistful heartbreak to read about rather than live through. There are teapots, and guitars with names, and shabby share-house twilit kitchens with cats and bowls of apples on tables, and mother-of-pearl buttons that stand in for kisses like in Peter Pan, and real kisses, most tender ones...

Leah and Adam, Being Here by Barry Jonsberg

She has a powerful imagination and is lonely and lives on an isolated farm with a puritanical mother. He has scuffed boots, wild hair and a sense of adventure. They meet in the orchard. And what happens next is extraordinary.

Anna and St Clair, Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

He's French-American with a British accent and great hair. WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT?

Guy Bennet (Rupert Everett) and James Harcourt (Cary Elwes). Another Country by Julian Mitchell, directed by Marek Kanievska

1930s British public school. There is sneaking out of the boarding house in the middle of the night to recline together in boats. There is secret Public School Business. There is conspiracy. There is trouble. But there is also '... a little hollow at the base of his throat which makes me want to pour honey all over him, and lick it off.'

Oh my.

Margaret Mahy excels at good romance:

Laura Chant and Sorenson Carlisle, The Changeover - She remakes herself. He learns to be a better him. Together they are pretty much invincible. He has some rather odd romantic notions, but Laura gives him what-for, and gets to ride on his motor scooter.

Angela and Tycho, The Catalogue of the Universe - She is better looking than any person has any right to be. He is... not so much. But he knows about the stars; he is brave and true. And that makes all the difference.

Harry and all those Carnival brothers, The Tricksters - It's a little bit muddy exactly who they are. It's a little bit cloudy what they might be. But their magnetism is crystal clear.

And, of course, a bit of JA:

Lizzie and Darcy, Pride and Prejudice - NOTHING FURTHER , YOUR HONOUR.

Marianne and Willoughby, Sense and Sensibility - even though (or maybe because) he is BAD.

Elinor and Edward, Sense and Sensibility - oh wub.

Georgette Heyer

One Onion has only just dipped her toe in the crystalline stream of romance that apparently flowed from Georgette Heyer's pen. She read The Nonesuch and thoroughly enjoyed it.

What next?

Okay - so that's just a very small sampling. What else? What is compulsory Valentines Day reading?

Immersion therapy (updated)

One of the wonderful things about working with kids books is having the opportunity to slip quietly into so many different worlds.

With a lovely long weekend of reading beckoning, here's our list of books to get lost in.

1: Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver

Set thousands of years ago in the cold far north when the land is one dark forest. 12-year old Torak and his wolf cub companion must find a way to destroy the evil bear demon that killed his father. Someone who shall remain nameless (Lili Wilkinson) called this 'Clan of the Cave Bear for kids'. Rawther less sex than Clan, however, and much more cool magic.

2: Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Set in a future world where everyone has cosmetic surgery when they turn sixteen, making them into a Pretty - and supermodel beautiful. 15 year old Tally Youngblood learns to be careful what you wish for, and finds rebellion more appealing than her Pretty-head could ever have imagined. And oh hello - hoverboards!

3: Playing Beatie Bow by Ruth Park
14 year old Abigail is transported back 100 years to Sydney 1873. There she discovers a whole new world - and how difficult life was for the families struggling on the poverty line in The Rocks area of Sydney. If you studied it at school and didn't like it, try try again.

4: Sabriel by Garth Nix

Garth Nix is a genius at creating completely believable, utterly compelling worlds. But I don't think you'd want to holiday in the Old Kingdom because the dead just won't stay dead. Awesome heroine, completely terrifying bad guys, and, best of all, Mogget - the small white cat with a shady past, dubious alliances and an uncertain future.

5. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle.

Your father is regularly consulted by the president, your mother is a stunningly beautiful Nobel Prize-winning scientist, and you live in a beautiful old farmhouse somewhere in New England (where your mother cooks meals on her Bunsen burner). Your life is probably pretty perfect, right? Not if you're Meg Murray, you're mousey and defensive, you get into fights protecting your weird little brother and your father has disappeared. But if you thought you had problems to begin with, Meg, just wait until you discover that THERE IS SUCH A THING AS A TESSERACT. (And thank you, Calvin O'Keefe, for proving once and for all that orange hair can be hot.)

6: The Singer of All Songs by Kate Constable

In the world of Tremaris, magic is fading away. Calwyn must discover her powers of chantment if she is to survive outside the Ice Wall of Antaris. We should have put this one on the YA Love List. Calwyn/Darrow URST = HOTT.

7. Anything by Philip Pullman, Ursula Le Guin, Diana Wynne Jones.

Enough said.

[UPDATE: Interestingly, as far as we can see, you won't find any of these books or writers (not even Philip Pullman? No. Not even Ursula Le Guin? No.) on the Guardian's Science Fiction and Fantasy list.

They've included Harry Potter - but only rather grudgingly.

'Every now and then, a book comes along that is so influential you have to read it to be part of the modern world. Rowling's Harry Potter series may have its faults - it's a magpie's nest of bits and bobs borrowed from more innovative writers - but it occupies that space.']

Lizzie and Darcy snubbed

The Guardian is offering up a list of the 1000 novels everyone must read.

'Over seven days our writers recommend the best books to read about crime, war, fantasy, travel, science fiction, family and love.'

So far they've done love and crime.

On the Love List, the only book I was able to readily identify as what we might call YA is Dodi Smith's I Capture the Castle, but it does mention lots of others that I read as a teenager and loved (The Great Gatsby, Love in the Time of Cholera, Lolita, The English Patient)*,
or hated (Wuthering Heights**, Lady Chatterley's Lover***),
or thought I liked but wasn't 100% sure because I didn't really, and still don't quite, understand it (The Unbearable Lightness of Being),
or read recently and am sure I would have loved as a teen (The Virgin Suicides)
or read recently and am sure I would have hated as a teen (Death in Venice)

If you could make a Love List of YA books what would you have?

The Onions would start with:

The Changeover by Margaret Mahy

How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff

Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta

When you wake and find me gone by Maureen McCarthy

Guitar Highway Rose by Brigid Lowry
And love it or hate it - Twilight is all about the luuurve.

* Pride and Prej didn't make the Love list, but we're betting it'll show up on the Family list. If not, we might have to write AN EMAIL to the Guardian.
** Other Onions would like to point out they loved this one . They are strange and wrong.
***We are willing to go on the record as saying no one should ever HAVE to read DH Lawrence.