Set in an unknown country, at an unspecified date, this fast-paced novel of escape and resistance feels both strange and oddly familiar. When four orphaned teenagers escape from an oppressive boarding school they begin to learn the truth about their courageous families. One of the four, Milena, not only has her mother’s beauty, but also her mother’s voice – the voice which inspired the resistance until it was silenced. Now it lives again.

There is a sort of intense French passion to this big rambling novel, full of brave, half wild human creatures, modern gladiators, and large kindly women, the consolers, who stand against the cruel regime. Winner of the prestigious Prix Saint Exupery and inspired by the memory of British contralto Kathleen Ferrier it had me playing her CD while I read it. 13+