The Wonder Spot by Melissa Banks

If you didn’t discover the short stories which made up Girls Guide to hunting and Fishing you missed a treat.

After a wait of 6 years, the author returns, this time with a novel. It tells of Sophie Applebaum, an outsider and inventor of rules, simply because she doesn’t fit into any neat description of who she might be: she’s Jewish but lacks religious feeling, a book-lover yet a mediocre student. She falls in love precipitously but isn’t sure if she should marry – or if she wants to marry at all despite all the family pressures and social clamour on the subject.

It’s a sparkling, heartfelt, explorative book, with a light touch.

“as a writer, Banks is extraordinarily self-disciplined. Her prose couldn’t be tighter, yet it could not appear more effortless”