Barbara Trapido

Frankie and Stankie is a book by Barbara Trapido.

Jem is a joyful mystery to Alice. She is something to give thanks for. And when she disappears from Alice's life, as suddenly as she entered it, a whirl of glamour, subversion and literary references, Alice is left bereft. But then she meets Giovanni, presumptuous and hectoring, passionate and beautiful, who leads her …

Juggling is a 1994 novel by Barbara Trapido, nominated for the Whitbread Award that year. It is a sequel to her 1990 novel Temples of Delight, characters appearing as teenagers and young adults in the earlier book are now parents.

Ali Bobrow is an other-worldly single parent with a fraught nine-year-old daughter, a malevolent 'ex' with a grabby new wife, and an underused artistic talent. A pushover when it comes to needy neighbours and uninvited children, she allows her house to be the local drop-in centre, until she collides with Noah Glazer, …