Nutmeg

Goodin beautifully poses the notion that maybe life isn''t defined as fact or fiction, perhaps it can include truth, lies, and everything in between.

Meg is growing up in a lovely world of food-filled fantasy; where her first tooth was so sharp her mother used her as a can opener and eating too many apples once left her spitting pips. Then, age five, she is thoroughly humiliated in front of the other children at school and turns her back on the world of fiction, deciding to let logic, and science rule her everyday thoughts and deeds.

Years later, Meg''s mother falls ill, and with the pressing of her boyfriend Mark, she struggles to deal with the situation in an orderly fashion, while her mother remains cocooned in her obsession with cookery, refusing to face up to her illness.

Slowly as their relationship develops, Meg uncovers the truth about her childhood and is now faced with a humbling decision: to live in a cold harsh reality or envelop herself in a wonderful world of imagination.

''A beautifully quirky gem of a novel''

Laissez Faire

''[A] quirky and touching tale''

Woman''s Weekly