Going through notes and piles of paper and links so expect some shorter linky type posts for a bit. I wanted to highlight Melina Marchetta's upcoming book THE PIPER'S SON (March 2011). I rarely do this but the excerpt in the catalog is what made me request this one. Have a look:

When the nurse calls out his name again and Tom opens his eyes, Francesca Spinelli is sitting there, wearing fifty emotions on her face like she always did when they were at school together. He doesn't tell the nurse that she's lying. They're not friends. He has no idea how the hospital even tracked her down. These days his contact with her is limited to that once or twice a week they cross each other's path at the Union, unavoidably one of those incestuous inner-west things where everyone ends up drinking or working at the same pub. And you know how it happens. One day you pass strangers by and think, I used to hang out with them. But that was a world before dropping out of uni and parents splitting and two nights of everything with a girl whose face you can't get out of your head and relationships falling apart and favorite uncles who used to call you Tom Thumb being blown to smithereens on their way to work on the other side of the world.

[That's the Aussie cover and I love it - but I'm sure we'll end up something dramatically different in the US. Which annoys me to no end. PIPER'S SON is a companion to SAVING FRANCESCA.]