The Devil’s Music reading group guide for book clubs is now available online, or as a downloadable pdf.  Just scroll down to the bottom of the page to click through to Jane Rusbridge’s author website.

“What is unsaid makes the writing soar.” Jill Dawson, Children’s Voices issue of Mslexia

“There is a great deal of good writing and expert story-telling meshed together in Jane Rusbridge’s novel .Where it impresses most is in the way it shows how a child thinks – the touchstones, the surreal associations, the delight in words as new and shiny playthings, the misinterpretations of the adult world.”  Cornflower

It is 1958 and the Sputnik satellite has taken a dog up into space; back on earth, five-year-old Andy has a new sister, Elaine – a baby who, his father insists, is ‘not quite all there’. While his parents argue about sending Elaine away Andy sleeps beside her cot each night, keeping guard as his mother – once an ambitious, energetic nurse – twists away into her private sadness. Knots keep treasures safe, Andy’s rope-maker grandfather tells him, and, as he listens to stories of Harry Houdini, Andy learns the Carrick Bend, the Midshipman’s Hitch and the Monkey’s Fist. But one day, at The Siding – the old railway carriage that serves as the family’s seaside retreat – Andy is left in charge of his baby sister on the beach and discovers not all treasures can be kept safe for ever. Three decades later Andrew returns from self-imposed exile to The Siding, the place where his life first unravelled. Looking back on the broken strands of his childhood, he tries, at last, to weave them together, aided by his grandfather’s copy of The Ashley Book of Knots and the arrival of a wild-haired, tango-dancing sculptor – a woman with her own ideas about making peace with the past.

Order your copy of The Devil’s Music at Amazon.co.uk.

The Devil’s Music Book Club & Reading Group Discussion Questions.