title: Mouthing the Words
author:  Camilla Gibb 
description: A crystal-voiced young narrator and the saving grace of humor distinguish Gibb's stunningly assured debut novel (already winner of the Toronto Book Award) from similarly conceived stories about dysfunctional families. Thelma is but five years old when her story begins in the small English village of Little Slaughter. Her mother, a model who resented her pregnancy with Thelma, has a lover who she says is just pretend. Her father holds Thelma over a bridge by her armpits and has her play secretary to his boss, a game that involves French kissing and, later on, worse. It's little wonder, then, that Thelma invents three imaginary friends Ginniger, Janawee and Heroin each with her own function for helping Thelma to cope. When the family moves to Canada, things worsen, and Thelma commences poignantly asking other adults to be her parents. In spite of her horrific childhood, Thelma attends law school and wins a scholarship to Oxford. But psychological fallout from her past including bouts of anorexia and self-mutilation stand in the way of her progress until at last she reclaims the life she should have had all along, finding her own voice. Gibb intimately understands the child's need to reinvent the personal world as normal, however topsy-turvy the reality. The novel has already been compared to Susanna Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted, but it more closely resembles the film Shine. Thelma is a compelling heroine, her tale too well-told and too wide-ranging, both in content and affect, to be pigeonholed as "just another coming-of-age story." Foreign rights sold in the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Norway.
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  RIORDAN BARRETT: LAST RAKE STANDING
  
  With his comrade rakes-in-arms succumbing to respectability, anyone might
  think that wicked Riordan Barrett is next. But such happy endings aren’t for
  him —the whole of society knows there isn’t a redeemable bone in his sinfully
  sexy body.
  
  Suddenly Riordan finds himself not only an earl...but father to two young
  wards!
  
  His only experience is in the art of irresponsibility. This rake needs
  help—and hiring a young, pretty governess won’t be such a hardship!
  
  Sweet, innocent Maura Caulfield is the only lady in London seemingly unaware
  of Riordan’s disreputable ways. But it won’t stay like that for long. He’ll
  show her just how much fun sinning can be....
  
  He pressed a finger to her lips and shook his head. “Call me Riordan and I
  shall call you Maura. No more Lord Chatham and Miss Caulfield.”
  
  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Too much familiarity would breed all
  nature of problems, not the least of which wou