Books for mums

Diplomatic Baggage by Brigid Keenan, (John Murray, £14.99).

There was a time when ex-fashion journalist Brigid Keenan would not be seen without her high heels and designer clothes.

Then she fell in love with a diplomat, who was often posted abroad. Brigid was faced with a choice: follow her career or her man. She chose him.

Her life as a diplomat's wife began when she joined her future husband, Alan, nicknamed AW, in Nepal. She had hoped for a luxury hotel. She got a primitive shack in a forest.

"It was so far away from Dior," she says. "It was surreal."

That was 30 years ago. Since then she has followed her husband to Africa, India, Belgium, the Caribbean, Syria and Central Asia.

Her often hilarious new book Diplomatic Baggage tells of her adventures as a trailing spouse.

It's all here from the time when, based in the Gambia, the mysterious bumps emerging on her thigh turned out to be tumbo fly maggots, to the occasion in Nepal when, visiting a family in the local village, she found a huge jumping spider crawling up inside her trouser leg.

There are harrowing scenes too. Brigid and AW were in northern Ethiopia when the famine struck. She travelled with a friend to the affected area. "The first person we saw was a skeletal mother carrying her weightless, dead daughter across her arms" she says.

Brigid wrote several pieces for the Sunday Times about the famine to help raise awareness and prompt aid. A telling reminder that being a diplomat's wife isn't all tea and croquet.

Women's fiction

Always And Forever by Cathy Kelly (HarperCollins, £12.99)

Friends Mel, Daisy and Cleo are three women who think they have life pretty much sussed.

Mel has a high-flying career, Daisy just wants a child with her boyfriend, and hot-headed Cleo is all set to step into the family business when she finishes her hotel management degree.

Then Leah arrives in the tranquil Irish town of Carrickwell, causing ripples which change the three women's lives forever. And suddenly everything they have worked for looks in jeopardy...

One for lovers of Maeve Binchy everywhere.

Swan Music by Sarah Harrison (Hodder and Stoughton, £16.99)

Bryn Mancini was born under a lucky star. As he celebrates his silver wedding, he has everything - beautiful wife, handsome grown-up children and the house of his dreams overlooking a bend in the river.

But something dreadful is drifting downstream to his door...

Apollonia Durrance is a misfit, the neglected youngest child of a selfish marriage.

Maybe marrying for money will bring her the security she craves.

But on the day of her wedding, she again meets the man who has haunted her dreams...

The Venetian House by Mary Nickson (Century, £10.99)

For Victoria, orphaned at six, her grandmother's beautiful home in Corfu - known as the Venetian house - has always meant safety and freedom.

As children she, her cousin Guy and Guy's schoolfriend Richard always looked forward to idyllic summer holidays on the Greek islands.

Victoria was mesmerised by Guy - but it was safe, reliable Richard she married.

Now, 20 years later, Richard is dead. And in the magical setting of the sun-baked island, where she retreats to pick up the pieces of her life, Victoria finds out his death may not have been an accident - and that she may not even ever really known who he was.

True life

Lilac Days: The True Story Of The Secret Love Affair That Altered The Course Of History by Gavan Naden and Maxine Riddington (HarperCollins, £14.99)

The true story of the love affair that could have altered the course of history. A young American divorcee, Edith Travis boarded a train with her two young sons.

On board she met and fell in love with Maurice Roche, who would eventually become Lord Fermoy, Princess Di's grandfather.

Their meeting sparked a passionate affair but the difference in their social status meant that they would never be able to marry each other.

Despite this, they embarked upon a 45-year affair continued through letters and the occasional meeting when the distance became too painful.

This account is taken from the surviving letters and offers first- hand experiences of the First World War, The Great Depression, the Second World War and the Abdication.

A touching, and heart-lifting, story of true love.

Self help

Cool Names For Babies by Pamela Redmond Satran and Linda Rosenkrantz (Collins, £4.99)

You want your child to have a name that's hip and fashionable and won't embarrass for the rest of their life

Celebs are notorious for choosing cringe-making names: would you call your youngest son Cruz, as Posh and Becks have done?

Others to avoid are Dixie Dot (daughter of Anna Ryder Richardson), Aurelius Cy and Arpad Flynn (children of supermodel Elle Macpherson) and Mingus (son of Helena Christensen).

Cool Names For Babies contains hundreds you won't find in any other book, drawing inspiration from film characters, artists, musicians, writers and even video game characters (Lara of course, but there's also Rygar, Squall and Zell).

The Seven Stages Of Motherhood by Ann Pleshette Murphy (Macmillan, £14.99).

A guide to motherhood from the first year of a baby's life through to adolescence and adulthood, written by the best-selling American author who is parenting consultant for Good Morning America.

Pleshette Murphy, who has two teenage children, understands the frustrations of motherhood - like feeling you have got nothing done, even when you have been busy all day.

Her book is split into seven sections, with a good chunk devoted to the "seismic upheaval" of becoming a mother and the first year afterwards.

But the most important message in her book, Pleshette Murphy says, is how critical it is for a mum to focus on her own needs and" to take the time to focus on what you're bringing to this intriguing relationship."

Poetry

The Lady Who Was Beautiful Inside by Edward Monkton (HarperCollins, £4.99)

A poem about an average woman who learns that her inner beauty makes her more beautiful than models in magazines she envies so much. 'Nobody has a smile as you,' said the hairdresser. 'Not even the ladies in the magazines. And that, lady, is because your beauty comes from deep within you. And that is the most beautiful beauty of all.' A Mothers Day classic.

The Lady And The Chocolate by Edward Monkton (HarperCollins, £4.99)

YOU don't need chocolate; chocolate needs you. Without you to eat it, it would have no purpose.

That is the beguiling philosophy at the centre of this delightful bit of cartoon nonsense from Edward Monkton. It is a love story in which denial becomes desire and the fundamental states of being and nothingness are put to the ultimate test. A self-affirming delight for chocoholics everywhere. Delicious!

Updated: 16:14 Friday, March 04, 2005