Liz Berry

After college Clare moves with her mother from London to a rural home where her psychic ability helps unravel the past and where she searches for something called the Benison.

About the book... Easy Connections. 'No more exams. No more boring holiday work. Just two blissful weeks painting in the country - then, art college at last. Just paint, paint, paint!' Cathy Harlow is a gifted painter. She is seventeen and three glorious years at art college stretch blissfully ahead of her. But when she meets Paul Devlin, lead guitarist of the rock group Easy Connection and a millionaire superstar her dreams are shattered. Dev is beautiful, brilliant, and explosively violent. Cathy is attracted and repelled in equal measure, but Dev is determined to have her, and Dev usually gets what he wants... Easy Connections is a powerful and compelling novel, a love story with a difference, set against a vivid background of art school and the larger-than-life world of successful rock stars.'

Book 1: Janey and the Band Janey Adams, nearly 16, has a Voice - a great voice, according to her demanding music teacher. If she works and studies she could be another Maria Callas, sing at Covent Garden! But Janey is reticent and shy, and is not at all convinced she has the ability or the confidence. How is she to get the training? And will she be able to convince her parents that it is a practical idea? Her brother Mike and his friend Ronnie, chronically hard-up students, are forming a band, Night Mission, to help pay their college fees. The third member of the band, Dave, is tall, dark and charismatic, but Janey's instant attraction quickly fades in disappointment when one of his ex-girlfriends warns her that he is a scalp hunter, collecting girls, only to walk away. But the fourth member of the band, Steve, equally attractive, is friendly and laid back. Janey feels safe with him and loves his singing. It's not long before the new band recruit Janey to do their bookings and typing. When they play a gig for the PTA dance, which ends in an astonishing near-riot by their growing army of fans, they all realise that Night Mission is going to be something extra-special. Janey and the Band is the first book in a series about Night Mission's climb to fame, their loves and rivalries, their ambitions and mistakes, and Janey's own search for a way to gain confidence, achieve her singing ambitions - and stay out of Dave's clutches! Book 2:Sing the blues, Janey Janey Adams is helping to manage the successful band Night Mission. Their music is fine, with the second single moving rapidly up the charts, but deep divisions have appeared. Bitter quarrels and jealousy are splitting them apart. Janey herself is in big trouble. She is trying to juggle her work for the band, the housework at home, and her school work. There are gigs to attend, bags of letters to answer, telephone calls to make. Her school work has begun to suffer, and she is worried that if she doesn't pass her exams she will not get into Music College to train as a singer. Dave's twenty-first birthday party goes terribly wrong and Janey finds herself accepting an invitation to sing at the famous Blues Room, although she knows she is under age. What will happen if her parents find out?

In this bold and resonant gathering of poems, Liz Berry turns her distinctive voice to the transformative experience of new motherhood. Her poems sing the body electric, from the joy and anguish of becoming a mother, through its darkest hours to its brightest days. With honesty and unabashed beauty, they bear witness to that most tender of times--when a new life arrives, and everything changes.

About the book...Easy Freedom. Easy Freedom is the sequel to Easy Connections and set in the same vivid worlds of rock music and art. It is a gripping story about redemption and forgiveness, and also has much to say about the real problems faced by a girl with a vocation.' Cathy Harlow, a brilliant young painter, has at last given in to the pressures around her and agreed to marry millionaire superstar, Paul Devlin, and to keep his baby. But Cathy is still filled with doubts, for her art is the most important thing in her life and at only seventeen she desperately fears being overwhelmed by Dev and his fame and money. Her relationship with him has inflicted wounds, which she can't forgive or forget. She feels threatened too, by Dev's best friend Chris, who sees himself, Cathy and Dav as bound in a kind of mystical triangle. Cathy's struggle to overcome the stresses of her new life and her attempts to find herself and regain her lost freedom makes an unusual and compelling love story that leads to a moving climax.

Book 3: Bright lights shning After a devastating row with her violent father, Janey is homeless. But when old Mrs Wicks invites her in and treats her faintness with several large glasses of vintage port, Janey remembers that Mike, her brother, is appearing with his band, Night Mission, at an important rock festival, and decides to go there to borrow some money. She arrives at the hotel in the middle of a crazy press reception, but the next morning when she wakes up in Dave's hotel bedroom, she is horrified to find that she has caused a massive scandal, and set off a chain of events, which leaves Night Mission in crisis, just before they are due to appear at the biggest and most important concert of their careers. Can they deal with this disaster and survive? Book 4: Fool's gold Night Mission have climbed to success and is touring the US. But while Mike Adams, and Cliff Hawkins revel in acclaim, Ronnie Craig is finding the experience of a successful touring rock a nightmare. Dave Hampton, too, has his problems. His relationship with Janey Adams, is not going well. Janey wants some fun and freedom before she settles down. Her singing career has taken off in a big way, and Dave is obsessively jealous of her friendship with another musician, Jay Bird. When Ronnie hears bad news from home he is desperate. He has lost Janey to Dave and now there seems to be no point in the search for fame and success, he has nobody to share them with him. The drugs he is taking are making him ill. Will an enforced rest, a change of scene and a new girl friend help him turn his life around? Or have Dev and Chris thrown a spanner in the works?