Download or read book A Book of Tricks written by Emma Cooke and published by Wynkin deWorde Publishers. This book was released on 2004 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "From the very beginning I expected my mother to climb back down from wherever she'd hidden herself..." So Fran, youngest daughter of Henry and Jane Cleeve, starts to record a tale of disappearances and intrigue that begin with her mother's suicide. The counterpart to Fran's narrative is her father Henry's version of the same series of disappearances and intrigue that eventually bring his world tumbling around his ears. Weaving in and out of the two narrations are Fran's brothers and sisters, her best friend Beth - daughter of double-dealing Nat Page - Fran's fanatical Aunt Theo and Henry's ladyfriend, Myrna. Although both narrators - the young girl and the middle-aged father - yearn for happiness, destructive forces are at work and Jane's suicide casts an inescapable shadow that forces both their destinies along treacherous paths. Cooke explodes the armoury of illusion and self-delusion and the subconscious conjuring of reasoning we all employ to protect ourselves from pain.