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Forgotten book title and authors

153 replies

RyanBergarasTeeth · 29/05/2020 00:44

Starting a thread for Forgotten book titles feel free to add your own and see if anyone can find it. I will start. When i was at schook we had to read a book and all i remember from it was:
The main character is a boy with older parents who are a bit strange but he doesnt know why. He ends up going to an open day at camebridge uni with said weird parents. Something happens i think one of the professors recognises him which is weird as he has never been and he sees a photo of himself but doesnt know how as he was never there. Eventually he confronts his parents who tell him the truth. They had a son who was killed either sickness or an accident so after he died they had his dna cloned and out into an embryo so his mother gave birth to him the clone of the original son.

OP posts:
MoneyForOldTurnips · 30/05/2020 21:13

@bookworm14 OMG I think that is actually it! I've downloaded a sample to my Kindle - you are awesome!

bookworm14 · 30/05/2020 21:15

No problem!

pollyhemlock · 30/05/2020 21:26

@MoneyForOldTurnips I’m quite surprised you read it when you were 8. It’s, er, quite rude!

Scruffyoak · 30/05/2020 21:30

I instantly thought of the lottie project for the time travel one!

MoneyForOldTurnips · 30/05/2020 22:30

@pollyhemlock yes, my memory of it wax that it was certainly different to the stuff I'd read before! I always remember finding it in the book box and reading snippets - perhaps it belonged to one of the teachers!

pandarific · 31/05/2020 15:52

I can't for the life of me remember - read about 4 years ago, modern Irish novel about a girl who lives with her cantankerous father falling in love with an American man, then dying of cancer. She designed swimming pools for fun -
It was a great read.

PolkadotsAndMoonbeams · 11/06/2020 01:27

I have a children or YA one. It might have been in a short story collection, but I'm not sure. Probably written in the 90s.

A girl and her friend were 'replaced' by witches who stole their bodies and left them in their old bodies - elderly women. One realised I think (when she was still a girl) but was drugged by something in a glass of milk, possibly with teddies around the rim. They had to reverse the spell by midnight or it became permanent, and the witches tried to stay away until midnight by going to a theme park (?). To reverse the spell, they had to ring the house with gold, and they did it with gold knitting wool.

Any ideas? I remember scaring myself with it!

TheThingWithFeathers · 11/06/2020 18:48

@pandarific That's This Is How It Ends by Kathleen MacMahon.

AreYouSiriusLupin · 11/06/2020 19:15

There is a book I read about 10 years ago- it centres around a young woman whose husband (boyfriend?) goes missing and spends a lot of time searching for him. Seem to remember there is a recently divorced man who moves into her apartment block. One thing I remember is, whenever she left the house, she always left a bottle of vodka in the freezer in case he came back. It has bugged me for years that I can't remember what it's called! Confused

pandarific · 11/06/2020 19:47

@TheThingWithFeathers THANK YOU! Such a lovely book. I've just ordered a or the of hers on audible, she's definitely a writer I want to read more of.

ThisBear · 11/06/2020 20:07

The one about the girl who was kidnapped at birth, could it have been The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline B Cooney?

Rockandgrohl · 11/06/2020 20:34

@cherrypiepie the trek and getting lost and banging the heads on the pillows is definitely 100% 'Jill's pony trek'...which is the last of the 9 books in the jill series. I'm not sure about the grey pony though although I think that jills friend Ann's pony might have been grey??

ComfortablyGlum · 12/06/2020 11:45

Does this short story sound familiar to anyone? It was part of a horror / sci-fi short story anthology Collection and would probably been early 90s.

I read a lot of Stephen King / Dean Koontz at the time and the plot sounds like it could be by one of them but I’ve never been able to track down this story again...does it ring any bells with anyone....?

It’s about a group of scientists who are working in a lab trying to find other dimensions. One of them succeeds and a ‘chocolate box’ cottage appears - white picket fence, in a warm spring like wooded glade.

The scientist immediately wants to go through into the ‘new dimension’ but is stopped by his colleagues who tell him there could be unseen risks. However after they leave he decides it looks perfectly safe so enters the portal to the cottage. Naturally (being a horror story!) the cottage is home to very sharp toothed creatures who proceed to rip the scientist to bits. Bleak I know but I loved this story and would love to read it again!

CakeCakeCake21 · 12/06/2020 11:55

@pollyhemlock I ordered The Secret Line and a parcel arrived today...but it was not The Secret Line, it was a cartoon book called Better Latte Than Never - they had sent the wrong book! The company says the right book is on its way but I believe the universe has a conspiracy never to let me see it again, first by making me forget it for 20 years and then by sending me a steady stream of wrong books until I give up.

AreYouSiriusLupin · 12/06/2020 12:24

That is hilarious cake- definitely seems like a conspiracy to me!

pollyhemlock · 12/06/2020 12:26

@CakeCakeCake21 how frustrating! If I had a copy I would send it to you but unfortunately I don’t think I do. Let me know if it ever arrives

madamehooch · 13/06/2020 05:08

I always post this on these threads but to no avail.

It's a trashy teen novel which I would have read in the late 1970's or 1980's. I think the girl is called Julie. She buys really boring presents from catalogue companies. She's fancied by boy but she fancies an older lad called Steve. To impress him she goes to the chip shop and asks for fish in breadcrumbs instead of batter. She mistakenly sets fire to her kitchen.

Sounds riveting doesn't it? I have to find out what it's called though so I don't use up a death bed request.

Geekster1963 · 15/06/2020 00:13

I don’t recognise any.

There are two I’m trying to remember. One is about a boy who cut his knee at school and had to see the school nurse. He was worried about it, there was also a girl waiting who had tummy ache. I must have read this at primary school as it was illustrated too.

The other was there was a tunnel full of rats that ate people. These kids found a skeleton in the tunnel. I read that in the mid 80’s at high school it terrified me!

SlightyJaded · 17/06/2020 21:47

I love these threads.

The one I'm trying to remember isn't even a book I loved but it's been bugging me for about 10 years.

Paperback and I read it about fifteen years ago. I think the cover was a purple colour and it had a line drawing of a huge glasshouse (like Kew Gardens) on it. The story was set in a sort of mental asylum and a woman who worked there - maybe as a therapist - begins an affair with a patient and I think they shag in this huge Victorian greenhouse.

No idea why I want to remember it because I don't remember loving it, but I think about it at least once a week and feel annoyed.

Anyone?

myotherusernameisonholiday · 18/06/2020 13:16

@geekster1963

I know your picture book. I'll ask my mum as she had a copy I am sure. They all line up to see the nurse and I THINK they never know their names they just go in one by one with their ailments crying and then come out smiling.
Argh it's called something like 'the sore knee' or 'a very bad day'. But I've just googled them and nothing yet.

myotherusernameisonholiday · 18/06/2020 13:40

@geekster1963

Is it 'Just Awful' by Alma Marshak Whitney and Lillian Hoban? My mum has a copy. im fairly sure it's the one you're looking for, although it's a cut finger. He is sat next to a tummy ache and a sore toe. At the end of his 3 part treatment the nurse says to the little boy (James) 'the most important part of all... a great big hug!'

Forgotten book title and authors
ExileinGuyville · 18/06/2020 14:19

Is the novel set in the asylum - Asylum by Patrick McGrath? Set in the 1950s where the wife of a psychiatrist has an affair with a patient, there was a film too, I think.

pollyhemlock · 19/06/2020 18:57

@TheWitchwithNoName

I have one, it was read to us in primary school, early eighties, so for a younger audience. It’s about a new girl at school, think she had red hair. She’s very odd and everyone is convinced she is an alien. I can remember she had a dog with hair like chewing gum and drew a picture with purple trees. Any ideas?
@TheWitchwithNoName I think your alien book might be Creeps by Tim Scoch www.amazon.co.uk/Creeps-Book-1-Tim-Schoch-ebook/dp/B00FI9FI5U/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Tim+schoch&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1592589224&sr=8-1
JustAPassingFashion · 19/06/2020 19:12

What a fantastic thread. I don't have a book to add, but I do have a ton to buy after reading this Grin

SlightyJaded · 19/06/2020 21:20

@ExileinGuyville

Is the novel set in the asylum - Asylum by Patrick McGrath? Set in the 1950s where the wife of a psychiatrist has an affair with a patient, there was a film too, I think.
I don't think it is. I read the blurb for this and it didn't feel quite right. But I might be wrong - going back to revisit...