Fire and Hemlock - Diana Wynne Jones

I'd forgotten in the interval since I last read Fire and Hemlock, just how gripping this book is and how it buzzed around in my head for days after I read it. I really must buy myself a copy for the next time I want to read it. Polly is just ten years old when she meets Thomas Lynn (Tam Lin), having accidentally gate-crashed a "funeral". She and Tom become fast friends, and have some odd adventures together at intervals over a 5 year period and then she suddenly forgets about him. It's not until 4 years later, when she is idly reading a book before going back to Oxford for the start of her second year, that she suddenly realises she has holes in her memory, but it takes her some time to recall what caused the holes. Once she has realised, she decides to track down Tom again, and eventually (with a little help from her Granny and the ballads Thomas the Rhymer and Tam Lin) she manages to find Tom... This book is an interesting re-working of both ballads (in a combination) and I'm really looking forward to discussing it with others on the Child_Lit list in 10 days time.