'The Camel Trail' by Judy Jackson

Date: Sunday, 27 January 2008

Time: 7:30pm

Venue: The Spiro Ark Centre, 25-26 Enford Street, London W1H 1DW

Price: £7

In 1944 Anna inherits a strange legacy: a treasure retrieved from a disaster in the Middle East, and a pile of yellowing notebooks. The handwritten pages hint at a world of elegant Victorian tables and lavish balls. Yet behind the apparent calm in the family lies a story of deception and betrayal. Anna searches for the truth about her grandfather David. What was the catastrophe that left him orphaned in 1837? What brought his seemingly happy marriage to the brink of collapse? Anna retraces journeys, following a trail from Safed to Gibraltar, from London to Lisbon. While Anna uncovers layers of joy and sadness, revealing the reason for her mother's repressive behaviour, she searches for the origin of the treasure and uncovers a secret that tormented David all his life.

Judy Jackson began work as a translator. She then turned to cookery and established a catering business and a cookery school. This led to a career in food writing and the publication of seven books including The Essential Jewish Cookbook. The Camel Trail, her first novel, is a family saga, weaving fact and fiction.

The Camel Trail has been chosen as the UK winner of the World Gourmand Cookbook Awards in the category 'Best Food Literature Book 2007'.

It was recently chosen as the Read of the Week in Michele Hanson's Guardian column. She wrote: “The Camel Trail is a fascinating family story that shows what secrets can do to your descendants, including some exotic recipes that I rather fancy”.