Knowing the Score

It’s always just been Gemma and Mum, but as Gemma approaches the end of her time at primary school, she wonders about the father she never knew, why she rarely sees Gran, and her Uncle Joe, who is a voice on the phone.  An opportunity for Mum to go on a free cruise for a month presents an ideal opportunity for Gemma to go and stay with her Uncle Joe and to get to know Gran better, and so it is arranged.  Joe’s work commitments mean that he has to find an activity for Gemma for some of the time, and he books her onto tennis training for 2 weeks. Gemma is surprised to find that people expect her to be good at tennis, and indeed she is- does she inherit this talent from her unknown Dad?  The other students are an interesting mixture: some, like Sarah and Raj, are really good at tennis, Flori is hopeless, and Minxie is struggling to live up to her Dad’s high expectations of her, but is also talented in another way.  The interactions between the tennis players, and their coach, are very credible, and some situations have changed by the end of the course, including Joe’s romantic partner.  Gemma’s investigations lead to healing as she discovers what happened when Mum had a huge disagreement with Gran and Joe, and there will definitely be better relationships with the whole family as the story ends.

Although tennis is very much the focus of this story, the reader does not necessarily have to understand it, as Gemma must also get to know the strange scoring method and the rules of the game, so we can learn with her.

The first two books by Ros Roberts, Digger and Me, and Every Cloud, were both nominated for awards: and this one also shows that she is an excellent storyteller.