A heroine with Down's

Jane Bramwell's second novel, Mizbah, is published on October 26th. The book is aimed at teenagers, and features a heroine with Down's syndrome. Ms Bramwell has two adopted children, one of whom has special needs. Her earlier book, The Witch's Tower, also featured a child with special needs. I have a press release here, in which she says: 'I was a high achieving girl, I went to Oxford. I expected both of my children to go to university, to earn a reasonable amount of money. Ed won't do that. He will always need a lot of support - so you have to say, why does this person matter? In Mizbah, I have removed all the props which we have to make our life so comfortable, and said, when times are hard, are we still going to value people with disabilities as we rightly should?'

She adds: 'If, ten years ago, you could have shown me a video of what it would be like looking after my son, I would not have gone ahead with the adoption. That would have been my loss... Of all my children, Ed is the one who always smiles at me in the morning.'

I haven't read Ms Bramwell's books, but I intend to - and hats off to her for treading such intrepid ground in her choice of subject. Needless to say, Mizbah is published by Asté Books Fiction, an imprint so tiny I've never heard of it. Wouldn't it be nice if mainstream publishers showed as much boldness?