Black and Blue Trivia Quiz

Answer: Rumer Godden

This story of European nuns in India was published in 1939. In 1947 it was made into a film starring Deborah Kerr. The film was very faithful to the book, and beautifully portrayed the sense of complete alienation the nuns felt in their strange surroundings.

Answer: Dahlia

Nora Roberts is a prolific writer, and this is one of several trilogies she has written. It follows three women as they work together in a garden centre and live together in a haunted house. As love enters their lives the ghost becomes ever more intrusive.

Answer: Blue Horizon

"Blue Horizon" follows on from "Monsoon", and continues the story of the Courtney family as they travel into unexplored South Africa. This is the 11th book in the "Courtney" novels, and is followed by "The Triumph of The Sun", which is the last in the series.

Answer: Alexandre Dumas

Published in 1850, this historical novel deals with the aftermath of the 1672 killing, in Holland, of the De Witt brothers, an actual happening. Dumas links this in with the search for a true black tulip, something that obsessed Dutch tulip growers at the time. He weaves the two into a dramatic adventure interlaced with a love story.

Answer: Black Beauty

Written in 1877, this book was intended as a cry against the ill treatment of horses. It was Anna Sewell's only novel and she died only five months after it was published. She did, however, at least live long enough to see that it was a success. Although it is now regarded as a children's book, it was not originally written for children.

The success of the book led to increased concern for the welfare of working horses.

Answer: Frederik Pohl

Following on from "Gateway", this book follows an expedition to an alien spaceship that can transform the basic elements of the universe into food. The hero is also trying to find a way to rescue his wife from the event horizon of a black hole, where he abandoned her in "Gateway".

Answer: Black Heart and White Heart

Set in Africa, as so many of H. Rider Haggard's novels were, this is the story of a pair of Zulu lovers at the time of King Cetywayo. Cetywayo was king of the Zulu nation at the time of the Zulu uprising, and subsequent Anglo-Zulu war of 1879. The battle of Rourke's Drift, immortalised in the film "Zulu", took place during this war. The book was published in 1900.

Answer: Henry de Vere Stacpoole

Published in 1908, this book was the basis for the 1980 film "The Blue Lagoon".
The story follows two young castaways from the ages of eight to around sixteen as, following a shipwreck, they learn to survive on a Pacific island. When their only adult companion drinks himself to death after about two years on the island, they are left on their own to cope with puberty, and everything that comes with it.

Answer: Sapper

Published between 1920 and 1954 the "Bulldog Drummond" books were hugely popular. They follow Captain Hugh Drummond, who, after WWI, seeks diversion and becomes a private detective. "The Black Gang" is the second in the series.

Answer: Distant

Set in post WW2 England this is the story of a 17 year old girl returning to Shropshire after having spent the war stranded in Italy. She finds she has inherited a run down estate, and the story is of her struggle to cope with post-war shortages while returning the estate to something resembling its pre-war condition.