First book of the new year, finally

I'm not sure if it's legal to mark down Forever Rose by Hilary McKay in the book challenge.   It's not on the list and not on the plan, not by the slightest stretch of imagination.

But I read it, so there!

Hilary McKay continues her sweet saga of the Casson family with this one, nominally about 11-year-old Permanent Rose but really about Caddy, Indigo, Saffron, Sarah, Mother, Daddy, David, Tom and Michael...and introducing Buttercup.
No guinea pigs were harmed in the making of this book.  Or tigers, I think.

Re Middlemarch:  there is nothing like an ah-ha moment three-quarters of the way into a long, sprawling story...oh, my gosh, I know what's going to happen!  He's going to do it--or is he--please no--