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No Country for Young Men
by Julia O'Faolain'Entertaining and rich in comedy . . . gripping and moving.' William TrevorSister Judith Clancy is told that she must leave the protection of her convent and return to her family. So begins the unravelling of community ties which form this brilliant and devastating story of human and political relations in twentieth-century Ireland. Past and present, memory, madness and buried trauma shift in a disturbing kaleidoscope as four generations of the O'Malleys and Clanceys attempt to come to terms with the after-effects of the Irish Civil War.No Country for Young Men was nominated for the Booker Prize.'One of the very best books of its kind that it has ever been my pain and pleasure to read.' Guardian'A book to be bought and read and thought about.' Irish Times
After I'm Gone: A Wife Three Daughters And A Mistress
by Laura LippmanWhen Felix Brewer meets nineteen-year-old Bernadette 'Bambi' Gottschalk at a Valentine's Dance in 1959, he charms her with wild promises, some of which he actually keeps. Thanks to his lucrative if not always legal businesses, she and their three little girls live in luxury. But on the Fourth of July, 1976, Bambi's world implodes when Felix, newly convicted and facing prison, mysteriously vanishes. Though Bambi has no idea where her husband - or his money - might be, she suspects one woman does: his devoted young mistress, Julie. When Julie herself disappears ten years to the day that Felix went on the lam, everyone assumes she's left to join her old lover - until her remains are found in a secluded wooded park.Now, twenty-six years after Julie went missing, Roberto 'Sandy' Sanchez, a retired Baltimore detective working cold cases for some extra cash, is investigating her murder. What he discovers is a tangled web of bitterness, jealously, resentment and greed stretching over the three decades and three generations that connect these five very different women. And at the center of every woman's story is the man who, though long gone, has never been forgotten: the enigmatic Felix Brewer.Somewhere between the secrets and lies connecting past and present, Sandy could find the explosive truth...
Heir to Greyladies (Greyladies #1)
by Anna JacobsHampshire, 1900. With the sudden death of her father, the life of fifteen-year-old Harriet Benson changes forever. Forced from her home to escape the advances of her leering stepbrother Norris, Harriet is sent into service to provide for the family. Arriving at the grand Dalton House, she meets the owners' crippled son Joseph, with whom friendship soon blossoms. When circumstances force Joseph to leave the family home, Harriet is happy to accompany him and break free from the controlling influence of her stepmother.But Harriet is unprepared for the event which will alter her life even further: her unexpected inheritance of Greyladies, a supposedly haunted house in the country. Could this be the safe haven she so desperately needs, and does the ghost of its previous owner really roam the halls? While Harriet and Joseph grow ever closer, the plots and actions of both their families threaten to destroy their happiness. Will their love, and the legacy of Greyladies, be able to survive?
The Moomins and the Great Flood
by Tove JanssonEssential reading for any lover of the Moomins. This is where it all began. Created in 1945, yet published in this country for the very first time, The Moomins and the Great Flood offers an extraordinary glimpse into the creativity and imagination that launched the Moomin books. Moominmamma and young Moomintroll search for the long lost Moominpappa through forest and flood, meeting a little creature (an early Sniff) and the elegantly strange Tulippa along the way. Tove Jansson illustrates her first ever Moomin adventure with stunning sepia watercolour and delightful pen and ink drawings. A revelation for Moomin fans.
Winterbringers (Kelpies Ser.)
by Gill ArbuthnottSummer has been stolen. Eternal winter threatens. St Andrews is not known for its glorious weather. But when the sea starts to freeze and ice creeps up the beach, Josh's summer holiday becomes a lot more dangerous. Josh and his new friend Callie are thrown headlong into a storm of witches, ice creatures, magic and the Winter King. A permanent winter threatens, unless they can stop the Winterbringers once and for all …
Black Night Falling (A Charlie Yates mystery #2)
by Rod ReynoldsIt was almost dark when i landed...'There are echoes of Chandler in washed-up journalist Charlie Yates's terse, cynical narration but this is more than a mere pastiche: it's subtle, original and enthralling.' Jake Kerridge, Sunday ExpressHaving left Texarkana for the safety of the West Coast, reporter Charlie Yates finds himself drawn back to the South, to Hot Springs, Arkansas, as an old acquaintance asks for his help. This time it's less of a story Charlie's chasing, more of a desperate attempt to do the right thing before it's too late.Rod Reynolds' exceptional second novel picks up just a few months on from The Dark Inside, and once again displays the feel for place, period and atmosphere which marked out his acclaimed debut.
Tapestries of the Heart: Four Women, Four Persian Generations
by Nooshie MotarefThis award winning novel portrays four generations of Persian women over a span of one hundred years. It depicts the effects of religion and politi-ever changing in Iranian society. Tapestries stands out as a true representation of the cycle of life. The destinies of these characters are interwoven with many threads and the events and consequences throughout have a major impact on their lives. Throughout the generations, these women lived, loved, and fought for what they believed in. Though it was a struggle, they battled and endured when the odds were almost completely against them.
Magnus Fin and the Ocean Quest (Magnus Fin #1)
by Janis MackayThere has always been something unusual about Magnus Fin, a school misfit. On his eleventh birthday Magnus throws a message in a bottle out to sea, wishing for a best friend and to be more brave -- and he gets a lot more than he bargained for. Magnus discovers that he is half selkie -- part seal, part human -- and his selkie family urgently need his help. Can Magnus save his new-found family from the evil force threatening all the ocean's creatures? And will he find the friend he has always dreamed of? Winner of the Kelpies Prize.
The Clockmaker: Nonsuch Classics
by Thomas Chandler HaliburtonSam Slick first appeared in a series of sketches in the Novascotian during 1835 and 1836 and proved so popular that they were published in book form with additional stories in 1838; indeed, he was so popular that a pirate edition appeared in 1837. He is credited with coining such phrases as 'the early bird catched the worm', 'to get blood out of a stone', 'to drink like a fish', and 'it's raining cats and dogs' amongst others. His 'sayings and doings' resonated with the times, addressing as they did such issues as race, the abolition of slavery and colonialism, but presented in a witty and satirical way. Sam Slick of Slickville is a clock-peddler who accompanies a visiting English gentleman on an unforgettable tour of early nineteenth-century Nova Scotia. His shrewd observations and witty commentaries make up the thirty-three sketches of The Clockmaker.
Mary Magdalene's Legacy
by Julie de Vere HuntMary Magdalene was written out of history after the crucifixion – now her story is being told of what happened to her and what important work she did in those lost years: a story of murder, betrayal, love, faith and courage that rewrites biblical history. An Arab peasant called Muhammad Ali accidentally discovered ancient texts buried in a sealed jar in the mountains in Upper Egypt in 1945. He excitedly smashed the jar expecting to find gold, only to discover inside thirteen ‘worthless’ papyrus books bound in leather. These became known as the Nag Hammadi library, a collection of early Christian and Gnostic texts, written in Greek and dating back to the 1st century AD. Dismissed as heresy by the Orthodox Church, in many of these gnostic texts, Mary Magdalene is portrayed as an enlightened spiritual leader privy to the secret teachings of Jesus. In The Gospel of the Saviour, Jesus calls Mary “The Woman Who Knows the All”. Set in 1st century Judea, Egypt and France, Mary Magdalene’s Legacy follows her life after the crucifixion, carrying on the bloodline of Jesus and transmitting the original teachings of Jesus.
Horse Heaven: A Novel (Basic Ser. #Vol. 498)
by Jane SmileyIn Horse Heaven the universe of horse racing is woven into a marvellous tapestry of joy and love, chicanery, folly, greed and reckless courage. Spanning two years on the circuit, from Kentucky and California to New York and Paris, Jane Smiley's wonderful novel puts us among trainers and track brats, horse-obsessed girls, nervy jockeys, billionaire breeders and restless track wives.
The Engagement Party
by R J GouldWayne and Clarissa are a young London couple whose immediate families are about to meet for the first time. Trying to create harmony between the parents is hard enough, but in this case there are eight parents, step-parents, and partners to cope with. Wayne comes from a working class background and Clarissa, an upper-middle class one. They are deeply in love but tensions arising from the forthcoming gathering have created a rift, and it’s touch and go whether their relationship is strong enough to survive the event.With more than just an engagement on the line, can these two families come together – or will their differences rip them all apart?
Reckless II: Living Shadows (Reckless #2)
by Cornelia FunkeJacob has saved his brother from the Mirrorworld, but now he will pay a terrible price. A fairy's curse is burning in his heart, and to break the spell he must embark upon a perilous journey - with his trusty friend Fox by his side - to seek out the only treasure that could save him.Jacob's search for the golden crossbow will lead him across hundreds of miles by land and sea, to an invisible, enchanted palace within the Dead City. It will bring him face to face with vicious beasts, bloodthirsty giants, and a deadly stonefaced rival.It will test his courage like never before.Cornelia Funke is the highly acclaimed, award-winning and bestselling author of the Inkheart trilogy, Dragon Rider, The Thief Lord and numerous other children's novels and picture books. Born in 1958 in the German town of Dorsten, she worked as a social worker for a few years before turning first to illustration and then to writing. Her books have now sold more than 20 million copies worldwide, and have been translated into 37 languages.
Cedilla
by Adam Mars-JonesCedilla continues the history of John Cromer begun by Pilcrow, described by the London Review of Books as "peculiar, original, utterly idiosyncratic" and by the Sunday Times as "truly exhilarating". These huge and sparkling books are particularly surprising coming from a writer of previously (let's be tactful) modest productivity, who had seemed stubbornly attached to small forms. Now the alleged miniaturist has rumbled into the literary traffic in his monster truck, and seems determined to overtake Proust's cork-lined limousine while it's stopped at the lights.John Cromer is the weakest hero in literature -- unless he's one of the strongest. In Cedilla he launches himself into the wider world of mainstream education, and comes upon deeper joys, subtler setbacks. The tone and texture of the two books is similar, but their emotional worlds are very different. The slow unfolding of themes is perhaps closer to Indian classical music than the Western tradition -- raga/saga, anyone? This isn't an epic novel as such things are normally understood, to be sure. It contains no physical battles and the bare minimum of travel, yet surely it qualifies. None of the reviews of Pilcrow explicitly compared it to a coral reef made of a billion tiny Crunchie bars, but that was the drift of opinion. Page by page, Cedilla too provides unfailing pleasure. It's the book you can read between meals without ruining your appetite.
In the Valley of the Sun: A Novel
by Andy DavidsonNominated for the 2017 Bram Stoker Award and the 2017 This Is Horror Award One night in 1980, a man becomes a monster.Travis Stillwell spends his nights searching out women in honky-tonk bars on the back roads of Texas. What he does with them doesn't make him proud – it just quiets the demons for a little while. But when he crosses paths with one particular mysterious pale-skinned girl, he wakes up weak and bloodied, with no memory of the night before. Finding refuge at a small motel, Travis develops feelings for the owner, Annabelle, but at night he fights a horrible transformation and his need to feed.Half a state away, a grizzled Texas Ranger is hunting Travis for his past misdeeds, but what he finds will lead him to a revelation far more monstrous. A man of the law, he'll have to decide how far into the darkness he'll go for the sake of justice."By turns spare and solemn – but also vast and treacherous – as the Southwest." Jeffrey Stayton"Davidson's rich prose plunges the reader into a hell all the more terrifying for its banality... grabs you by the throat and drags you down a twisted road." E.Z. Rinsky"A beautiful nightmare. A book that haunts, teases, and compels. a must-read for any brave horror fan." Erik Storey"Like some knives, a work of art—sharp, frightening, and elegant." Nicholas Mainieri"A perfectly paced thriller that's chillingly fun to read, but Davidson's prose transcends genre like a fresh Cormac McCarthy." Dana Chamblee Carpenter"A flint-hard, gorgeously-written nightmare." Laird Barron"With lyrical prose and creeping dread, Davidson turns the screws." Kelly J. Ford"A riveting blend of vampire horror, a serial killer's tale, and police procedural." Dana Cameron"[A] beautifully written novel that combines literary horror with police procedural." Lisa Gray, Daily Record"In this bold, confident debut, Davidson takes the vampire myth to 1980s West Texas, perfectly capturing the feel of the era and place... Davidson successfully makes the lines between genre and literary fiction bleed together in a complex novel of horror, human nature, and the American South." Publishers Weekly"This is not your typical vampire novel, rather it is actually a lyrical modern western, with a large dose of suspense…The story drips with atmosphere, and the plot and the characters will play with readers' minds. Hand this hauntingly dark, yet oddly beautiful debut to fans of literary psychological suspense who don't mind a touch of the supernatural, and especially target fans of …Cormac McCarthy. This is one that readers won't easily forget after turning the final page." Booklist"An original synthesis of horror and Western with a dollop of police procedural. Intricately plotted, fast-paced, packing serpentine twists… Relentless momentum … a powerful, audacious debut." Lone Star Literary Top 10 Novels of 2017"Turns out there's a middle space between Tender Mercies and Preacher and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. It's called In the Valley of the Sun. And if I didn't know Andy Davidson had written it, I'd swear this was some long lost William Gay. I burned through this. It's got teeth on every page." Stephen Graham Jones, author of Mongrels"In the Valley of the Sun is a flint-hard, gorgeously written nightmare." Laird Barron, author of The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All"In the Valley of the Sun is a riveting blend of vampire horror, a serial killer's tale, and police procedural…Here is first-rate storytelling that grabs your attention and keeps you guessing." Dana Cameron, author of Hellbender
The Slab Boys Trilogy
by John ByrneSpanning the 1950s to the 70s, the plays capture the rebellious mood of a post-war generation growing up to a backdrop of James Dean, Elvis, sharp-suited glamour, hope and despair.John Byrne takes the slab room he worked in and makes it pure theatre: the scams, the dreams, the aloof but gorgeous girl, the despair of life back home, the obligatory tormenting of the office 'weed', and the mandatory boy chat and pranks all help the day to pass. Phil and Spanky explode onto the stage in a classic vaudeville double-act.Now considered one of Scotland's defining literary works of the twentieth century, the Slab Boys Trilogy premiered at the Traverse back in the late 1970s and early 80s taking Scotland, then Britain, and then Broadway quickly by storm.
Against All Odds
by R.A. LangAgainst All Odds takes you on a worldwide adventure filled with unexpected events, impossible and sometimes life-threatening situations including romance, tragedy, being shot at, ambushed, voodoo, cholera, Venezuelan riots, oil site evacuations, attempted murder escape from a crazed Kazakh psychopath, the KGB and more!
The Shell Collector
by Robert Lyons1973: the year of the oil crisis, the secondary banking collapse, the three day working week and the collapse of the stock market. In a riotous ride through the City of London we meet the characters and events that filled the social and City pages of the press in that roller-coaster year. Guy Magnus, an ambitious young share dealer, makes a daring takeover bid in the face of opposition from the City Establishment. Will he follow their rules, or his own: never to fall in love with a deal? Will he come to repent his challenge to the powers-that-be? Is Guy’s story fiction or fact? Was a Norfolk Broads canal boat really moored in the marina of Monte Carlo? Did a Henry Moore sculpture really become the most expensive work of art in the world? And did a bet for a lunch at Maxim’s for the first to make a million, Guy or his friend and rival Harry Griffin, bring a merchant bank to the verge of collapse? THE SHELL COLLECTOR tells a cautionary tale of the City when its buccaneering spirit was at a peak. Whether true or false, it is never less than entertaining.
Perfectly Reflected (Small Blue Thing)
by S. C. RansomStill recovering from her earlier brush with death, Alex's source of strength and comfort is Callum, still locked in a sad half-life after drowing in the river Fleet that flows into the Thames. And she needs all the strength and comfort she can get but someone is out to make her life a misery.
The Hot Gates and other occasional pieces
by William GoldingA dazzling collection of occasional writings by the Nobel Prize-winning novelist on subjects ranging from Thermopylae to the English Channel, and from Coral Island to Jules Verne.'A book of occasional essays which afford us many fascinating insights into Golding the man . . .It is highly individual yet profoundly modest; it has an unusual, slightly angular candour, full of painful knowledge and a beautiful humanity . . . event the slightest piece bears the mark of his rare, austere mind, his remarkable imagination . . . Even these occasional essays are enough to remind us that . . . there is not, at the moment, a writer to touch him.' New Society
Her Mother's Daughter: A heartbreaking page-turner that will stay with you
by Alice FitzgeraldHello! magazine's April 2018 'book of the week'Set across two decades in London and Ireland, Her Mother's Daughter sees the lives of a troubled and emotionally abusive mother and her innocent ten-year-old daughter change forever after one summer holiday.1980: Josephine flees her home in Ireland, hoping never to return. She starts a new, exciting life in London, but as much as she tries, she can't quite leave the trauma of her childhood behind.Seventeen years and two children later, Josephine gets a call from her sister to tell her that their mother is dying and wants to see her - a summons she can't refuse.1997: Ten-year-old Clare is counting down to the summer holidays, when she is going to meet her grandparents in Ireland for the first time. She hopes this trip will put an end to her mum's dark moods - and drinking.But family secrets can't stay buried forever and following revelations in Ireland, everything starts to unravel. Have Josephine and her daughter passed the point of no return?
Queen of Stones
by Emma TennantOn the weekend of October 17 1981, a party of girls who had set out on a sponsored walk from Beaminster became separated from their leader and disappeared into the worst fog ever recorded on the west coast of Dorset. For days search parties of anxious parents and police failed to trace the girls. Those that returned, finally, could give no coherent account of their strange exile from home.'Lord of the Flies was a book of this kind.' Observer'A compulsively readable work of the imagination.' Elaine Feinstein, Times'A delicate interweaving of Hansel and Gretel, Goldilocks, and 'Good Queen Bess'... its somber moods and haunting melodies give it a power beyond the range of mere intellect.' Literary Review
Critics, Monsters, Fanatics and Other Literary Essays
by Cynthia OzickIf every outlet for book criticism suddenly disappeared - if all we had were reviews that treated books like any other commodity - could the novel survive? In a gauntlet-throwing essay at the start of this brilliant assemblage, Cynthia Ozick stakes the claim that, just as surely as critics require a steady supply of new fiction, novelists need great critics to build a vibrant community on the foundation of literary history. For decades, Ozick herself has been one of our great critics, as these essays so clearly display. She offers models of critical analysis of writers from the mid-twentieth century to today, from Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud, and Kafka, to William Gass and Martin Amis, all assembled in provocatively named groups: Fanatics, Monsters, Figures, and others. Uncompromising and brimming with insight, these essays are essential reading for anyone facing the future of literature in the digital age.
Moondial (Oxford Bookworms Green Ser. #Stage 3)
by Helen CresswellA new edition of the much-loved classic story of time travel, ghosts and friendship.Even before she came to Belton, Minty Cane had known that she was a witch, or something very like it . . .Minty is the kind of girl who notices things. Pockets of cold air on a stairway. Cries on the wind. Ghosts.On night-time jaunts from the house where she's staying while her mother recovers from an accident, Minty stumbles upon a moondial which takes her back in time. She finds Tom, a sickly kitchen boy, and Sarah, a girl with a birthmark who is only allowed out at night because her family think she has the mark of the devil . . .Can Minty save her friends, or will she get stuck in the past . . .?'Fresh and entertaining.' Publishers Weekly'Carefully wrought and evanescent as a ghost story should be, this will be enjoyed by any admirer of Tom's Midnight Garden.' Kirkus
Wildwitch 4: Bloodling (Wildwitch #4)
by Lene KaaberbølClara comes of age as a wildwitch, and faces her most terrifying challenge yetAs Clara turns thirteen she must complete a daunting challenge in order to become a fully-fledged wildwitch, but a series of frightening attacks on her family are distracting her from the crucial task ahead of her.Clara searches for the source of the danger and finds herself drawn further and further into the mystery, towards a deadly battle with Bravita Bloodling that will leave her changed for ever.Award-winning and highly acclaimed writer of fantasy, Lene Kaaberbøl was born in 1960, grew up in the Danish countryside and had her first book published at the age of 15. Since then she has written more than 30 books for children and young adults. Lene's huge international breakthrough came with The Shamer Chronicles, which is published in more than 25 countries selling over a million copies worldwide.