Redemption Falls

By Joseph O'Connor

The year is 1865. The American Civil War is ending. Eighteen years after the famine ship Star of the Sea docked at New York, the daughter of two of her passengers sets out from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on a walk across a devastated America. Eliza Duane Mooney is searching for a young boy she has not seen in four years, one of the hundred thousand children drawn into the war. His fate has been mysterious and will prove extraordinary. It's a walk that will have consequences for many seemingly unconnected survivors: a love-struck cartographer, a haunted Latina poetess, rebel guerrilla Cole McLaurenson, runaway slave Elizabeth Longstreet and the mercurial revolutionary James O'Keeffe, who commanded a brigade of Irish immigrants in the Union Army and is now Governor of a western wilderness where nothing is as it seems. "Redemption Falls" is a tale of war and forgiveness, of strangers in a strange land, of love put to the ultimate test. Packed with music, balladry, poetry and storytelling, this is a riveting historical novel of urgent contemporary resonance, from the author of the internationally best-selling "Star of the Sea".

The Glass Books of The Dream Eaters

G. W. Dahlquist

A spy, a killer, and an impostor - this book features three extraordinary heroes. Miss Temple didn't come to the city for an adventure - she came to find a husband. But when her fiance, Roger Bascombe threw her over for no apparent reason, Miss Temple decided to find out why. Yet, following Roger to a masked ball (one with a most sinister purpose) will take Miss Temple very far from the respectable world she has always known ...Cardinal Chang, so thoroughly disreputable that he has been hired to kill a man, is disconcerted to find his masked target has already been assassinated. No longer able to trust those who hired him (if ever he did), he sets out to find who has beaten him to his quarry - and why ...Dr Svenson did not ask to be a chaperone to his Prince, but he is loyal all the same, even when the young prince's debauched appetites put him in the clutches of a cabal of very nasty characters and involve him in a diabolical 'process' that has singular effects on the human mind ..."The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters" is an adventure like no other, set in a city few have travelled to, featuring three heroes you will never ever forget.

The Uninvited

Geling Yan

This is the fantastical tale of Dan Dong, an unemployed factory worker whose life takes a series of unexpected twists upon his discovery that simply by posing as a journalist he can eat exquisite gourmet meals free of charge at state-sponsored banquets. But the secrets Dan overhears at these events eventually lead him down a twisted, intrigue-laden path, and his true and false identities become increasingly harder to separate. When he becomes privy to a scandal that runs from the depths of society up to its highest rungs, Dan must find a way to lay bare the corruption - without revealing the dangerous truth about himself.

A Better Way

By Delvin Dresser

Ralph Mosco often felt different from the other children his age. The son of a preacher, Ralph lived his life a little differently than many of the other teenagers his age with whom he went to school. While he always had the support of his girlfriend, Cherie, punks such as the unruly Desmond often tried to make trouble with Ralph. And the drunken principal and science teacher with a questionable past often seemed to go out of their way to make life difficult for young Ralph.

But the discovery of a stolen CD player involves Ralph in a web of crime, drugs, and intrigue. How far will Ralph go to help save the life of his nemesis and to rid his town of the scourge of the local drug lord? What secrets does Ms. Martin hide behind her angry scowl? And how does a shamed ex-preacher fir into the puzzle?

Delvin Dresser answers these questions and more in A Better Way, offering reader a look at one young man’s moral and ethical choices.

The Untouchable

By John Banville

A brilliant, engaging and highly literate espionage-cum-existential novel, John Banville's The Untouchable concerns the suddenly-exposed double agent Victor Maskell, a character based on the real Cambridge intellectual elites who famously spied on the United Kingdom in the middle of the 20th century. But Maskell--scholar, adventurer, soldier, art curator and more--respected and still living in England well past his retirement from espionage, looked like he was going to get away with it when unexpectedly, in his 70s and sick with cancer, he is unmasked. The question of why, and by whom assumes less importance for Maskell than the soul-searching questions of who, ultimately, he really is, why he spied in the first place, and whether his many-faceted existence adds up to an authentic life.

The Colour of Love

by Preethi Nair

A novel of painting, pretence and the strange ways in which truth makes itself known, from the author of ONE HUNDRED SHADES OF WHITE Nina's lost her job, boyfriend and faith in her guru in the space of 24 hours. Unable to tell her parents what has happened, she puts on a suit every day and pretends to go to work. What she's really doing is escaping to a studio, where she begins to paint for the first time in years. But when her work is spotted by a top gallery owner, she cannot admit she is the painter, and pretends to be the agent instead. Meanwhile at home, she's agreed to an arranged marriage to keep the peace. There are too many layers of pretence and something has to give way - but at what cost to Nina? This novel is based on the author's own experience of self-publishing her first novel. To lend it credibilty, she invented Pru, a pushy publicist. Pru went on to be shortlisted for the PPC Publicist of the Year Award, but her cover was blown - it was Preethi all along.

The Warrior Prophet

By R. Scott Bakker

"Book Two of The Prince of Nothing" finds the Holy War continuing its inexorable march southward. But the suspicion begins to dawn that the real threat comes not from the infidel but from within...Steering souls through the subtleties of word and expression, Kellhus strives to extend his dominion over the Men of the Tusk. The sorcerer Achamian and his lover, Esmenet, submit entirely, only to have their faith - and their love - tested in unimaginable ways. Meanwhile, the warrior Cnaiur falls ever deeper into madness. Convinced that Kellhus will betray their pact to murder his father, Cnaiur turns to the agents of the Second Apocalypse and strikes an infernal bargain. The Holy War stands on a knife edge. If all is not to be lost, the great powers of the world will have to choose between their most desperate desires and the end of the world. Between hatred and hope. Between Anasurimbor Kellhus and the second apocalypse.

Tigers in Red Weather

By Ruth Padel

After a terrible year, the end of a five-year affair and the death of her father, Ruth Padel wants out from normal life and happens across an advert for a trip to India. She visits a tiger reserve - and so begins a remarkable journey and an obsession. She travels across the world, Bhutan to Siberia, China to Sumatra, into jungles and into myths, in search of tigers: the most beautiful, and one of the most endangered, animals in the world. In every jungle, among the snakes, scorpions and animals living their secret lives, she meets "defenders of the wild", scientists, guards and conservationists struggling to protect forest animals from armed poachers, live electrocuting fences, poisoning. As she becomes more passionately interested in her elusive subject, she contemplates the meaning of obsession: where it takes us, how it shapes us. Indeed, it is our obsession with tigers that has brought them to the edge of extinction. Tigers stalk the pages of this book more vividly than in any wildlife programme. Both a captivating piece of natural history and a beautiful piece of travel literature, Tigers in Red Weather is also an absorbing exploration of obsession, and of the human heart.

We Need to Talk About Kevin

By Lionel Shriver

Two years ago, Eva Khatchadourian's son, Kevin, murdered seven of his fellow high-school students, a cafeteria worker, and a popular algebra teacher. Because he was only fifteen at the time of the killings, he received a lenient sentence and is now in a prison for young offenders in upstate New York. Telling the story of Kevin's upbringing, Eva addresses herself to her estranged husband through a series of letters. Fearing that her own shortcomings may have shaped what her son has become, she confesses to a deep, long-standing ambivalence about both motherhood in general and Kevin in particular. How much is her fault? Lionel Shriver tells a compelling, absorbing, and resonant story while framing these horrifying tableaux of teenage carnage as metaphors for the larger tragedy - the tragedy of a country where everything works, nobody starves, and anything can be bought but a sense of purpose.

The Story of The Holy Grail

By Chretien de Troyes

Review by HELEN COOPER

The Story of the Grail (to give it its original title) is a story about naming; about what things are. Riding out to visit his mother's labourers, the boy encounters a group of knights, whom he believes must be angels. When they ask him his name, he replies with the set by which people call him: Dear Son, Dear Brother, Good Master ' the last getting an acknowledgment as a 'fine name' from the knight who is questioning him, as it indicates high status. He determines to go to King Arthur and get himself made a knight. Before he sets out, his mother gives him instructions on how to behave in the world, and tells him something of his own history ' how his father and brothers were killed in combat and she had withdrawn to the forest to preserve her last remaining child. She does not, however, name any of them, despite her insistence that one of the most important things he must do is to find out the names of his companions wherever he rides or lodges, 'for a name tells you a man'. Her son rides off to find King Arthur, leaving her swooning with grief. He still does not know who he is. [read more]

Review from London Review of Books

The Grass Dancer

By Susan Power

A major talent debuts with this beguiling novel whose characters are Dakota Sioux and their spirit ancestors. Covering some of the same themes as Louise Erdrich but displaying her own distinctive voice and transcendent imagination, Power has produced an authentic portrait of Native American culture and characters who are as resilient and tangible as the grass moving over the Great Plains. In interconnected stories that begin in 1981 and range back to 1864, the residents of a Sioux reservation endure poverty, epidemic illness, injustice and--no less importantly--jealousy, greed, anger and unrequited love. The tales begin and end with Harley Wind Soldier, a 17-year-old whose soul is a "black, empty hole" because his mother has not spoken a word since the accident 17 years earlier in which Harley's father and brother died. Eventually we discover the true circumstances surrounding that event and other secrets--of clandestine love affairs, of childrens' paternity--that stretch back several generations but hold a grip on the present. Meanwhile, Harley falls in love with enchanting Pumpkin, an amazingly adept grass dancer whose fate will make readers gasp. Mercury Thunder and her daughter Anna use magic in a sinister way, and tragedy results. Herod Small War, a Yuwipi (interpreter of dreams), tries to bring his community into harmony with the spiritual world.

The existence of ghosts in the real world is accepted with calm belief by the characters, who know the old legends and understand that the direction of their lives is determined by their gods and ancestors. Power weaves historical events--the Apollo Moon landing; the 19th-century Great Plains drought--into her narrative, reinforcing the seamless coexistence of the real and the spirit realm. A consummate storyteller whose graceful prose is plangent with lyrical metaphor and sensuous detail, she deftly uses suspense, humor, irony and the gradual revelation of dramatic disclosures to compose a tapestry of human life. Seduced by her humane vision and its convincing depiction, one absorbs the traditions and lore of the Sioux community with a sense of wonder reflecting that with which the characters view the natural world. This is a book that begs to be read at one sitting, and then again.

The Monstrous Regiment

By Terry Pratchet

It begun as a sudden strange fancy...Polly Perks had to become a boy in a hurry. Cutting off her hair and wearing trousers was easy. Learning to fart and belch in public and walk like an ape took more time...And now she's enlisted in the army, and searching for her lost brother. But there's a war on. There's always a war on. And Polly and her fellow recruits are suddenly in the thick of it, without any training, and the enemy is hunting them. All they have on their side is the most artful sergeant in the army and a vampire with a lust for coffee. Well...they have the Secret. And as they take the war to the heart of the enemy, they have to use all the resources of...the Monstrous Regiment.

Shadowmancer

By G.P Taylor

Obadiah Demurral is a sorcerer who is seeking to control the highest power in the universe. He will stop at nothing. The only people in his way are Raphael, Kate, Thomas - and the mysterious Jacob Crane. Their tortured struggles lead them to a dramatic climax in the gothic church of St Mary's.

Shadowmancer is the book that has been dubbed 'Hotter than Potter' and is set to give J.K. Rowling's hero a run for its money! Packed full of history, folklore and smuggling, this tale of the epic battle between good and evil will charm both young and old. The thrills, suspense and danger are guaranteed to grab the attention and stretch imaginations to the limit.

Shaman's Crossing

By Robin Hobb

The first book in a brand new trilogy from the author of the Farseer, Liveship Traders and Tawny Man trilogies. When the two-hundred year war between the kingdoms of Vania and Landsing ended the Landsingers were left in triumphant possession of Vania's rich coal and coast territories. When young King Troven assumed the throne of Vania thirty years later, he was determined to restore her greatness, not through waging another assault upon their traditional enemies, but by looking in the opposite direction and colonising the wild plains and steppes to their east. Over the next twenty years, cavalry forces manage to subdue the rolling plains formerly wasted on nomadic herders and tribesmen.Troven's campaign restores the pride of the Varnian military and to reward them, Troven creates a new nobility that is extremely loyal to their monarch. Beyond the grasslands lies the current frontier of Varnia, the heavily forested Barrier Mountains, home to enigmatic Specks: a dappled, forest dwelling people, unable to tolerate the heat and full sunlight of the plains. The new settlers find the Specks slightly dim-witted and overly placid, and yet strangely difficult to control.

There are tales that they are 'blood-drinkers' and their nature worship of ancestral trees has presented difficulties for those who wish to harvest the forest's exotic timber. They also harbour strange diseases, ones that cause the Specks little more than a week or two of discomfort but which frequently kills those settlers and soldiers who fall victim to it. For that reason, prolonged contact, and especially intimate contact with the Specks is judged both fool-hardy and disgusting. Nevare Gerar is the second son of one of King Troven's new lords. Following in his father's footsteps, a commission as a cavalry officer at the frontier and an advantageous marriage await him, once he has completed his training at the King's Cavalry Academy.

A Long Way Down

By Nick Hornby

IN HIS NEW novel, Nick Hornby deals with the topic of suicide in a respectful and honest way. It tells the story of four people who meet by chance at the aptly named "Toppers House" on New Years Eve. Maureen, a dowdy middle-aged woman wants to end her life as a full-time carer for her severely disabled son. Jess, a crazed teenager ends up there after being dumped by her boyfriend. Martin a shamed breakfast TV presenter feels there's no other way out and pizza delivery boy / musician JJ can't seem to fulfil his dreams. The four manage to talk each other out of jumping from the building and form a pact to help each other out. They all gain from the friendship in different ways and the course of events following their meeting is both funny and sad in equal measure. A plot full of twists and laugh out loud moments never fails - and this book is certainly no exception.