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Escape to the sun-drenched shores of Lake Como in the irresistible and gripping new novel from the million-copy bestselling author…
of Thursdays in the Park, The Anniversary and The Lie'Held me spellbound . . . This novel is unmissable' 5***** Reader Review'Magnificent! So refreshing, this left me on the edge of my seat' 5***** Reader Review'The tension builds up to a heart-stopping crescendo' 5***** Reader Review_______On the glamorous shores of Lake Como, Connie meets Jared.She's married. He's young. But that doesn't stop the heat rising between them.And so begins a long, hot, intoxicating summer where Connie succumbs to temptation - breaking her marriage vows.At the end of summer, Connie returns to her husband, ready to put the affair behind her.But Jared has other ideas . . ._______Praise for Hilary Boyd'Hilary Boyd nails family dynamics and misplaced loyalties with pin-sharp precision in an impressively well-written tale' Daily Express'I was ripping through this book . . . addictive' Evening Standard'Boyd is as canny as Joanna Trollope at observing family life' Daily MailDark Places: The New York Times bestselling phenomenon from the author of Gone Girl
By Gillian Flynn. 2009
THE BESTSELLING PHENOMENON 'Eerily macabre... Wonderful' Guardian'A nerve-fraying thriller' New York Times'Every bit as horribly fascinating as In Cold Blood'…
Daily MailLibby Day was seven when her family was murdered: she survived by hiding in a closet - and famously testified that her older brother Ben was the killer. Twenty-five years later the Kill Club - a secret society obsessed with notorious crimes - gets in touch with Libby to try to discover proof that may free Ben. Almost broke, Libby agrees to go back to her hometown to investigate - for a fee. But when Libby's search uncovers an unimaginable truth, she finds herself right back where she started: on the run from a killer. THE ORIGINAL #1 BESTSELLER, BY THE AUTHOR OF GONE GIRL 'I would rather read her than just about any other crime writer' Kate Atkinson'Gillian Flynn is the real deal: a sharp, acerbic and compelling storyteller' Stephen King'An extraordinarily good writer' ObserverSmall Pleasures: Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction
By Clare Chambers. 2020
LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2021'A WORD-OF-MOUTH HIT' Evening Standard 'A very fine book... It's witty and sharp…
and reads like something by Barbara Pym or Anita Brookner, without ever feeling like a pastiche'David Nicholls'Perfect'India Knight 'Beautiful' Jessie Burton'Wonderful'Richard Osman 'Miraculous'Tracy Chevalier 'A wonderful novel. I loved it'Nina Stibbe 'Effortless to read, but every sentence lingers in the mind' Lissa Evans 'This is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. I honestly don't want you to be without it'Lucy Mangan'Gorgeous... If you're looking for something escapist and bittersweet, I could not recommend more' Pandora Sykes'Remarkable... Small Pleasures is no small pleasure'The Times'An irresistible novel - wry, perceptive and quietly devastating'Mail on Sunday'Chambers' eye for undemonstrative details achieves a Larkin-esque lucidity' Guardian'An almost flawlessly written tale of genuine, grown-up romantic anguish' The Sunday Times 1957, the suburbs of South East London. Jean Swinney is a journalist on a local paper, trapped in a life of duty and disappointment from which there is no likelihood of escape. When a young woman, Gretchen Tilbury, contacts the paper to claim that her daughter is the result of a virgin birth, it is down to Jean to discover whether she is a miracle or a fraud. As the investigation turns her quiet life inside out, Jean is suddenly given an unexpected chance at friendship, love and - possibly - happiness. But there will, inevitably, be a price to pay.Book of the Year for: The Times, Daily Telegraph, Evening Standard, Daily Express, Metro, Spectator, Red Magazine and Good HousekeepingRosie colored glasses
By Brianna Wolfson. 2018
Whimsical, heartbreaking and uplifting, this is a novel about the many ways love can find you. Rosie Colored Glasses triumphs…
with the most endearing examples of how mothers and fathers and sons and daughters bend for one another. Just as opposites attract, they can also cause friction, and no one feels that friction more than Rex and Rosie's daughter, Willow. Rex is serious and unsentimental and tapes checklists of chores on Willow's bedroom door. Rosie is sparkling and enchanting and meets Willow in their treehouse in the middle of the night to feast on candy. After Rex and Rosie's divorce, Willow finds herself navigating their two different worlds. She is clearly under the spell of her exciting, fun-loving mother. But as Rosie's behavior becomes more turbulent, the darker underpinnings of her manic love are revealed. Rex had removed his Rosie colored glasses long ago, but will Willow do the same? UnratedGetting It Right
By Karen E. Osborne. 2017
"Osborne explores questions of race, privilege, and family loyalties without offering any false, easy answers for her two protagonists."--Booklist"Looking for…
an edge-of-your-seat suspense yarn? You won't find a more absorbing story than Getting It Right...In it we get to know half sisters Kara and Alex, who meet for the first time as adults. Over two weeks in March, the siblings deal with both their own and common issues and drama in ways that entertain and enlighten."--Essence, One of Summer's Best Books"Osborne has created a compelling story of women trying to move past the bondage of their upbringing. We are left wondering, what does it mean to make amends? Is redemption possible?...Getting It Right is absorbing and pushes at understanding race, family bonds, and trauma."--Atticus ReviewGetting It Right is the story of Kara and Alex, half-sisters who have never met—one the product of an abusive foster-care setting, the other of dysfunctional privilege. Haunted by crippling memories, Kara falls for the wrong men, tries to help her foster-care siblings suffering from PTSD, and longs for the father and half-sister she only knows from a photograph. Alex, meanwhile, struggles to keep her younger sisters out of trouble, her mother sane, and her marketing business afloat.Now Alex has a new responsibility: from his hospital bed, her father tasks her with finding Kara, the mixed-race child he abandoned. Alex is stunned to learn of Kara's existence but reluctantly agrees.To make things more complicated, Kara loves a married man whom the FBI is pursuing for insider trading. When Alex eventually finds her half-sister, she becomes embroiled in Kara's dangers, which threaten to drag them both down. If Kara doesn't help the FBI, she could face prosecution and possible incarceration, and if Alex can't persuade Kara to meet their father, she will let him down during the final days of his life.Set in Harlem, the Bronx, and the wealthy community of Bedford, New York, during two weeks in March, Getting It Right explores grit and resilience, evolving definitions of race and family, and the ultimate power of redemption and forgiveness.All Waiting Is Long: A Novel
By Barbara J. Taylor. 2016
"Powerful...Every page is saturated with the 1930s milieu as the sisters navigate the adversities of their reality on a sea…
rough with the unrealistic expectations of well-intended idealists both religious and secular. As if to highlight those expectations, Taylor periodically interrupts her third-person narrative with Greek chorus-type commentary from the Scranton-based Isabelle Lumley Bible Class, including excerpts from a 1929 sex manual for women. The overall result is a thought-provoking book club discussion cornucopia."--Booklist, Starred review"Set in the 1930s, Taylor's suspenseful and intricate follow-up to Sing in the Morning, Cry at Night tells the story of sisters Violet and Lily Morgan...Taylor delivers startling plot twists and incisive commentary on the social unrest of a coal-mining town during the Great Depression. Covering a six-year span, the novel reveals the consequences of arduous labor and widespread sterilizations that came with the eugenics movement. Among the prostitutes, mobsters, and miners is a web of interconnected lives that come together for a breathtaking ending in Taylor's fine sequel."--Publishers Weekly"A good selection for book clubs, All Waiting Is Long is set in Pennsylvania coal country in the 1930s, a time of tumultuous change and social unrest, including the rise of the eugenics movement. Barbara Taylor's characters--a cast of nuns and prostitutes, mobsters and miners, social activists and church busybodies--reflect the varying pressures and expectations of small-town life with rich, insightful prose and dialogue that rings true to each character's voice. Will the web of lies the two sisters weave around themselves survive? You''ll have to read it yourself to find out. Recommended."--Historical Novel Review"Barbara J. Taylor has created another suspenseful page-turner . . . revealing shocking details of enlightened thinking in the 1930s against the backdrop of political corruption, unions, rampant prostitution, coal mine strikes, and judgmental Christians. But it's Taylor's finely honed characters and plot twists that make All Waiting Is Long an unforgettable novel."--BookMark on WPSU"In this richly populated community, old ties are either torn or tightened, and the characters left behind when the sisters went off are nicely fleshed out...Ms. Taylor writes with total mastery of her craft. Her similes and metaphors are born of a highly developed abstractive sensitivity, and her dialogues are unerringly true to their respective speakers."--BookPleasuresThe latest novel in Akashic's Kaylie Jones Books imprint.All Waiting Is Long tells the stories of the Morgan sisters, a study in contrasts. In 1930, twenty-five-year-old Violet travels with her sixteen-year-old sister Lily from Scranton, Pennsylvania, to the Good Shepherd Infant Asylum in Philadelphia, so Lily can deliver her illegitimate child in secret. In doing so, Violet jeopardizes her engagement to her longtime sweetheart, Stanley Adamski. Meanwhile, Mother Mary Joseph, who runs the Good Shepherd, has no idea the asylum's physician, Dr. Peters, is involved in eugenics and experimenting on the girls with various sterilization techniques.Five years later, Lily and Violet are back home in Scranton, one married, one about to be, each finding her own way in a place where a woman's worth is tied to her virtue. Against the backdrop of the sweeping eugenics movement and rogue coal mine strikes, the Morgan sisters must choose between duty and desire. Either way, they risk losing their marriages and each other.The novel picks up sixteen years after the close of Barbara J. Taylor's debut novel, Sing in the Morning, Cry at Night--a Publishers Weekly Best Summer Book of 2014--and continues her Dickensian exploration of the MorganL'autre fille (Les affranchis)
By Annie Ernaux. 2011
"Yvetot, un dimanche d'août 1950. Annie a dix ans, elle joue dehors, au soleil, sur le chemin caillouteux de la…
rue de l'Ecole. Sa mère sort de l'épicerie pour discuter avec une cliente, à quelques mètres d'elle. La conversation des deux femmes est parfaitement audible et les bribes d'une confidence inouïe se gravent à jamais dans la mémoire d'Annie. Avant sa naissance, ses parents avaient eu une autre fille. Elle est morte à l'âge de six ans de la diphtérie. Plus jamais Annie n'entendra un mot de la bouche de ses parents sur cette soeur inconnue. Elle ne leur posera jamais non plus une seule question. Mais même le silence contribue à forger un récit qui donne des contours à cette petite fille morte. Car forcément, elle joue un rôle dans l'identité de l'auteur. Les quelques mots, terribles, prononcés par la mère ; des photographies, une tombe, des objets, des murmures, un livret de famille : ainsi se construit, dans le réel et dans l'imaginaire, la fiction de cette " aînée " pour celle à qui l'on ne dit rien. Reste à savoir si la seconde fille, Annie, est autorisée à devenir ce qu'elle devient par la mort de la première..." -- 4e de couvThe mothers: a novel
By Jennifer Gilmore. 2013
Brooklyn. Thirty-eight-year-old Jesse and her Spanish/Italian husband have difficulty conceiving a child and decide to adopt. But Jesse's past cancer…
diagnosis, her Jewish heritage, and new laws regulating international and open-adoption processes create complications. 2013The Figurine: The brand NEW novel from the much-loved author of The Island
By Victoria Hislop. 2023
In her irresistible new novel, Sunday Times No 1 bestselling author* Victoria Hislop shines a light on the questionable acquisition…
of cultural treasures and the price people - and countries - will pay to cling on to them.Of all the ancient art that captures the imagination, none is more appealing than the Cycladic figurine. An air of mystery swirls around these statuettes from the Bronze Age and they are highly sought after by collectors - and looters - alike. When Helena inherits her grandparents' apartment in Athens, she is overwhelmed with memories of the summers she spent there as a child, when Greece was under a brutal military dictatorship. Her remote, cruel grandfather was one of the regime's generals and as she sifts through the dusty rooms, Helena discovers an array of valuable objects and antiquities. How did her grandfather amass such a trove? What human price was paid for them?Helena's desire to find answers about her heritage dovetails with a growing curiosity for archaeology, ignited by a summer spent with volunteers on a dig on an Aegean island. Their finds fuel her determination to protect the precious fragments recovered from the baked earth - and to understand the origins of her grandfather's collection.Helena's attempt to make amends for some of her grandfather's actions sees her wrestle with the meaning of 'home', both in relation to looted objects of antiquity ... and herself.*Victoria Hislop's One August Night was a Sunday Times Number One bestseller in paperback in the first week of August 2021; Those Who Are Loved was a Sunday Times Number One bestseller in paperback for four weeks in August and September 2020.The Figurine: The brand NEW novel from the No 1 Sunday Times bestselling author of The Island
By Victoria Hislop. 2023
Multi-million copy bestselling author Victoria Hislop returns with the captivating tale of one woman's quest to come to terms with…
her family's brutal past.In her irresistible new novel, Sunday Times No 1 bestselling author Victoria Hislop shines a light on the questionable acquisition of cultural treasures and the price people - and countries - will pay to cling on to them.Of all the ancient art that captures the imagination, none is more appealing than the Cycladic figurine. An air of mystery swirls around these statuettes from the Bronze Age and they are highly sought after by collectors - and looters - alike. When Helena inherits her grandparents' apartment in Athens, she is overwhelmed with memories of the summers she spent there as a child, when Greece was under a brutal military dictatorship. Her remote, cruel grandfather was one of the regime's generals and as she sifts through the dusty rooms, Helena discovers an array of valuable objects and antiquities. How did her grandfather amass such a trove? What human price was paid for them?Helena's desire to find answers about her heritage dovetails with a growing curiosity for archaeology, ignited by a summer spent with volunteers on a dig on an Aegean island. Their finds fuel her determination to protect the precious fragments recovered from the baked earth - and to understand the origins of her grandfather's collection.Helena's attempt to make amends for some of her grandfather's actions sees her wrestle with the meaning of 'home', both in relation to looted objects of antiquity ... and herself.(P)2023 Headline Publishing Group LtdThe Figurine: The brand NEW novel from the No 1 Sunday Times bestselling author of The Island
By Victoria Hislop. 2023
In her irresistible new novel, Sunday Times No 1 bestselling author Victoria Hislop shines a light on the questionable acquisition…
of cultural treasures and the price people - and countries - will pay to cling on to them.Of all the ancient art that captures the imagination, none is more appealing than the Cycladic figurine. An air of mystery swirls around these statuettes from the Bronze Age and they are highly sought after by collectors - and looters - alike. When Helena inherits her grandparents' apartment in Athens, she is overwhelmed with memories of the summers she spent there as a child, when Greece was under a brutal military dictatorship. Her remote, cruel grandfather was one of the regime's generals and as she sifts through the dusty rooms, Helena discovers an array of valuable objects and antiquities. How did her grandfather amass such a trove? What human price was paid for them?Helena's desire to find answers about her heritage dovetails with a growing curiosity for archaeology, ignited by a summer spent with volunteers on a dig on an Aegean island. Their finds fuel her determination to protect the precious fragments recovered from the baked earth - and to understand the origins of her grandfather's collection.Helena's attempt to make amends for some of her grandfather's actions sees her wrestle with the meaning of 'home', both in relation to looted objects of antiquity ... and herself.Period (Books That Changed the World)
By Dennis Cooper. 2000
The final novel in the award-winning George Miles Cycle. &“A triumphant finale to one of the most intense series of…
novels ever written&” (Mondo). The stunning conclusion to Dennis Cooper&’s five-book cycle, Period earned its author the accolade &“a disquieting genius&” by Vanity Fair and praise for his &“elegant prose and literary lawlessness&” from The New York Times. Breathtaking and mesmerizing, it is the culmination of Cooper&’s explorations into sex and death, youth culture, and the search for the ineffable object of desire. Cooper has taken his familiar themes—strangely irresistible and interchangeable young men, passion that crosses into murder, the lure of drugs, the culpabilities of authorship, and the inexact, haunting communication of feeling—and melded them into a novel of flawless form and immense power. Set in a spare, smoke-and-mirror-filled world of secret websites, Goth bands, Satanism, pornography, and outsider art, Period is a literary disappearing act as mysterious as it is logical. Obsessive, beautiful, and darkly comic, Period is a stunning achievement from one of America&’s finest writers. &“A fascinating, intricately crafted jewel of a book . . . It&’s a book one could read over and over and never exhaust.&” —San Francisco Chronicle Book Review &“To read Period (a book so intricate, it comes with its own strategy guide) is to witness the idea of the novel itself imploding; to glimpse the end of language; to become aware of literature&’s dizzying possibilities.&” —The Guardian &“An elegy to the nature of obsessive love, the need to feel . . . [Cooper] is a profoundly original American visionary, and the most important transgressive literary artist since Burroughs.&” —Salon &“Haunting.&” —DetailsI Called Him Necktie
By Sheila Dickie, Milena Michiko Flasar. 2014
"The best of the best from this year's bountiful harvest of uncommonly strong offerings ... Deeply original." -O, The Oprah…
Magazine"Exceptional ... In today's less-than-brave new world in which sincere human interaction is disappearing even as the numbers of so-called 'friends' are multiplying, Necktie is a piercing reminder to acknowledge, nurture, and share our humanity."-Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center blog BookDragon"The quiet reflection of this jewel of a novel is revelatory, redemptive and hypnotic until the last word."-Kirkus Reviews"A spare, stunning, elegiac gem of a book. Milena Michiko Flašar writes with a poet's clarity of language and vision, probing deeply below the surfaces of familiar Japanese stereotypes ... to tell a compassionate and insightful story of dysfunction, despair and friendship."-Ruth Ozeki, author of A Tale for the Time Being"Flašar's exquisite, finely wrought novel is both a prose poem and a parable about how we deflect, defer and disconnect from life, and what is needed before we can bravely embrace it again."- Monique Truong, author of The Book of Salt and Bitter in the Mouth"A tender, melancholy book of great linguistic beauty and clarity. A flawless novel."-Süddeutsche Zeitung"With high artistry . . . this seductive beauty is also strangely religious: the book treats life with an almost Buddhist serenity."-Der SpiegelTwenty-year-old Taguchi Hiro has spent the last two years of his life living as a hikikomori-a shut-in who never leaves his room and has no human interaction-in his parents' home in Tokyo. As Hiro tentatively decides to reenter the world, he spends his days observing life around him from a park bench. Gradually he makes friends with Ohara Tetsu, a middle-aged salaryman who has lost his job but can't bring himself to tell his wife, and shows up every day in a suit and tie to pass the time on a nearby bench. As Hiro and Tetsu cautiously open up to each other, they discover in their sadness a common bond. Regrets and disappointments, as well as hopes and dreams, come to the surface until both find the strength to somehow give a new start to their lives. This beautiful novel is moving, unforgettable, and full of surprises. The reader turns the last page feeling that a small triumph has occurred.Milena Michiko Flašar was born in 1980, the daughter of a Japanese mother and an Austrian father. She lives in Vienna. I Called Him Necktie won the 2012 Austrian Alpha Literature Prize.Tender As Hellfire
By Joe Meno. 2007
"Features some of the liveliest characters that one is apt to meet in a contemporary novel. Vividly described."-Publishers Weekly"Extremely vivid.…
. . . Any number of novels have been written about unhappy childhoods and bizarre families, but this one surpasses many."-Kirkus ReviewsJoe Meno limns a near-fantastical world of trailer park floozies, broken-down '76 Impalas, lost glass eyes, and the daily experiences of two boys trying to make sense of their random, sharp lives. Joe Meno is the author of the novels Hairstyles of the Damned, The Boy Detective Fails,and How the Hula Girl Sings. He was the winner of the 2003 Nelson Algren Award for short fiction and is a professor of creative writing at Columbia College Chicago.Guys Like Me
By Howard Curtis, Dominique Fabre. 2015
"Fabre is a genius of these nuanced, interior moments ... The story Fabre tells is that of every one of…
us: looking for meaning in the mundane, moving through our lives, our interactions, as if through the fabric of a dream ... How do we live? it asks to consider. And: What does our existence mean?"--Los Angeles Times"Guys Like Me is a short, arresting tale that ...not only offers keen insights into the mind of its middle-aged protagonist, but also provides the reader with a unique tour of what everyday life in the low-key suburbs of Paris must truly be like."--Typographical Era"Readers will take pleasure in this well-told tale with a satisfying ending."--Publishers Weekly"The setting may be Paris, but it's not the Paris of grand avenues and pricey cafés. In fact, Fabre's hero is a recognizable everyman, from any country."-Library JournalA smile like a soft flash of light . . . travels through this moving novel and tells, in words that are muted and profoundly humane, of life as it is."-Le Monde"Fabre speaks to us of luck and misfortune, of the accidents that make a man or defeat him. He talks about our ordinary disappointments and our small moments of calm. Fabre is the discreet megaphone of the man in the crowd."-Elle"In this novel one finds the intimate geography of an author who lays bare the essence of Paris and its outskirts."-La Quinzaine littéraireDominique Fabre, born in Paris and a lifelong resident of the city, exposes the shadowy, anonymous lives of many who inhabit the French capital. In this quiet, subdued tale, a middle-aged office worker, divorced and alienated from his only son, meets up with two childhood friends who are similarly adrift, without passions or prospects. He's looking for a second act to his mournful life, seeking the harbor of love and a true connection with his son. Set in palpably real Paris streets that feel miles away from the City of Light, Guys Like Me is a stirring novel of regret and absence, yet not without a glimmer of hope.Dominique Fabre, born in 1960, writes about people living on society's margins. He is a lifelong resident of Paris, France. His previous novel, The Waitress Was New, was also translated into English.Butterflies in November
By Auður A. Ólafsdóttir, Auour Ava Olafsdottir, Brian FitzGibbon. 2014
The Pharmacist: The must-read, gripping speculative thriller debut of 2022
By Rachelle Atalla. 2022
'This horrendously claustrophobic, utterly absorbing debut. The fiercely controlled narrative beautifully translates the horrendous grip of dismal routines and tiny,…
stolen pleasures' DAILY MAIL'There are shades of George Orwell in this stunning writing debut, but Rachelle Atalla's voice is highly original. And wholly her own' THE HERALD'A compulsive, claustrophobic but wonderfully compassionate read, beautifully written and set within a brilliantly realised world. Rachelle Atalla is a major talent and I can't wait to see where her mind goes next' KIRSTIN INNES, AUTHOR OF SCABBY QUEEN'Atalla's speculative literary thriller debut draws you in with its mounting sense of tension, disquiet and desperation' CULTUREFLYTHE BUNKER IS DESIGNED TO KEEP THEM ALL SAFE. In the end, very few people made it to the bunker. Now they wait there for the outside world to heal. Wolfe is one of the lucky ones. She's safe and employed as the bunker's pharmacist, doling out medicine under the watchful eye of their increasingly erratic and paranoid leader. BUT IS IT THE PLACE OF GREATEST DANGER? But when the leader starts to ask things of Wolfe, favours she can hardly say no to, it seems her luck is running out. Forming an unlikely alliance with the young Doctor Stirling, her troubled assistant Levitt, and Canavan - a tattooed giant of a man who's purpose in the bunker is a mystery - Wolfe must navigate the powder keg of life underground where one misstep will light the fuse. The walls that keep her safe also have her trapped.How much more is Wolfe willing to give to stay alive?Beautifully written and utterly gripping, The Pharmacist will be a guaranteed conversation starter when it is published.'An unflinching portrayal of what we might all be capable of, Atalla's stunning debut is essential reading for our times' HELEN SEDGWICK'Though set in a speculative future, The Pharmacist is very much a book for our own broken times. Its story grips and never lets go, unflinching in its portrayal of abused power, moral confusion and betrayal, but also fully alive to the redemptive possibilities of compassion, resistance and love. This is a powerful and memorable debut from an exciting new voice' WAYNE PRICE'A triumph of a book. Character-led but taut and purposeful with action' LIAM MURRAY BELLThe Pharmacist: The must-read, gripping speculative thriller debut of 2022
By Rachelle Atalla. 2022
'This horrendously claustrophobic, utterly absorbing debut. The fiercely controlled narrative beautifully translates the horrendous grip of dismal routines and tiny,…
stolen pleasures' DAILY MAIL'There are shades of George Orwell in this stunning writing debut, but Rachelle Atalla's voice is highly original. And wholly her own' THE HERALD'A compulsive, claustrophobic but wonderfully compassionate read, beautifully written and set within a brilliantly realised world. Rachelle Atalla is a major talent and I can't wait to see where her mind goes next' KIRSTIN INNES, AUTHOR OF SCABBY QUEEN'Atalla's speculative literary thriller debut draws you in with its mounting sense of tension, disquiet and desperation' CULTUREFLYTHE BUNKER IS DESIGNED TO KEEP THEM ALL SAFE. In the end, very few people made it to the bunker. Now they wait there for the outside world to heal. Wolfe is one of the lucky ones. She's safe and employed as the bunker's pharmacist, doling out medicine under the watchful eye of their increasingly erratic and paranoid leader. BUT IS IT THE PLACE OF GREATEST DANGER? But when the leader starts to ask things of Wolfe, favours she can hardly say no to, it seems her luck is running out. Forming an unlikely alliance with the young Doctor Stirling, her troubled assistant Levitt, and Canavan - a tattooed giant of a man who's purpose in the bunker is a mystery - Wolfe must navigate the powder keg of life underground where one misstep will light the fuse. The walls that keep her safe also have her trapped.How much more is Wolfe willing to give to stay alive?Beautifully written and utterly gripping, The Pharmacist will be a guaranteed conversation starter when it is published.'An unflinching portrayal of what we might all be capable of, Atalla's stunning debut is essential reading for our times' HELEN SEDGWICK'Though set in a speculative future, The Pharmacist is very much a book for our own broken times. Its story grips and never lets go, unflinching in its portrayal of abused power, moral confusion and betrayal, but also fully alive to the redemptive possibilities of compassion, resistance and love. This is a powerful and memorable debut from an exciting new voice' WAYNE PRICE'A triumph of a book. Character-led but taut and purposeful with action' LIAM MURRAY BELLStrange Love (Made In Michigan Writers Ser.)
By Lisa Lenzo. 2014
The nine stories of Strange Love center on Annie Zito, a smart-but-not-always-wise divorced mother, and Marly, her strong yet vulnerable…
daughter, as they seek and stumble upon an odd cast of boys and men. All the stories are linked and alternate between mother and daughter; and while each tale stands alone, together they make up a larger whole. The first story begins when Annie is thirty-one years old and Marly is eight and they live in a tiny apartment overlooking a marsh near Lake Michigan, and the last story ends a decade and a half later with both women on the cusp of new adventures. Throughout these years, mother and daughter struggle with male characters: the hot-headed teenager next door, a therapist with a faulty heart, a homeless man who occupies the daughter's porch, a divorced professor trying his wings, a flatterer who becomes abusive, a brilliant and neurotic doctor, a schizophrenic photographer, an engineer in love with comedy. Yet the women also clash with each other as Annie tries to protect her child and find a lasting relationship with a man, and Marly learns how to navigate and survive the romantic and sexual arena and find her place in the larger world. Annie's deceased firstborn baby daughter is a darker thread woven through these stories, a subtle influence who is never seen but not forgotten. And in the background as well as the foreground is Annie's beloved Lake Michigan, into whose deep waters she swims to remind herself that the world is beautiful and large and on whose frozen ice she kneels, as these pages end, in a moment that is both surprising and sublime. By turns comical and poignant, lyrical and incisive, Strange Love displays Lenzo's storytelling gifts at their finest. These stories will appeal to all readers of fiction.Brickmakers: A Novel
By Selva Almada. 2013
A piercing and passionate novel, set in rural Argentina, about violence and masculinityOscar Tamai and Elvio Miranda, the patriarchs of…
two families of brickmakers, have for years nursed a mutual hatred, but their teenage sons, Pájaro and Ángelito, somehow fell in love. Brickmakers begins as Pájaro and Marciano, Ángelito’s older brother, lie dying in the mud at the base of a Ferris wheel. Inhabiting a dreamlike state between life and death, they recall the events that forced them to pay the price of their fathers’ petty feud.The Tamai and Miranda families are caught, like the Capulets and the Montagues, in an almost mythic conflict, one that emerges from stubborn pride and intractable machismo. Like her heralded debut, The Wind That Lays Waste, Selva Almada’s fierce and tender second novel is an unforgettable portrayal of characters who initially seem to stand in opposition, but are ultimately revealed to be bound by their similarities.Almada enlarges the tradition of some of the most distinctive prose stylists of our time. In Brickmakers, she furthers her extraordinary exploration of masculinity and the realities of working-class rural life. This is another exquisitely written and powerfully told story by a major international voice.