Search results for null

Sylvia

Maithreyi Karnoor

Longing to connect to his ancestral roots, Cajetan Pereira has taken up residence near one of the rare and mystical Baobab trees in South India. Into his world walks Sylvia, a young woman in search of a story. They bond over their new-found relationship, until one day consumed by regret, Sylvia disappears.

In a rich kaleidoscope of tales, Sylvia is glimpsed in the lives of other characters as a colleague, friend, wife and lover, until she comes back into focus as she finds herself becoming whole once more – but is it too late?

Brimming with exquisite prose, Sylvia is a beautifully woven tapestry of the ways in which we leave indelible imprints on each other’s lives.

No Funeral for Nazia

Taha Kehar

Nazia Sami is a celebrated author, but perhaps her greatest plot twist is yet to be produced. In her final days, she wields a pen one last time as she fills her diary with instructions for her sister, Naureen, and writes six letters to be delivered after her death.

There is to be no funeral for Nazia. Instead, only six invitees are asked to attend a party, one of whom is a mystery guest. Over the course of an extraordinary evening, secrets are revealed, pasts reconsidered, and lives are forever changed.

Perfect for fans of MOHSIN HAMID and KAMILA SHAMSIE, No Funeral for Nazia is a striking and inventive exploration of what death can mean for both the deceased and those left behind.

Clytemnestra’s Bind

Susan Wilson

Clytemnestra’s Bind is a bold and brutal first-person retelling that redefines her story, unveiling the untold depths of her soul and the legacy she forged as a mother, wife, and queen.

Queen Clytemnestra's world shatters when Agamemnon, a rival to the throne of Mycenae, storms her palace, destroys her family and claims not only the throne but Clytemnestra herself. Tormented by her loss, she vows to do all she can to protect the children born from her unhappy marriage to him. But when her husband casts his ruthless gaze towards the wealthy citadel of Troy, his ambitions threaten to once more destroy the family Clytemnestra loves.

From one of Greek mythology's most reviled characters—a woman who challenged the absolute power of men—comes this fiery tale of power, family rivalry and a mother's burning love.

Perfect for readers of Greek mythology, and fans of Costanza Casati’s Clytemnestra, Madeline Miller’s Circe, and Jennifer Saint’s Elektra.

Distant Signs

Anne Richter

Rooted in the author's experience witnessing the fall of the Berlin Wall, Distant Signs explores the complexity of familial bonds, love, and life behind and beyond the iron curtain.

Against the backdrop of seismic political upheaval in 1960s East Germany Margret, a professor's daughter hailing from the city, and Hans, a man rooted in a tranquil Thuringian forest village are embroiled in a family saga. Their love story is colored by the clash of their disparate origins and the lingering emotional wounds inflicted by a war-torn childhood. As historical events play out, the secrets of two families are revealed.

Anne Richter's exquisite prose translated from German by Douglas Irving, paints a vivid portrait of a society marked by change while paying homage to the quiet strength that exists within the most trying of times.

Can I Stray

Jenna Adams

Fourteen-year-old Brooke Tyler has spent her whole life waiting for a boy to choose her. Matt is about to go to university, scared to leave behind everything he knows. When both are cast as romantic leads in Romeo and Juliet, they fulfil the roles of forbidden lovers both on and off the stage. Brooke is sure that her fairy tale is coming true – and best of all, Matt is older.

Brooke considers secrets and lies a small price to pay for her first boyfriend, but the relationship is set to cost her after one night alone in an empty auditorium. When Brooke learns that Matt’s actions that night were illegal, her world shatters.

Years later, Brooke and Matt reunite as adults. Matt wants to undo all the damage he caused, but Brooke makes a choice which forces them both to question their relationship.

Told in three acts this captivating debut reveals a young woman’s journey for independence as she strays away from everything she has ever known to navigate her traumatic past.

Children of War

Ahmet Yorulmaz

Hassanakis is a young Muslim boy of Turkish descent growing up on Crete during WWI. Fifteen generations of his family have lived on the island and until now he has never had any reason not to think he is a Cretan. But with the Great Powers tussling over the collapsing Ottoman Empire and the island’s Christians in rebellion, an outbreak of ethnic violence forces his family to flee to the Cretan City of Chania. He begins to lay down roots and his snappy dress earns him the nickname of Hassan ‘the mirror’. As WWI draws to a close and the Turkish War of Independence rages, he begins a heady romance with the elegant Hüsniye. There are rumours that the Cretan Muslims will be sent to Turkey but Hassanakis can’t believe he will be sent to a country whose language he barely knows and where he knows no-one.

This powerful novel drawn from the diary of a refugee family evokes the beauty, complexity and trauma of Crete’s past and weaves it into a moving tale of an ordinary man living through extraordinary times.

Based on 3 diaries left by a Cretan refugee in Ayvalik in Turkey, this novel by Ahmet Yorulmaz is the first of a trilogy. It is one of very few Turkish novels ever written about the population exchanges between Greece and Turkey in 1923, during which about 1.8 million people were ‘exchanged’ almost solely on the basis of their religion. This all but emptied the new Turkey of its Christian Greek population, which dated back to about 20 BC, and emptying Crete of its Muslim inhabitants. Most deportees did not speak the language of their new country and had no roots there whatsoever.

The Fabulous Clipjoint

Fredric Brown

"Ingenious . . . Plunges the reader into a desperate, working-class America now better known through William Lindsay Gresham’s precisely contemporary novel Nightmare Alley and such film-noir classics as Out of the Past and The Postman Always Rings Twice."―Washington Post

In the rough edges of 1940s Chicago, the discovery of a corpse in an alleyway isn’t always enough to cause a big stir―especially when the victim is killed in the midst of a night-long bender, caught between barrooms in what appears to be a mugging gone awry. Which is why the police don’t take a huge interest in finding the murderer of Wallace Hunter, a linotype operator who turns up dead after a solitary drinking adventure that led through many of the Loop’s less reputable establishments. 

But for his teenage son, Ed, and his carny brother, Am, something about Wallace’s death feels fishy, a fact that grows increasingly bothersome when it becomes clear that some of the witnesses aren’t telling the whole story. In order to get to the heart of the matter, they’ll need all the skills Am picked up in the circus life―skills that young Ed will have to pick up on fast. And in the process of discovering the killer, they make another discovery as well: Wallace was a much different man than the father Ed thought he knew.

The Edgar Award-winning novel that announced a legendary voice in crime fiction, The Fabulous Clipjoint is the first in Fredric Brown’s long-running Ed & Am Hunter series. The book’s memorable mixture of a hardboiled mystery with an urban coming of age narrative remains fresh to this day.

Payback

Claire MacLeary

When the body of Aberdeen socialite Annabel Imray is discovered at her home, the police are under pressure to come up with answers – and fast. The last thing they want is the distraction of a series of baffling break-ins.

The victims, all of them women, are terrorised: just how did the intruder know so much about them? Meanwhile, local PIs Maggie Laird and Wilma Harcus are at rock bottom, their bills mounting. As Maggie prepares to sell her home and contemplates dissolving the agency, Wilma goes off-piste to get a loan. But when the clock starts ticking on repayment, she realises the price is too high. And before long, Maggie herself is in grave danger. Wilma fears the worst. Can she find her before it’s too late?

Payback is the fourth thriller in the Harcus & Laird series.

Death Drop

Claire MacLeary

A disturbing death with a backstory of secrets and shaming highlights some outdated attitudes within Aberdeen’s finest.

After past skirmishes with the police, local PI Maggie Laird is determined to steer clear, but her partner, Wilma Harcus, goes rogue. Not only does she have leads up her sleeve, but she has grandiose ideas to expand their PI agency into the realm of romance fraud and cybercrime. Then, troubled schoolchild Frankie Bain goes missing.

As the clock runs down, the two investigations collide. Was this the last, desperate act of a tortured mind or a calculated murder? And will Frankie Bain be found alive?

In this fifth Harcus and Laird novel, Claire MacLeary fashions a fast-paced, fresh and topical new adventure for her inimitable PI partnership.

This Side of Providence

Rachel Harper

Cross Purpose

Claire MacLeary

Longlisted for the McIlvanney Prize, Scottish Crime Book of the Year 2017

When Maggie Laird’s disgraced ex-cop husband suddenly dies, her humdrum suburban life is turned upside down. With the bills mounting, she takes on his struggling detective agency, enlisting the help of neighbour ‘Big Wilma’. And so an unlikely partnership is born.

But the discovery of a crudely mutilated body soon raises the stakes… and Maggie and Wilma are drawn into an unknown world of Aberdeen’s sink estates, clandestine childminding and dodgy dealers.

Cross Purpose is surprising, gritty, sometimes darkly humorous – a tale combining police corruption, gangs and murder with a paean to friendship, loyalty and how ‘women of a certain age’ can beat the odds.

Tom’s Midnight Garden

Philippa Pearce

Winner of the Carnegie Medal

From beloved author Philippa Pearce, this sixtieth-anniversary edition is the perfect way to share this transcendent story of friendship with a new generation of readers. Philip Pullman, bestselling author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, called Tom’s Midnight Garden “A perfect book.”

When Tom’s brother gets sick, he’s shipped off to spend what he’s sure will be a boring summer with his aunt and uncle in the country. But then Tom hears the old grandfather clock in the hall chime thirteen times, and he’s transported back to an old garden where he meets a young, lonely girl named Hatty.

Tom returns to the garden every night to have adventures with Hatty, who mysteriously grows a little older with each visit. As the summer comes to an end, Tom realizes he wants to stay in the garden with Hatty forever.