Klara Francke het ’n donker geheim. Sy is vasgekeer in ’n giftige huwelik met die sadistiese Johan. Sy leef in konstante vrees vir haar eie lewe en dié van haar tienerjarige seun.

Wanneer Johan die nuwe ingenieur wat by die sonkragaanleg buite die dorp begin werk het vir ’n braai nooi, is daar onmiddellik ’n wedersydse aangetrokkenheid tussen Klara en haar man se kollega. Terwyl Klara worstel met haar onverklaarbare – en ontoelaatbare – gevoelens, spook speurder Basie Snyman en sy kollega om die moorde op twee jong meisies op te los.

Hulle weet hulle werk teen tyd wanneer ’n derde meisie verdwyn. Kort voor lank ontdek die speurders ’n skakel tussen die drie slagoffers: Klara Francke ...

What happened to Anna the moment after she pulled the trigger? After she looked her stepfather in the eye, and shot him, the man who sexually abused her and her sister for so many years?

Seven years after It’s Me, Anna, a publication sensation at the time of its release, the author revisits the story of Anna Bruwer. How does one seek forgiveness for murder? Or is retribution the only way to bring about justice? These are the questions Anna – and the writer – wrestle with.

This is an excruciatingly honest depiction of Anna’s life after her stepfather’s death: a novel filled with compassion, and ultimately hope.

Dis 'n donker Karoonag en 'n bebloede vrou hardloop grondpad langs. Iets grusaam het gebeur en Siena weet sy moet by Seekoegat Primere Skool uitkom, daar sal sy veilig wees. Dis baie ver, drie dae met 'n donkiekar en sy is te voet. Hierdie roman vertel die verhaal van Siena, Boetie en Kriekie, wie se lewens sedert kinderdae nou verweef is. Soos wat Siena hardloop ontmoet lesers die mense in haar lewe: Boetie is verwilderd en verwaarloos, altyd besig met kattekwaad. Sy vriendskap met Siena laat hom egter sy selfwaarde besef. Kriekie is 'n wrak. Sy ma is 'n prostituut wat by die stilhouplekke langs die n1 werk en hy het skaars 'n huis. Wanneer sy ma, Dolly, nie terugkom nie, beland hy deur een vrou se goedhartigheid ook by Seekoegat Primere Skool. Die Karooskilpad se simboliese spore kan deur die hele roman gesien word. Siena se pa, 'n karretjiemens, het altyd gese dat 'n skilpad die wysheid van die antieke landskap in hom dra. Daar word geglo dat 'n skilpad slegs een traan in sy leeftyd stort, die oomblik wanneer hy sterf. Die skilpad se laaste traan is bekroonde skrywer Carol Campbell se derde boek oor die Karoo. Soos haar vorige werk fokus sy sterk op sosiale realisme, maar vir die eerste keer is hier ook magiese realisme, so eie aan die mense oor wie sy skryf.

'n Leeftyd Se Bekruip is ’n bundel verhale vol humor en avontuur. Dit gaan oor die te-voet-jag van kleinwild tot grootwild en strek oor verskillende lande en kontinente heen.

Dit gebeur nie aldag dat ‘n boer ‘n boek publiseer nie. Maar Dawie Strauss is nie ‘n gewone boer nie. Hy is ‘n boer én ‘n skrywer, ‘n jagter én ’n bewaarder.

‘n Boek wat op jou bedkassie of leunstoel, op jou see-handdoek of tydens jou vliegtuigrit op jou sal wag en sal sorg vir ‘n lekkerlees-avontuur. Sterre en kampvuur. Vriendskap en heimwee. Die bos róép…

The focal point of the novel is the small town of Soutbek. Its troubles, hardships and corruption, but also its kindness, strong community and friendships, are introduced to us in a series of stories about intriguingly interlinked relationships. Contemporary Soutbek is still a divided town - the upper town destitute, and the lower town rich, largely ignorant - and through a series of vivid scenes, the troubled relationship between Pieter Fortuin, the town's first coloured mayor, and his wife Anna is revealed. In so many ways the past casts a long shadow over the present, not in the least through the unreliable diaries of Pieter Meerman promoted by Pieter Fortuin and Professor Pearson, a retired white historian. They give us a unique insight into the lives of the seventeenth-century Dutch explorers, and hint at a utopian society, suggesting that Soutbek is the birthplace of assimilation and integration. The blossoming friendship between Anna, Sara, a foundling, and Willem, Pieter Fortuin's nephew, is unsettled by David, Anna's and Pieter's son. His father has bought David a bright future, but when he comes back from boarding school David appears alienated from his father and from his old friend, the former gardener Charles Geduld, just as Anna starts to accept him as her son. Is there hope, or are we left with Willem's conclusion that 'he would spend the rest of his life working off the debt of his family's poverty'? A moving story that paints a thought-provoking picture of life in contemporary South Africa.

Niemand mag haar sien sonder haar mantel nie.

Gita kruip al haar lewe lank agter voorgee weg; ʼn mantel vir elke okkasie.

Flambojante, pienk-Gita, vir wanneer sy opspraak wil maak, swart-Gita wanneer sy wil wegraak en laag lê, rooi-Gita wanneer sy uitdagend is, en natuurlik die blinkkant-bo-baadjie as sy voor die familie is. Maar agter die mantels spook dit by Gita. Haar pa het weggeloop met ’n ander vrou toe sy tien jaar oud was.

Sedertdien sukkel sy om mense naby haar toe te laat. Niemand mag haar sien sonder ’n mantel nie. Wanneer haar werk deure moet sluit pak sy haar lewe op en vertrek Knysna toe. Daar waar haar pa is. Waar sy nuwe vrou is. Waar sy nuwe kinders is. Langs die pad ontmoet sy die kleurvolle Llewellyn wat haar as verkleurvroutjie sien en sy is heeltemal oukei daarmee. Sy is wel nie oukei met die amper-blinde tjellospeler, Darius, en sy broer wat haar geheime lewe wil oopkrap nie. Skielik is daar vier baie verskillende mans in haar lewe, en Gita het nie genoeg mantels om alkant te dek nie.

Eva Mazza's latest page turner is evocative of the Netflix hit series Emily in Paris. 

When 24-year old Christine realises that unless she escapes her abusive husband Louis, their marriage vow "till death do we part " might just become her reality. On securing a job as a hair stylist at a salon in an exclusive hotel in Amsterdam, Christine's eyes are opened as she discovers a world of glamour and magical experiences.

And when she meets bad boy Giovanni she encounters unexpected sexual liberation.

Thalia, adrift in a small university town in South Africa in the nineties, heads to New York to study photography and to pick up the faint trail left for her by someone she has never known. The city helps her to find her way as an artist, but it never quite provides the answers she is seeking. Only years later in Johannesburg is she able to make sense of who she is and what her work might mean.

Robert is a photographer in New York in the 1970s, desperate to make memorable images in a time of spectacular experimentation in dance, music and theatre. He intuits the importance of what he is photographing, but finds it almost impossible to transcend the troubles of his own life and achieve something great through his work.

Paige leaves South Africa in the seventies to pursue her dream of being a ballet dancer. She does not anticipate the ways in which this pursuit will challenge her understanding of the art that she has known and practised all her life, and she is ill prepared for the catastrophic moment that will undo everything she has worked for.

Unbeknownst to them, Thalia, Robert and Paige share a story that links them to one another, to the turbulent worlds of New York in the 1970s and South Africa in the 1990s and, finally, to the photographs that hold the secrets of their lives.

Notes on Falling is about the hope that art will challenge perceptions and orthodoxy so that the world can be reinvented through new forms. It is also about trying to reconcile the large pictures of history with the small snapshots of our individual lives.

David shares a close bond with his eight-year-old son, Chris, but their family is destroyed when David dies.

In the afterlife, he is given an opportunity. He is told that he may be granted three viewings by which to look in on his son. The terms are strict: he cannot help his boy. He cannot reach him, or teach him, or in any way change the course of his life. David agrees, and on three separate occasions observes his son’s unfolding story.

The first viewing takes place one year after his own death. The second shows him his son at the age of nineteen. David’s final viewing shows him the final days of Chris’s life.

What David sees will not leave him. He has a simple but impassioned request: ‘Let me take his place’.

As he nears his fifth birthday, Sam’s curious dreams of a lost child begin to steal quietly into his waking state.

Sam’s mother, Grace, watches with growing fear the disturbing changes taking place in her charming, spirited son – the fighting at school, the bed-wetting, the meteor showers of defiance. Grace is determined to find out what lies behind Sam’s nightmares, and the search will take her deeper and deeper into layers of love and bonding buried beneath the surface of the family, and into its molten heart.

Cry Baby is not just a story about boyhood and motherhood. It’s about what binds families, the past to the present, about suffocation and deliverance. It is at once a stinging satirical slap across the face of barren suburbia and a poignant hymn to the extraordinary beauty in ordinary lives.

Van 1981 tot 2014 skryf Cecile Cilliers rubrieke vir Beeld, De Kat en Sa​rie. Deur die jare het sy etlike bydraes vir verskillende bundels gemaak, maar Die ou vrou en die priester is haar eerste eie kortverhaalbundel. Verskeie klassieke temas word onder die loep geneem: dit wat in 'n huwelik ongesê bly tussen man en vrou, die verwikkelde band tussen ma en dogter, die oorweldigende blindheid van 'n eerste liefde, en bowenal die uitdagings van oud word.

Die verhale spreek tot 'n breë gehoor. Baie leesbaar, met 'n diep menslikheid wat uit die stories straal.

Dis waar dit geëindig het, toe die trekker se wiel Klara se pa papgedruk het. Toe hulle ná haar pa se dood van Boplaas moes weg en in die wit lokasie gaan woon, toe was alles verby. En dit was nog lank voordat al agt die kinders gebore is wat die agt knope in Klara se naelstring voorspel het. Maar verby was die tyd dat Klara die dae onder die wilgerboom op die damwal langs die lusernland kon omdroom, of met rooi koeldrank en koekies voor die stoof kon sit en luister na Polla se stories oor waar die bul vir oom Slap Soois geskop het.

Boplaas het hulle afgeskud.

Of so het Klara gedink. Maar die waarheid is dat Boplaas nie klaar was met haar nie. Haar susters kon wegkom – Leen met haar oneerbiedigheid en Martie deur met ’n halwe Duitser te trou en landuit te vlug – maar nie sy nie. Iemand moes omsien na Ma wie se kop heeltemal uitgehaak het, en iemand moes help om Ma se fratskind, Henk, deur matriek te sien, en daarby moes Klara ook nog haar eie geleerdheid kry.

Eers toe die ding met Dries, Boplaas se erfgenaam, op die rotse loop, was dit asof Klara haar kon losmaak van haar verlede. Maar dit is juis toe sy uiteindelik weggaan dat sy agterkom hoe onlosmaaklik sy verstrengel is met daardie plaas en sy mense.

Klara is ’n verhaal met ’n onweerstaanbare aardsheid. Snaaks én hartverskeurend. Dis nie aldag dat ’n mens jou so kan verlustig in die vreemde draaie wat die lewe gooi nie.

Die ontroerende verhaal van ’n jong ma wat haar seuntjie se dood moet leer verwerk.

Die kunstenares Ragel Naudé is getraumatiseer ná die dood van haar tweejarige seuntjie.Niks maak meer saak nie, behalwe die herinnering aan sy kort lewetjie. Sy en haar man dryf uitmekaar. Ragel besef dat sy iets moet doen. Sy beland op ’n klein dorpie. Hier ontmoet sy ’n ma wat net soos sy nie kan ophou treur nie. Saam leer die twee vroue geleidelik wat die sin van lyding is en hoe God in Jesus kan troos.

'n Deerniswekkende verhaal van twee vroue wat elkeen op hul eie manier weer hul voete vind.

Wanneer Bea Klinge as jong boervrou op Leliepan aan die soom van die Namib aankom, glo sy dat sy hier vir haar, Kurt en hul kinders 'n oase van liefde sal kan skep. Ná 'n skokontdekking meer as vier dekades later kry Bea 'n miniberoerte en beland in 'n koma in die hospitaal.

Haar herstel bring Bea voor nuwe keuses te staan. Sy besef sy het haar vier dogters elkeen op 'n manier gefaal deur by Kurt te staan al het hy hulle hoe verontreg. Moet sy oop kaarte met hulle speel oor die donker geheim wat haar vasgevang gehou het in 'n liefdelose huwelik met 'n man wat haar soos 'n onderdaan behandel? Bowenal moet Bea besluit of sy die kans op geluk waarop sy destyds haar rug gekeer het gaan aangryp en vir een keer in haar lewe gaan doen wat reg is vir haar en nie vir ander nie.

Nel, haar rebelse laatlam, gaan soek haar heil in Johannesburg. Hier word sy as sukkelende aktrise met die donker kant van die vermaaklikheidsbedryf gekonfronteer. Sy raak betrokke in 'n toksiese verhouding met 'n invloedryke filmvervaardiger Buks Bothma en word die slagoffer van date-rape. Nel ontdek ook die skokkende waarheid omtrent haar herkoms.

Lex le Roux, 'n medeakteur en donkieboer bied haar 'n kontrak aan om die gesig te wees van sy velsorgprodukte wat uit donkiemelk vervaardig word. Nel gryp die geleentheid met albei hande aan. Ná die trauma waardeur Nel is, het sy tyd nodig om heel te word. Sy besluit om haar droom na te volg en 'n dramakursus in New York te gaan volg. Mettertyd ervaar sy die vreugde om haar pad boontoe te werk en nie te slaap nie. Sy kry dit reg om aan haarself te bewys dat Nel Klinge sonder hulp sukses kan behaal. Nel besef ook dat haar genesingsproses voltooi is en dat sy reg is vir meer as 'n vriendskapsverhouding met Lex.

South African scriptwriter Paul Waterson is sent to Kenya to research a documentary film about Swahili culture.

It’s October 2001, and Paul has just been dumped. He spends time in Mombasa, Malindi and Lamu and falls in love with the place and the people. He becomes obsessed with finding the last remaining Mtepe dhow, which he hears is washed up on a beach in Somalia.

Piracy is in its infancy but Paul finds it very difficult to find someone to take him into Somali waters. Eventually he talks a dhow captain into the journey, but the entire group is captured by Somali pirates.

Navigating treacherous and adventurous waters, Whoever Fears The Sea is Justin Fox’s first novel.

Nobel Laureate and two-time Booker prize-winning author of Disgrace and The Life and Times of Michael K, J. M. Coetzee tells the remarkable story of a nation gripped in brutal apartheid in his Sunday Express Book of the Year award-winner Age of Iron. In Cape Town, South Africa, an elderly classics professor writes a letter to her distant daughter, recounting the strange and disturbing events of her dying days. She has been opposed to the lies and the brutality of apartheid all her life, but now she finds herself coming face to face with its true horrors: the hounding by the police of her servant's son, the burning of a nearby black township, the murder by security forces of a teenage activist who seeks refuge in her house. Through it all, her only companion, the only person to whom she can confess her mounting anger and despair, is a homeless man who one day appears on her doorstep. In Age of Iron, J. M. Coetzee brings his searing insight and masterful control of language to bear on one of the darkest episodes of our times. 'Quite simply a magnificent and unforgettable work' Daily Telegraph 'A superbly realized novel whose truth cuts to the bone' The New York Times 'A remarkable work by a brilliant writer' Wall Street Journal South African author J. M. Coetzee was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003 and was the first author to win the Booker Prize twice for his novels Disgrace and The Life and Times of Michael K. His novel, Foe, an exquisite reinvention of the story of Robinson Crusoe is also available in Penguin paperback.

Die vrou van die klippesee vertel hoe die lewe vir Hendrik tot nou toe gerol het soos ’n stormsee. Hy is ’n visserman van ’n klein dorpie aan die Weskus wat jou aan Paternoster laat dink en in sy lewe het hy reeds sy broer aan die dood afgestaan. Maar dit is die verdwyning van sy vrou wat hom bitter maak en na die papsak wyn laat reik. Só staan hy dronk en droewig in die koue see, reg om homself te verdrink terwyl sy hond op die strand vir hom wag wanneer die roman begin. Hendrik se lewe begin handomkeer verander wanneer hy ’n gewonde gedierte, miskien iets soos ’n meermin, huis toe bring. Die vrou van die klippesee wys hoe goed fiksie sosiale en politieke kwessies kan ondersoek wanneer die skrywer lig werp op die lewe van ’n karakter wat aanvanklik niksseggend en nietig blyk te wees.

Those Who Live in Cages captures an astonishingly intimate view of life in Eldorado Park, a coloured township south of Johannesburg, through five women - Bertha, Kaylynn, Laverne, Janice and Raquel.

These unforgettable characters' lives intersect as they attempt to do the most important thing: survive another day in "The Park"

Philida is gebaseer op historiese werklikheid en sluit wat tema en tydperk betref aan by een van Brink se vroeër romans, Houd-den-bek. Philida was ’n slavin wat tussen 1820 en 1835 op die plaas Zandvliet in die Drakenstein-distrik gewoon het. (Die plaas wat vandag bekend is as Solms Delta). Sy het ’n paar kinders gehad by Frans, die seun van Cornelis Brink, die eienaar van die plaas. Maar toe besluit Cornelis dat Frans met die dogter van ’n ryk Kaapse familie moet trou en dat dit beter is om Philida en haar kinders te verkoop.

Die roman begin waar Philida by die drostdy op Stellenbosch ’n klag teen haar baas gaan lê, ongehoorde optrede vir ’n slawevrou, optrede wat haar duur te staan kom: Philida en haar kinders word in 1833 deur Brink op ’n slaweveiling op Worcester verkoop. Die Britse regering stel kort daarna die slawe vry, maar Philida is vir vier jaar by haar nuwe eienaar, Meester de la Bat, ingeboek.

Die swaarkry en vernedering van baie jare het Philida egter gebrei en op ’n dag eien sy vir haarself vryheid toe. Saam met die Moslem-slaaf, Labyn, trek sy deur die barre Karoo na die verre Gariep – “die grote Gariep: hy is die hele land en die hele wêreld …die rivier in onse binneste. My Gariep…” dink Philida. “Hier in sy nabyte is ons almal saam.”

Philida is ’n versetsroman – maar dit is ook ’n bevrydingsroman. Dit demonstreer wat vryheid beteken, en óók wat aan die kern van baasskap lê. En alhoewel daar onthutsende tonele is, is daar ook oomblikke van teerheid en humor. En boweal, die stem van ’n meesterverteller.

’n Interessante aspek van die roman is dat Brink gebruik maak van geskiedkundige feite wat een van sy voorsate insluit.

Esther Gelderblom has been waiting for a house for twenty years. In the bitter Oudtshoorn winter she and her friend Katjie queue to ask when their names will finally appear on the government’s list of housing recipients. Esther dreams of a home for her daughter Liedjie, who plays the keyboard for the Bless Me Jesus church, and for her husband, Neville, who will then get his life in order.

But corruption is rife as housing officials manipulate the list for favours. When Katjie’s shack burns down, the two women take matters into their own hands, occupying two empty houses and setting in motion events that will compromise everything they hold dear.

Esther’s House is a story of greed, power, and the fight for what is right when good people are pushed too far.

Romina Desai, a well-known artist and photojournalist, lives in Johannesburg and uses her art to make visual commentary on social issues and global politics. Her visionary work has earned her celebrity status in the art world. But she is confronted with the racism in the city and in her family when she falls in love with Ismail Mamadou, a Senegalese journalist working in London.

When Ismail arrives in South Africa announcing that he is following a story lead about a thriving child trafficking ring in the country, he also reveals his more personal reason for being here: to look for his sister who disappeared from home 25 years ago. He finds more than he bargained for in a web of crime syndicates operating brothels and engaging in human trafficking and prostitution.

The Economics Of Love And Happiness is a novel that comments on the sweet and not-so-sweet layers of social and romantic life in South Africa and beyond, where greed and lust often take centre stage and empathy is lost. In this way, it maps out the cost of love and happiness.

This story provides a window into the myriad cultures and beliefs that overlap and colour the landscape while Romina and Ismail navigate the challenges that come their way. Will their budding romance survive the bigger storms around them?

Son is a stunning achievement in post-apartheid writing. The debut novel by South African writer, Neil Sonnekus, Son brims with brio, verve and swagger. Though laugh-out-loud funny at times, it is also achingly poignant and deeply moving.

Sonnekus brilliantly captures the so-called Noughties with his tragi-comic creation Len Bezuidenhout, a recent divorcee whose quest for sex is as funny as his attempts to tease a hungover narrative from his father, a puritanical old curmudgeon. The two couldn’t be more different – or similar. They are both storytellers, but when the tale Len starts extracting from his old man is slowly revealed, it is everything but funny. Through scalding humour, caustic wit and brutally frank interrogation into the country’s ‘post Rainbow Nation’ pathology, this stylistically imposing work is one of hilarity, bitter warmth and eventual grace.

Son is at times uproarious and unremittingly frank as it exposes politics as a tragic farce. It is both self-deprecating and sensual as it traverses the dark arts of sexual conquest and desire while it simultaneously unearths brutal anxieties around crime, alienation and aging. Central to Son is the brutal mirror of what it means to be a white man in South Africa, confronting a rapid loss of power while struggling to come to terms with stark socio-political change and the possibilities of living an unfulfilled and alienated life.

While it hums and whirs with sound, movement and humour, Son seamlessly takes the reader on a profound journey of compassion and self-understanding. In a dark and disturbing turn, it argues that the dominant colour of the rainbow has become not white nor black, but red. Blood red.

One morning Laine wakes up to discover that the man she's been married to for 15 years has been secretively living out a monstrous lie. Her world is tilted on its axis. Now she must unstitch her existence, and peck through the pieces of her past...

Just as Laine thinks she's reached the end of uncovering all the bitter truths, a child appears who demands her attention. This small, fierce person forces her to see the horror and ignites the tiniest flame of hope within.

A brilliant debut novel.

When Laurence Waters arrives at his rural hospital posting, Frank, a fellow doctor there, is instantly suspicious. Laurence is everything Frank is not – young, optimistic and full of new schemes. The two become uneasy friends, while the rest of the staff in the deserted hospital view Laurence with a mixture of awe and mistrust.

The town beyond the hospital is also coping with new arrivals, and the return of old faces. The Brigadier – a self-fashioned dictator from apartheid days – is rumoured to still be alive. And down at Mama’s Place, a group of soldiers has moved in with their malign commandant, a man Frank has met before and is keen to avoid. Laurence wants to help – but in a world where the past is demanding restitution from the present, his ill-starred idealism cannot last.

In gleaming prose Damon Galgut has created a literary thriller out of an unlikely friendship. The Good Doctor is a gripping novelistic high-wire act