In die afgeleë Sneeuberge van die Oos-Kaap soek ’n groep argeoloë onder leiding van die nimlike professor Attie Vermaak na ’n reeks rotstekeninge: ’n befaamde oorlogstafereel van ruiters en vlugtendes. Groot is hul vreugde toe hulle dié kunswerk na ’n uitmergelende soektog vind.

Hulle blydskap is egter van korte duur: ’n gevaarlike groep drosters oorrompel hulle en neem hulle gevange. Onder angswekkende omstandighede deel ekspedisie- en bendelede dieselfde kampeerplek terwyl die bendekaptein wag op verslag deur twee verspieders wat hy na die buitewêreld stuur om ’n losprys te eis.

Amatola is Piet van Rooyen op sy beste.

Behind the closed doors of their suburban Johannesburg home, Themba and Ayanda Hlatshwayo, both legal professionals, are beset by deep tensions that claw with relentless intensity at the polished facade of their lives. Ayanda seeks solace in dance classes, while Themba is increasingly drawn to the male companionship he finds at a book club. With wit and sympathy, The God Who Made Mistakes explores the origins of Themba's unease and confused sense of identity.

It takes us back to a river bank in Alex, the township where he grew up, and to a boy he once knew who met a violent death there. As the story peels back the painful layers of recollection, Themba’s domineering mother, Differentia, has a major decision to make. When developers set their sights on buying the family home and building a supermarket in its place, tendrils of envy and greed begin to curl out of unexpected quarters, as the unscrupulous seek to grab a share of the spoils. Back yard tenant, Tinyiko, with her short skirts and questionable morality, and Themba’s disgraced, unemployed elder brother, Bongani, begin to plot and scheme, while across town Themba’s fragile marriage faces its biggest challenge. When his past walks unexpectedly into his present, it threatens to blow apart his carefully constructed world.

The God Who Made Mistakes is a powerful, poignant story of unexpressed longings which, when finally uttered, can no longer be contained.

Phobias abound at the Centre for Improved Living, where Nazma goes for help. She's crazy about baking and desperately wants to become a pastry chef, but her fear of driving keeps her stuck working in a train-station kiosk, where she sells stale food to commuters while dreaming of butter croissants and fresh strudel. The Centre is also a lifeline for Sam, who is scared to death of being robbed and spends his days in his pyjamas in front of his computer, his house alarm always armed. Like the rest of the patients, Nazma and Sam want to face their fears, but will four weeks at the Centre be enough to change their lives? And will the two allow their budding romance to bloom without letting their phobias get in the way? Meanwhile, the Centre risks losing its funding, a fear that Ruby, the Centre's eccentric director, must face while she tries to manage the patients' fears. Set in a Cape Town as peculiar as its characters, The Peculiars is Jen Thorpe's heart-warming and humorous debut.

Grace Hendriks has led a pretty sheltered life. So when her sister Natalie begs her to take her place as a Rihanna impersonator at a club in Amsterdam, no alarm bells go off … until she finds herself onstage with only a pole for support and her knickers in a knot.

Thrown into strip-club life, and forced to share an apartment with an exotic troupe of impersonating divas with Lady Gaga-sized egos, Grace has to learn some hard lessons fast.

One: living with Marilyn Monroe and Madonna isn’t easy. And two: transformations don’t happen overnight – especially when your bra is determined to sabotage your dance routine.

For Hannah, born from Nandi, and adopted by Patrick and Fiona, it is not so easy to work out who she really is. Is she the privileged daughter of an upper middle class British couple or is she an unwanted South African child who needed an adoptive family? How can she reconcile these two personas, especially when she looks so different from her adoptive parents?

In her questioning mind, she appears to be not white enough for Britain, but not black enough for Africa. As she grows older, her identity issues become greater until they threaten to engulf her.

Her parents, wanting to be faithful to a promise they made to her birth mother, but also desperately frightened of losing their child to her birth heritage, are not forthcoming when it comes to answering her questions. This makes her feel she can’t trust them and alienates her further. It is only when she re-establishes a connection with the country of her birth that Hannah starts to work through the issues that trouble her in her search to find the peace that appears to be so elusive.

Maria was a medical doctor graduate who took over the reins as a chief after the death of her father, Masombuka. While accepting the crown she encountered discrimination and prejudice as a woman.

At the time she became the chief of Masombuka village, traditional norms and cultural practices was against women taking part in any powerful positions in the community. Maria broke all taboo and became the chief, much to the annoyance of her uncle Gwebu who was earmarking himself for that position. When he realised that the traditional house had amended the rules to allow her to sit in the tribal court and preside over all matters pertaining the community, he decided to hunt for Amos. Amos was the son of chief Masombuka who had gone awol with his mother when he was very young. He was actually the rightful heir to take over his father but because he could not be found some of the elders decided to crown Maria.

Gwebu plans to successfully locate Amos, to wage and fuel fire between Amos and Maria.

In his debut collection of award-winning stories, Nick Mulgrew tells fourteen subtly interlinked tales set along the Southern African coastline from Cape Town to Mozambique, in which relationships, dreams and even narrators die: where fields catch fire, towers implode and the shadows of the past grow long.

But even from the most uneasy corners – tourist traps, colonial purgatories and libraries for the blind – these stories offer small mercies: glimpses of faith, beauty, and the possibility of salvation, no matter how slight.

Told with the magpie’s eye for the vivid in the ordinary, and the surreal in the everyday, Stations presents a fresh, compelling and essential new voice.

Stories featured:
1) Athlone Towers;
2) Turning;
3) Posman;
4) Ponta da Ouro;
5) Stars;
6) Daughter;
7) Gala Day;
8) Die Biblioteek vir Blindes;
9) 1-HR FOTO;
10) Appreciation;
11) Mr Dias;
12) Restaurant;
13) Marianhill, in the Gardens;
14) Stations

Jessie Jansen weet sy het haarself as vrou die afgelope tyd verwaarloos. Nee, meer nog, sy vergryp haar gruwelik aan soetgoed. Sjokolade.

Maar sjokolade, weet sy, maak daardie gat in haar toe. Die gat wat Andries gelos het toe hy met die jong dingetjie weg is. So oud soos haar kind.

Maar Bruno Baumann sien haar in die supermark raak. Dink sy pas perfek in hulle reklameveldtog vir nuwe onderklere – die gewone vrou wat ander kan laat verstaan dat hulle tog sensueel is. Mooi en maer ofte nie.

Net, Jessie is vir hom beeldskoon. Maar sy het genoeg bagasie om ’n man te laat verbyhou. Hy sal hom liewer vermaak met die jong dollas wie se foto’s hy in sy beursie hou.

Meet Tannie Maria: the loveable writer of recipes in her local paper, the Klein Karoo Gazette.

One Sunday morning, as Maria stirs apricot jam, she hears her editor Harriet on the stoep. What Maria doesn't realise is that Harriet is about to deliver a whole basketful of challenges and the first ingredient in two new recipes - recipes for love and murder.

A delicious blend of intrigue, milk tart and friendship, join Tannie Maria in her first investigation. Consider your appetite whetted for a whole new series of mysteries . . .

Magaya is the unemployed graduate who lost his parents due to crime and was left with nothing else apart from a four roomed house. The community of Siyabusa adopted him. To thank them he was involved in the fight against crime and drug abuse which saw him recruited full time by crime fighting agencies. Magaya met a love of his life Nozuko, who was a shareholder and Director of Marembera store. The two tired the knot and due to family commitment decided to promote Sbongile, their friend to run the fort on their behalf who stole all the investment and savings.

Nomsa is a beautiful college girl who was forced by her parents to marry a man chosen by them. He was from the economic social class as them. While at college she fell in love with Musa whom she loved dearly but her parents instructed her to break up with and follow their orders.

Frank McAllister has become wealthy in England, where he has lived for thirty years. He has a house in Notting Hill, a house in the New Forest, and a house near Cape Town. But more and more he feels alienated in England. As the book opens, he is preparing to go to South Africa with his lover, Nellie. He is also waiting anxiously for his daughter, Lucinda, to arrive from California, where she has been in rehab.

Frank is a descendant of the Boer leader, Piet Retief, who was murdered by the Zulu king Dingane, along with all his followers, in 1838. He has been an icon of Afrikaners ever since. Frank's Afrikaner cousin, Jaco, has become moderately famous on YouTube for having faced down a huge white shark. He is now in America, where he has joined the Scientologists. His chaotic and violent life spills over on to Frank. He is drawn into a world of violence and delusion that is to threaten the family.

Justin Cartwright possesses that rarest of novelist's skills - the ability to create fiction which is intensely serious but which also vividly encompasses the absurdity and comedy of life. Up Against The Night is a subtle, brilliant novel about South Africa, its beautiful, superbly evoked landscape, its violent past and its uncertain present.

After 602 days dry, Captain Benny Griessel of the South African police services can't take any more tragedy. So when Benny is called in to investigate a multiple homicide, it pushes him close to breaking point - a former friend and detective colleague has shot his wife and two daughters, then killed himself. Benny wants out - out of his job, his home and his relationship with his singer girlfriend, Alexa.

He moves into a hotel and starts drinking. Again. But Benny's unique talent is urgently required to help investigate another crime - the high profile murder of Ernst Richter, MD of a new tech startup, Alibi, whose body is discovered buried in the sand dunes north of Cape Town. Alibi is a service that creates false appointments, documents and phone calls to enable people to cheat on their partners. It has made Richter one of the most notorious people in South Africa.

Can Benny pull together the strands of his life in time to catch the killer?

Wanneer Donna de Villiers en haar man Divan skei, moet hulle suksesvolle juweliersonderneming sowel as hulle huis in Tamboerskloof verkoop word sodat hulle bates verdeel kan word. Haar selfbeeld is aan skerwe na Divan se verraad en die eens suksesvolle juwelier wat pryse vir haar werk losgeslaan het se skeppingsdrang is daarmee heen.

Sy wil wegkom uit die kringe waarin sy en Divan beweeg het, waar almal nou oor haar vernederende egskeiding skinder. Donna swerf van kusdorp na kusdorp waar sy ontvlugting op haar branderplank en in die arms van surfers vind. Wanneer sy na amper ’n jaar die allerlaagste punt bereik, besef Donna sy is op ’n pad van selfvernietiging.

Donna moet weer van voor af begin en sy aanvaar ’n opdrag om ’n replika van ’n antieke hangertjie te maak. Dit neem haar na Minnaarshof, ’n spogplaas in die Riebeekvallei. Hier ontmoet sy vir Toit Minnaar.

Toit treur al meer as ’n jaar oor sy vrou se dood en hy neem ’n wilsbesluit om weer sy lewe op koers te kry. Hy aanvaar ’n uitdaging om deel te neem aan ’n realiteitstelevisiereeks, Boer soek ’n vrou. Wanneer die drie dames op die plaas kom kuier saam met die TV-span, begin die poppe dans. Daar is wedywering en katgevegte en Toit begin al hoe meer aangetrokke voel tot Donna.

Donna doen egter haar bes om gevoelens wat Toit in haar wakker maak, te onderdruk. Sy wil weer haar loopbaan op dreef kry én terugkry wat ’n man by haar gesteel het.

Poet John Carson lives in a crumbling seaside house with his sister and niece. Winter is upon him, and he writes feverishly to the woman who has abandoned him as a lover yet kept him as a correspondent. Theresa: beautiful, generous . . . and married. 'Will John and Theresa find a way to overcome everything that holds them apart or is a state of permanent longing, in fact,  really what poets need?

In some ways, it all begins with a very bad day for Jethro. First, he’s attacked by an angry man who takes his good intentions the wrong way, then he’s robbed in the middle of the night by two men who try to iron out of him – literally – where he keeps his valuables. The problem is that Jethro’s valuables consist of a box of photos and other keepsakes – which only aggravates his assailants.

Traumatised, he seeks counselling. With Dr Chatwin, Jethro traces his bond with his best friend, Sam, the loss of his girlfriend, his encounters with the enigmatic artist Matsotso Cecilia Dumisa, and why he carries a hat, a shoe and a painting around with him everywhere.

Set in the turbulence of South Africa right now, The Space Between The Space Between tells the story of a young man trying to stay afloat as he’s assaulted by life’s cross-currents. The novel honestly and humanely portrays South Africa today without reverting to moral or political grandstanding. As Jethro ricochets through life, a story of loss, the gaining of wisdom and a little healing emerges.

Die oorlog en Gordon Fraser veroorsaak ’n oënskynlik onoorbrugbare kloof tussen Catriona en Rudolf Dreyer.

Waar daar kort gelede nog liefde was, lees Catriona haat, afkeer en veragting in sy oë. Hy glo sy was vir sy twee broers se teregstelling verantwoordelik en sy kan hom nie bereik om hom van die teendeel te oortuig nie.

Hierdie is die tweede boek in ’n tweeluik na Onder 'n Sterrehemel.

Gebaseer op die treffer TV-reeks. Jacques Rynhard, een van die land se gewildste skrywers, verdwyn op die kruin van sy loopbaan. Joernalis Carina Human moet uitvind waar hy is, maar meer belangrik, hoekom hy verdwyn het. Sy krap 'n perdebynes oop van verraad, donker geheime, moord en mislukte verhoudings.

Vuurtoringwagter Hannes Harker word met sy vrou na ’n afgeleё eiland verplaas. Hy ontdek iets wat lank in die toring weggesteek was wat hom sy balans laat verloor, en hy val.

In die hospitaal vertel hy met rukke en stote aan verpleegsuster Rika sy lewensverhaal – van sy ma se geheimsinnige dood, van sy onbeheerbare jong vrou, Aletta, en van die verlate eiland waar net die vuurtoringwagters en ghwanowerkers woon. Dié twee groepe leef saam maar tog ook streng apart op een van die onherbergsaamste plekke op aarde. Met die aankoms van ’n karakter uit Aletta se verlede kom haar eie geheime onvermydelik aan die lig, net soos die pruttende spanning en onregte wat die ghwanowerkers so lank verduur het tot uitbarsting kom in ’n enkele, skokkende gebeurtenis.

Die Bewaker is die verhaal van twee geslagte vuurtoringwagters – mans verbete in hulle plig, en vroue wat saam met hulle in skrikwekkende afsondering leef. Dit is geskryf in die kenmerkende meevoerende styl waarvoor Marguerite Poland so bekend is, nou vir die eerste keer in Afrikaans.

’n Roman oor die krag van geheime, die krag van die liefde en die krag van stories.

As hy die finansiële state het, kan hy begin. Daarvoor het hy kontakte by al die belangrikste banke, sorgvuldig oor jare bymekaargemaak. Op sommige van hulle het hy ’n houvas omdat hy inligting oor hulle uitgesnuffel het.

Wanneer hy die dokumente voor hom het, begin die werklike kragmeting: sy stadige, planmatige, geduldige kyk met forensiese X-straalvisie na wat skelm rekenmeesters en regsadviseurs hulle base help verdoesel. Hy kyk nie net na wat daar is nie, maar ook na wat nie daar is nie. Hy voel die afwagting in sy maag. Dis soos wanneer ’n jagter die slot oopmaak en die patrone in die magasyn druk. Vir hom is só ’n finansiële dokument die reuk van forensiese geweerolie. Daar is geen waarborg dat hy sal tref of selfs ’n skoot sal inkry nie, maar dis die begin van die jag.

Roux Venske, hy is dié jagter. Finansiële knoeiers is sy prooi.

Kruispad is die kern van Deon Opperman se groot TV-trilogie oor die Afrikaner se pad in Suid-Afrika. Dit beeld presies uit waar die groot verandering gekom en hoe die Afrikaner daarop gereageer het.

Die roman wentel om Sophia en Mariana, die twee dogters van ’n welgestelde boer, Soois van Rooyen, en sy vrou, Mart. Sophia is met die skatryk FG van den Berg getroud en Mariana met die arm, bekrompe Andries Landman. Terwyl FG en Andries albei hul ekonomiese status ná die verkiesing van 27 April 1994 verloor, sit hul onderskeie seuns, Klein FG en Henk, met die nalatenskap van apartheid.

Kruispad belig nie net die snykant van apartheid fel nie, maar boor ook diep in die problematiek waarmee die Afrikaner in die jare negentig moes worstel en toon hoeveel inbors en karakter dit verg om die juk van die verlede af te skud.

Inspector Albertus Beeslaar has left the ruthless city, only to have his hopes of finding peace and quiet in the Kalahari shattered by the brutal murder of artist Freddie Swarts and her adopted daughter. But Freddie's journalist sister Sara is not convinced that this was a typical farm attack. Amid a spate of stock thefts, Beeslaar must solve this high-profile crime, all the while training his two rookie partners, Ghaap and Pyl. After more murders, the disturbing puzzle grows increasingly sinister, as age-old secrets and hostilities surface, spurring the local inhabitants to violent action. No one is above suspicion, not least the mysterious Bushman farm manager and falconer, Dam. Weeping Waters is Maya Fowler and Isobel Dixon's translation of the Afrikaans bestseller Plaasmoord, a novel that peels away the layers of a landscape steeped in conflict, and hails the arrival of a bright new voice in South African crime fiction available in English.

In the title story Away From the Dead we meet Isaac Witbooi, a farm worker, who has to come to grips with losing everything including the graves of his entire deceased family. In After Spring a couple takes a holiday but we're drawn into the issue of identity: Even if they hadn't heard us speaking English earlier, they would have known our foreignness simply by sight. It is visible to them in our facial features, the way we wear our clothes, our hair. The fact that we are third and fifth generation South Africans respectively matters little to them. Making Challah is a touching picture of an ageing woman, and it uses the baking of challah as a wonderful metaphor of passing time. Ridwaan and Chadley are On the Train, a seemingly routine journey but somehow a dog has been acquired and it's been Chadley's first time to kill. Find out how it felt to be Andries Tatane who, on 13 April 2012, died during a service delivery protest in Ficksburg, South Africa. In the Narrative of Emily Louw, a true story, a young woman regrets not having given something to old Emily after listening to her sad story: At the second, a policeman had looked at the blanketed child, her worn face and bleeding feet and he had smirked, as though to indicate that her husband had left by choice and couldn't be blamed for his departure. Next is a thoughtful reflection on being called Muzungu when a white South African woman visits Uganda. From Dark is a rallying call to remember that illegal mining causes the deaths of hundreds every year. Zama-zamas (Zulu for 'chancers') live underground for months at a time, dying in police raids, fires, cave-ins and poor conditions. A young couple's outing goes horribly wrong in At the Seaside. Grandmother's great big wicker picnic basket, which was supposed to be a treat, takes the blame. An 'informal settlement' of zinc shacks on the flatlands sets the scene in Allotment. Warda Meintjes and her husband struggle to survive. A great stadium for the World Cup is being built but Warda's unborn child stops moving. The homeless were being rounded up by police, placed in trucks, driven out into the countryside and dumped. 'Thank God we're spared that,' one woman said. 'Don't fool yourself,' another replied. 'That is us. It has already happened to us.' In The Shark Mia's very sense of being gets overtaken by events. A dark story leading on to Development, darker still, but thought-provoking, and about what it is to be human. The Wall is almost surreal and deals with growing old on the street. Alletjie lives with her husband Jan Bakker and Solly, her disabled brother, next to an old mine built by Cornish miners in the 1880s. Their circumstances are a cut above those of Warda and her husband, yet, 'living on the old goats and chickens and a disability grant was never enough', and Alletjie who 'does everything' thinks it isn't fair, 'the mine owned her this future for herself'. Resurrecting again exerts a certain surreal appeal. A father takes to his bed because of a crushed pigeon or is it a metaphor for a crushed soul in the office? His son is told to pray but is there going to be a resurrection?

When lighthouse keeper Hannes Harker is posted to a remote island with his young wife, he discovers something long-hidden in the tower that causes him to lose his footing and fall.

Seriously injured, Hannes is evacuated to hospital and nursed back to health by Sister Rika, to whom he haltingly tells the story of his life: of his mother’s mysterious death, of his wild young wife, Aletta, and of the desolate island inhabited only by the lighthouse keepers and guano workers – two communities confined together, yet rigidly separated in one of the bleakest places on earth. With the arrival of a figure from Aletta’s past, her own secrets erupt into the present, just as the simmering tensions and injustices endured for so long by the guano workers erupt into a single, shocking act of violence.

Written in the exquisite, haunting prose for which Marguerite Poland is renowned, The Keeper is the story of two generations of lighthouse keepers – men obsessed by their duty to the light – and the wives who accompany them into a life of frightening isolation.

The Keeper is a novel about the power of secrets, the power of love, and the power of stories.

Nes ’n geslypte diamant het die waarheid baie kante. Hoe dit vir jou skyn, hang af van waffer kant af jy kyk. Magrieta Malgas, die kleindogter van ’n reenmaker en die half-Koranna Klein-Lit, word in die sewentigerjare vir die onwettige ontginning van edelgesteentes aangekla. Saam met haar onwaarskynlike medebeskuldigdes, ’n bejaarde en ’n gestremde, beweer sy dat hulle die rivieroewer slegs maar oopgeskiet het om 'n oorlede vrou se as te bere waar 'n groot vloed dit sal meesleur. "Weg … see toe." Susara Vermeulen, 'n ietwat onbeholpe verslaggewer, word Oranjerivier toe gestuur om die saak op te volg. Sonder haar redakteur se medewete neem sy Magrieta se verhaal, getik in die Afrikaans van daardie streek, en ’n raaisel na 'n versteekte skat, saam. Deurweef met liriese oomblikke en ou legendes, ontvou die storie van Ntatisi, die Matabele-krygsvrou wat ’n diamant op haar voorkop gedra en haar soldate vreesloos in die stryd gelei het. Soos die Oranjerivier in vloed edelgesteentes saamspoel, raak Susara se verhaal met Magrieta s’n vervleg en word dit ’n reis na kennis van die mistieke, die self en lotsverbondenheid in Afrika. Jeanette Ferreira oor Die engel en die bont bees: “Uit die metafore van ’n gesuurde brood en ’n rivier wat die oewers oorstyg, groei hier ’n wonderlik verbeeldingryke roman. So word feite die klein begin van groot mites wat eweseer oortuig, diep verweef in Ou Afrika en die vele tonge van Afrikaans. Uitsoek-Le Roux."