Welcome to Vivo, where the only cemetery is run by old Mateus and his dog, God. Mateus’s eyes aren’t so good these days, which is why he has been burying bodies in the wrong graves, and also why, while out walking with God, he trips over a young homeless girl. On a whim, Mateus decides to appoint the girl as his apprentice.

Novo, who has been sleeping on the street with a dog-eared copy of The Savage Detectives as her pillow, is determined to reorganise the cemetery, but she will have to hurry: buried awry, divorced from their names, the ghosts of Vivo are accumulating, unable to proceed to the afterlife without knowing who they are. Also, someone, or some thing, is on the loose, killing people and closing in on the one person who can make things right.

Vivo is a town with a pigeon-messaging service, a phone booth used for romantic encounters, and a number of residents who are not quite what they seem, including a prostitute, a professor and a prophetic flower-seller. Oh, and the coffee is hellishly strong.

Erudite and wise, magical and quirky, Sven Axelrad’s debut novel is an enchanting adventure that explores what our names mean to us and who we are without them.

Lente is verloof aan die aantreklike Herman Pretorius, maar sy weet haar hart behoort eintlik aan haar gevaarlike en stormagtige jeugliefde, Stander Gerber. Hy is egter verantwoordelik vir die dood van hul goeie vriend en die letsel in haar nek…

Stander stoei steeds met skuldgevoelens oor destyds, maar sy liefde vir Lente brand al hoe sterker.

Sal hulle die spoke van die verlede kan verjaag of gaan hulle die maklike roete kies en met ’n hart vol letsels wegstap?

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.

Dinge ontrafel vinnig wanneer iemand speuradjudant Storm van der Merwe se ma voor ’n trein op Paddington-stasie instamp. Storm moet Londen toe, al is sy tot oor haar ore met ’n moordsaak: Beebee Bukelwa Babu, befaamde Suid-Afrikaanse modeontwerper, lê leweloos in ’n luukse hotel op Hermanus.

Hande om Storm te help met die ondersoek ná Beebee se dood is min, want protesaksie lê die dorp lam. Boonop sweep ’n charismatiese profeet die skare op tot ’n histerie.

Storm besef gou nie net haar ma se lewe is in gevaar nie. Sy is ook ’n teiken.

Intussen probeer haar ekskollega, Andreas Moerdyk, nou ’n privaat speurder, om ’n skaars rooi diamant van onskatbare waarde op te spoor.

Van Londen se donker strate tot Antwerpen se diamantebeurs, van Port Nolloth se verlate kuslyn tot Storm se geliefde Hermanus, ontvou die storie in Irna van Zyl se derde misdaadroman teen die pas van ’n sneltrein.

This is the 3rd novel featuring protagonist Sopwith Jones, but the first published in South Africa. The first 2 were first published in England, proving distribution in SA difficult. Those two novels will be republished in South Africa in due course.

,P> The President of South Africa survives an attempted assassination. Jones, together with other helpful and colourful characters, the likes of Withers and Dr Njoli become involved in protecting him. In evading the faction responsible for the attempt and who are intent on taking over the government once the President has been disposed of, they take refuge in the Northern Cape.

Their whereabouts are detected, necessitating a move to the Langkloof. A further attempt is made on the President’s life but is thwarted, enabling the President to be returned to Johannesburg, but having to remain in hiding.

Convincing the leader of the faction, Spade Mapeti, that he is supportive of their ideology, Jones manages to meet with him at a game lodge in KZN but is exposed for who he really is.

Dis 1814 in Carlisle, Engeland, en die lewe het min genade vir ’n werkersklasvrou. Edith Maberry is dus verbaas toe Lewis Bloodsworth vir haar in die bresse tree in die kroeg waar sy werk.

Toe Edith haar werk en blyplek verloor, wend sy haar tot Lewis. Hiermee dompel sy beide van hulle in ’n krisis. Lewis word met sy verlede gekonfronteer en kom voor ’n keuse te staan.

Sal hy Edith kies wat vir hom die verpersoonliking is van alles wat hy in ’n vrou wil hê? Of sal hy hul liefde opoffer om die geheim te bewaar oor wie en, belangriker, wát hy werklik is?

Nadat sy weens die eise van haar loopbaan en lewe byna uitbrand, neem Hanna ’n blaaskans in Hawaii.

Daar ontmoet sy die charismatiese Richard, sakeman en medeeienaar van ’n groep koffiewinkels. Hulle is dadelik aangetrokke tot mekaar en Hanna vergesel Richard op ’n sakebesoek aan Maui.

Hanna verloor haar hart, maar Richard glo nie in langtermynverhoudings nie. Kan sy hom van plan laat verander of gaan hy haar hart flenters breek?

*Winner of the UJ Debut Prize*

Family secrets run deep for Grace, a young girl growing up in Cape Town during the 1980s, spilling over into adulthood, and threating to ruin the respectable life she has built for herself.

When an old childhood friend reappears, Grace’s memories of her childhood come rushing back, and she is confronted, once again, with the loss that has shaped her. The novel is permeated with the long shadow cast by personal trauma, violence and loss on people’s lives.

After years teaching Romantic poetry in Cape Town, David Lurie has an impulsive affair with a student.

The affair sours; he is denounced and summoned before a committee of inquiry. Willing to admit his guilt, but refusing to yield to pressure to repent publicly, he resigns and retreats to his daughter Lucy’s isolated smallholding. For a time, his daughter’s influence and the natural rhythms of the farm promise to harmonise his discordant life. But the balance of power in the country is shifting. He and Lucy become victims of a savage and disturbing attack which brings into relief all the faultlines in their relationship.

Olivia Welgemoed se toekoms lyk rooskleurig: Sy is ’n mediese dokter met ’n suksesvolle praktyk en verloof aan ’n predikant met ’n gemeente wat uitsien na ’n lojale predikantspaar.

Dan kom haar pa, ’n bekende dokter van die Noord-Kaap, skielik tot sterwe. Asof sy ná ’n skeepsramp alleen in ’n reddingsboot sit, reik alle hande na haar vir hulp: haar verloofde, haar stiefma, haar stiefbroer en ’n gesondheidskliniek wat oorstroom ...

Op haar erfgrond, Koepelplaas, is daar boonop ’n vreemdeling wat volgens haar wederregtelik op die oewer van die rivier uitkamp. Hy lyk soos ’n boemelaar en word haar grootste probleem.

Beskik Olivia werklik oor die spirituele eienskappe van die berghaan soos wat die mense sê? En sal sy tussen al haar probleme en verantwoordelikhede kan leer onderskei tussen plig en ware liefde?

Italiaanse sywurmboere word ingevoer om 'n sybedryf te kom vestig in Gouna se boswereld, maar moerbeibome verseg om in die potklei te groei. In die strawwe boswinter word die verwarde immigrante geteister deur reen, koorssiekte en onbegrip, en raak hulle al meer verbitter teen die goewerment wat hulle onder valse voorwendsels in die wildernis afgelaai het. Die man wat hulle tot hulp kom, is 'n bosmens met 'n onregeerbare dogter en 'n kop vol planne - die eiesinnige Silas Miggel. Hy wil hulle op 'n skip kry, terug Italie toe.

Hierdie bundel is ‘n postmoderne spanningsverhaal in epiese digvorm in die voetspore van moderne tekste soos Awater en The Waste Land.

Dit vertel die verhaal van die verset van ‘n baie gewone man teen sy mislukkings en teen die magte wat sy lewe beheer – ‘n verset waarin hy hom gaandeweg laat verlei om ‘n bomplanter te word.

Die sentrale temas van liefde, verraad en vergelding word uitgespeel in ‘n ryk intertekstuele verwysingsveld.

Nielsen BookData Bookseller's Choice-prys (2005) Sy het haarself Stom Anna genoem. Omdat sy aan iemand kon vertel van dit wat tussen haar en haar stiefpa plaasgevind het nie. Nie aan haar ma nie, nie aan haar beste vriendin nie, en selfs nie aan haar eie pa nie. Dit is 'n verhaal wat sy nou eers, jare later, kan uitskryf. Nou eers kan sy die swye verbreek oor hoe haar stiefpa haar diepste menswees aangetas het. En hoe sy uiteindelik anderkant uitgekom het. Dis ek, Anna is gebaseer op 'n ware verhaal en is ook in Engels beskikbaar as It's me, Anna. Elbie Lotter is 'n skuilnaam.

Wouter Wessels praktiseer as prokureur vanuit ’n omskepte woonhuis in ‘n voorstad van Pretoria. Na ‘n reeks terugslae in sy lewe, is beide sy regsloopbaan en persoonlike lewe weer besig om op koers te kom. Totdat daar op ’n gewone werksdag ‘n skynbaar gewone klient by sy praktyk instap.

Sy het egter nie die deursnee regsprobleem nie. Nadat hy haar begin bystaan, kom hy onverwags op ’n katnes van bedrog en swendelary af waarby hooggeplaastes en invloedrykes betrokke is. Skielik bars alle hel rondom hom los en sy lewe is in gevaar.

Hy betrek spoedig ’n vriendin, wat ’n joernalis by ’n dagblad is, asook ’n eksentrieke forensiese wetenskaplike om hom by te staan om dié bedrogspul te probeer ontrafel. Hy het egter nie die luukse van tyd nie, en boonop verdwyn sy sleutelgetuie skielik spoorloos.

Sophia Joubert en haar skoonfamilie is na afloop van die Anglo-Boereoorlog weer vry om terug te keer na die verwoeste familieplaas – sonder vee en sonder kos. Geoffrey Doubell help die Jouberts om weer op hul voete te kom. Dié samaritaan is wel ’n halwe Engelsman, maar elke keer as Geoffrey na haar kyk, bruis Sophia se bloed en word haar wange warm.

Haar eerste liefde lê egter begrawe in die grond van Natal en Sophia is diep gekwes. Sy sien ook in Geoffrey se oë ’n treurigheid wat nie wyk nie. Dié man ken ook verlies. Durf sy nou hoop op ’n tweede liefde? Op geluk by ’n man wat haar kan aanvul en verstaan?

Daar heers egter onheilspellende spanning tussen die Jouberts en die inwoners van die buurplaas. Boonop wonder Sophia of Geoffrey werklik sy lewe met slegs een vrou kan deel, want sy is beslis nie die enigste een wat in hom belangstel nie.

When Natasha, a novice writer from South Africa, is nominated for a major British literary prize, Terence, a young university lecturer, undertakes to introduce her to the sights of London.

However, London and its literary cliques are a far cry from Natasha’s Karoo hometown: through no fault of her own, she is disqualified, and their affair ends in tragedy. Terence, whose best friend accuses him of suffering from a Good Samaritan complex, now takes an interest in a rough sleeper and his dog that he meets outside a tube station.

This turns out to be a complex undertaking. As the ghosts of his past relationships are visited upon him, Terence is forced to reconsider the meaning of human connections – how our lives touch, and are touched by, others.

Michiel Heyns’s Each Mortal Thing shows us the metropolis through fresh eyes, calculates the cost of acts of kindness, and speaks to the grace that friendship can bestow on us.

Three young professionals set off on a hiking trail to a campsite in the upper regions of the Drakensberg mountains in KwaZulu-Natal little knowing what lies ahead when a stranger who has been following them lures them into performing a bizarre mind game which has a concealed dark intent.

What unfolds against the spectacular mountainous amphitheatre is the stranger’s journey into South Africa’s historical landscape in which he manipulates the hikers into taking on the identity of key role players in shaping the country’s destiny, scripted in such a way as to serve his sense of disillusionment of a political ideal that has come to nothing. His feelings of betrayal and anger merge with a past personal vendetta that he has with one of the hikers to the point that the mind game takes on threatening undertones.

In The Rainbow Epilogue Neville Herrington moves away from the personal experience of living in a country undergoing socio-political change in his autobiographies Growing up in White South Africa and Growing Old in Black South Africa to a more objective, critical perspective of a South Africa in which the aspirations encapsulated in the Rainbow Nation, (a term coined by Desmond Tutu and used by Mandela at the end of apartheid), have for many failed to materialise, as it has for his central character, Reginald Taylor, who supported an ideal that has not only failed to deliver, but turned on him destroying everything that is meaningful in his life.

Detectives in pursuit of criminals, a brother desperate to find his wunga-addicted sibling, a search for abducted girls, a quest to be reunited with a long-lost lover – these are just some of the searches that form the basis of the stories in this collection. On a more metaphysical level there are characters seeking some form of faith or purpose. Entertaining tales that keep the reader enthralled with tension and suspense, while reflecting the realities of contemporary South Africa.

"Stick with me, baby. Ek kan nie belowe dat ek jou famous sal maak nie. Maar jy sal fun he langs die pad. "Met die woorde lei die mooi, rebelse Dalena haar nuwe vriendin, Mart, 'n wereld in waaroor ordentlike tienermeisies net in die donker fluister. So begin 'n inisiasieproses wat met opwinding, maar ook met ontnugtering en pyn gepaard gaan. Die dinge van 'n kind is ’n onthutsende eerlike boek oor die begin van vrouwees, en die verlies van onskuld op seksuele, politieke en morele vlak.

South African born debut author brings a threat-and-danger, hidden-world fantasy with touches of Suzanne Collins which fans of VE Schwab or Sarah J Maas will love.

Twenty-two-year-old Cassia's sister is dying, and she doesn't know why. Cassia wakes up in another realm to find her missing best friend, Lucas, who knows how to save her sister.

Lucas is part of a community of Reborns, people who were born on earth and after death, were reborn in this realm with magical abilities. The original beings of the realm, the Firsts, rule over them.

To keep the Reborn numbers manageable, the king of the Firsts releases a curse to cull them. Cassia needs to break the curse before her time runs out and she is trapped there forever.

What makes Pat Simmons, a retired engineer, give up his comfortable middle class living and wade across a crocodile infested river with a bicycle strapped to his back, in order to teach chess to schoolchildren at the Mission station?

Vier ouens, ‘n meisie in ‘n kortbroek en ‘n man in ‘n rok – so kan die hoofkarakters in die boek opgesom word.

Husky en sy drie vriende is na hul Graad 12 eindeksamen op pad na ‘n Karooplaas, Blouwater, vir ‘n heerlike vakansie van niksdoen en kuier. Die plaas behoort aan een van die vriende se pa, een van die rykste mense in die land. Langs die pad laai hulle ‘n pragtige, blonde ryloper op, ‘n meisie met ‘n verlede en ‘n .38-rewolwer in haar handsak. Sy aanvaar die uitnodiging om saam op Blouwater te gaan uitspan, min wetend dat sy in doodsgevaar gaan beland.

Op die plaas stuur alles egter op ‘n afgryslike bloedbad af. Onverklaarbare gebeurtenisse, ‘n waansinnige pastoor met sy lang swart gewaad, ‘n kerkie, grafstene, kraaie en ‘n bejaarde gravin met haar haelgeweer skep ‘n atmosfeer van spanning, misterie en Gotiek. Blouwater sal nooit weer dieselfde wees nie.

Jonk en oud sal hierdie spanningsverhaal geniet met ‘n ontknoping aan die einde wat die leser uitasem sal laat.

Aan die Kaapse Weskus versorg Rebecca Maas haar sterwende pa in ’n tegnologies gevorderde slimhuis, ’n huis wat praat in ’n halfbekende stem. Op die horison, ’n olietenkskip.

’n Posthuman biohacker trou met die enorme skip, en maak kuns oor die wittebroodsreis.

En in die yswildernis van Svalbard verdwyn ’n navorser se kollega en minnaar spoorloos. Hulle is daar om geheimsinnige spierwit items te ondersoek – dalk beendere, maar dan beendere wat vertak en ineensmelt soos geen bekende skepsel s’n nie.

Willem Anker se roman Buys (2014) is bekroon met die Universiteit van Johannesburg-prys, die WA Hofmeyrprys, die kykNET-Rapportprys, die Hertzogprys en die Helgaard Steyn-toekenning. In vertaling as Red Dog was dit in 2020 op die langlys vir die International Booker Prize. Anker doseer skeppende skryfkunde aan die Universiteit Stellenbosch.

Tshepo, a young student at Rhodes, has a difficult time keeping up with his own strange mind. He is absorbed in making sense of a traumatic past in a violent country and so when he finds himself at the Valkenberg mental facility it is perhaps not entirely due to “cannabis-induced psychosis”.

How is he to bring together the shattered pieces of his life? In the shady subculture of male prostitution Tshepo begins to find answers for the first time.

Discovering first his true sexuality, and then that sexuality is only a key to the greater realms of a hidden, mythical humanity, Tshepo can finally tap into the ancient powers that are his birthright.