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Promotions > Summer Sale > Books > Fiction
Luzuko Goba, a South African studying at Oxford, navigates the worlds of the undocumented, and the people living on the margins of life in Oxford, England. His father, a former political exile, has just died, and Luzuko is weighing up his father’s life of sacrifice and the price they both paid for freedom back home. This is a book about wayfarers, out of time, and on the wrong side of the UK’s department of immigration. They are the paperless. Sweeping and soulful, Buntu Siwisa observes the hidden and exceptional modern lives of migrant Africans in England in this beautiful debut.
From two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead comes the thrilling and entertaining sequel to Harlem Shuffle. 1971 - Trash is piled on the streets, crime is at a record high, and the city is careening towards bankruptcy. A shooting war has broken out between the NYPD and the Black Liberation Army. Ray Carney, furniture-store owner and ex fence, is trying to keep his head down, his business up, and his life on the straight and narrow. His only immediate need is Jackson 5 tickets for his daughter May, so what harm could it do to hit up Munson, his old police contact and fixer extraordinaire? And suddenly, staying out of the game becomes more complicated - and deadly. When one of Ray's tenants is badly injured in a fire, he enlists the enduringly violent Pepper to look into how it started, leading the duo to battle their way through a crumbling metropolis run by the shady, the violent and the utterly corrupt. In scalpel-sharp prose and with unnerving clarity and wit, Colson Whitehead writes about a city that runs on cronyism, threats, ego, ambition, incompetence and even, sometimes, pride. Crook Manifesto is a kaleidoscopic portrait of Harlem, and a searching portrait of how families work in the face of indifference, chaos and hostility.
A girl matches wits with a war god in this kaleidoscopic, epic tale of oppression and the cost of peace, where stories hide within other stories, and narrative has the power to heal… or to burn everything in its path. In the winding underground tunnels of the Library, the great celestial peacekeeper of the three systems, a terrible secret lies buried. As the daughter of a Library god, Freida has spent her whole life exploring the Library's ever-changing tunnels and communing with the gods. Her unparalleled access makes her unique – and dangerous. When Freida meets Joshua, a mortal boy desperate to save his people, and Nergüi, a Disciple from a persecuted religious minority, Freida is compelled to break ranks with the gods and help them. But in order to do so, she will have to venture deeper into the Library than she has ever known. There she will discover the atrocities of the past, the truth of her origins, and the impossibility of her future… With the world at the brink of war, Freida embarks on a journey to fulfill her destiny, one that pits her against an ancient war god. Her mission is straightforward: Destroy the god before he can rain hellfire upon thousands of innocent lives – if he doesn't destroy her first. A sparkling, thought-provoking new offering from World Fantasy Award-winning author Alaya Dawn Johnson.
What happens when the person closest to you has led a life of deception? After the funeral of her mother, Sally, Alice Kent is approached by a man named Angus Tweedy. He claims to be her father and tells her that he served time in prison for marrying Sally bigamously. What does he hope to gain telling her this now, thirty years on? How can her adored dad Ralph not be her true father? And why did her mother betray her so badly? She had accepted Sally's many faults, and her reluctance to never speak of the past. But faced with this staggering deception, Alice knows she must uncover the whole truth about her mother. Whatever the cost. Alice's journey into her mother's past is one of incredulity as she discovers a woman shaped by a truly traumatic childhood.
SLAVE. ESCAPE-ARTIST. MURDERER. TERRORIST. SPY. LOVER. MOTHER. TRICKSTER. At the Golden Sunset retirement home, it is not unusual for residents to invent stories. So when elderly Ms Mook first begins to unspool her memories, the obituarist listening to her is sceptical. Stories of captivity, friendship, murder, adventure, assumed identities and spying. Stories that take place in WWII Indonesia; in Busan during the Korean war; in cold-war Pyongyang; in China. The stories are so colourful and various, at times so unbelievable, that they cannot surely all belong to the same woman. Can they? As playful and thought-provoking as it is compelling, as brutal and harrowing as it is achingly poignant and tender, this is a novel about love and war, deceit and betrayal, about identity, storytelling and the trickery required for survival.
Rosamund Lupton meets Lupin in this accomplished debut from an eclectic, cut-throat new voice in thriller writing. Wealthy and privileged, Alex has an easy path to success in the Parisian elite his father mingles with. But the two have never seen eye to eye. Desperate to escape the increasingly suffocating atmosphere of their apartment, Alex seeks freedom on the streets of Paris where his new-found friend Sami teaches him how to survive. But everything has a price - and one night of rebellion changes their lives forever. A simple plan to steal money takes a sinister turn when Alex's father is found dead. Despite protesting their innocence, both boys are imprisoned for murder. Seven years later Alex is released from prison with a single purpose: to discover who really killed his father. Yet as he searches for answers and atones for the sins of his past, Alex uncovers a disturbing truth with far-reaching consequences. Playing out against a backdrop of corruption, fake news and civil unrest, The Messenger exposes the gritty reality of a changing city through one son's journey to redemption and the truth.
In the thirty-second installment of Donna Leon’s bestselling series, a connection to Guido Brunetti’s own youthful past helps solve a mysterious murder On a cold November evening, Guido Brunetti and Paola are up late when a call from his colleague Ispettore Vianello arrives, alerting the Commissario that a hand has been seen in one of Venice’s canals. The body is soon found, and Brunetti is assigned to investigate the murder of an undocumented Sri Lankan immigrant. Because no official record of the man’s presence in Venice exists, Brunetti is forced to use the city’s far richer sources of information: gossip and the memories of people who knew the victim. Curiously, he had been living in a small house on the grounds of a palazzo owned by a university professor, in which Brunetti discovers books revealing the victim’s interest in Buddhism, the revolutionary Tamil Tigers, and the last crop of Italian political terrorists, active in the 1980s. As the investigation expands, Brunetti, Vianello, Commissario Griffoni, and Signora Elettra each assemble pieces of a puzzle—random information about real estate and land use, books, university friendships—that appear to have little in common, until Brunetti stumbles over something that transports him back to his own student days, causing him to reflect on lost ideals and the errors of youth, on Italian politics and history, and on the accidents that sometimes lead to revelation.
This is the future world that haunts portrait photographer and narrator, James Baldwin, as he alternates between present-day South Africa and the Frontier — an existential dystopia where women are inexplicably completely and permanently wiped from the world. This, according to him, can only mean extinctions of varying and catastrophic degrees. He is a lover of women, and there are countless things he would terribly miss: how women hold and shake rainwater from umbrellas, the musical click of stilettos on concrete or tiled floors, the way light falls on their face during cosy, candlelit dinners. He would miss the patience of female psychologists who fix the world one madman at a time, there would no longer be eye-catching and dramatic fashion statements at weddings or funerals, florists would eternally be emptied of their stock, and the rate of tunes belted out in showers would drop dramatically if not completely cease, the world would not be the same without the gossip mill of some women, their petty jealousies and catfights, their ever-evolving and varied insecurities… A lull would befall the land. Erotic, perceptive and transcendental; Breasts, etc. is a novel of double consciousness. It is an exploration of, and meditation on the existential strife and tragic comedy at the Frontier, a post-apocalyptic and desolate landscape that forms the backdrop to an examination of masculine vulnerabilities and wickedness in a world stripped of feminine presence and wisdom.
Bessie Botha, deesdae weduwee Botha, woon saam met haar broer, Willem,
op ’n kleinhoewe buite Bloemfontein. 1974 was tot dusver nie ’n goeie
jaar nie, en om alles te kroon is oorlede Stefaans se welgestelde broer
en sy jong neus-in-die-lug vrou op pad om te kom
’n Vreemdeling by ’n familiebegrafnis keer Kristie se lewe onderstebo.
Haar daaglikse take by die argiteksfirma beleef ook ’n wending: Erik is
’n moeilike kliёnt en ook die onweerstaanbare tipe. Toe Kristie se
werklikheid ineenstort, vlug sy na Phuket in Thailand. Maar die eiland
bring nie vir haar die gemoedsrus waarop sy gehoop het nie. Terwyl sy
van haar omgekeerde wêreld probeer sin maak, begin een van die laaste
bastions in haar lewe wankel.
1919. In a Highland village forgotten by the world, the young people who remain after war and flu will soon head south to make something of themselves. Moira Jean and her friends venture to the forest for a last night of laughter before parting ways. Moira Jean is being left behind. She too planned to leave once – but her lover died in France and, with him, her future. The friends light a fire and dance. But, with every twirl about the flames, strange new dancers thread between them, music streaming from the trees. The Fae have joined the dance. Suddenly Moira Jean finds herself all alone, her friends spirited away. For the Fae feel left behind and forgotten too. Led by the darkly handsome Lord of the Fae, they are out to make themselves known once more. Moira Jean must enter into a bargain with the Lord to save her friends – and fast, for the longer they spend with the Fae, the less like themselves they will be upon return. If Moira Jean cannot save her friends before Beltane, they will be lost forever… Bewitching, threaded with Highland charm, and sparkling with romance, this fairy tale will carry you away.
A moving mystery set in the 90s, about a girl trying to solve the mystery of her mother's death after she receives an anonymous note saying 'She didn't die in a car accident'... if only her family would stop lying to her, she might be able to discover the truth. Summer, 1995. On her tenth birthday, July's teacher sets the class a project to find out about a relation they don't know. It's easy for July to choose her subject. She doesn't remember her mother, who died when she was small, and her father refuses to talk about her. Ever. The only memories she has of her are flashbacks from the accident that claimed her mother's life. But then she receives the note: 'She didn't die in a car accident.' Determined to discover what really happened, July begins to investigate, cycling around the street where her family used to live and questioning the neighbours. When she is caught snooping round a crumbling house at the end of the road, she learns that the man living there was the last person to see July's mother alive. In his version of the story, he is a hero. In everyone else's, he is anything but...
Katrina Hunt has a disturbing secret. Since her earliest days fighting for survival in the poverty of a trailer park, she’s been able to sense moral corruption. And her gift is never wrong. This strange ability affects every relationship, for people have no way to hide from her. Katrina harnesses her gift and sets it to work, sniffing out evil in positions of privilege and power. Yet she soon finds she is not the only one who can do it. On the far side of the world, a scientist cracks an algorithm that will forever change law-enforcement. His new scan can detect a person’s genetic propensity for wrongdoing, even before they act. But what if the most corrupt man in the world, a political figure assuming ever higher office, is able to beat the scan? What if he alone can hide his true darkness? What if he is ... not quite human? Katrina’s path will lead inexorably to confrontation with an immense power. But can she stop him, before it is too late for humanity?
Cassandra Penelope Dankworth is a creature of habit. She likes what she likes (museums, jumpsuits, her boyfriend Will) and strongly dislikes what she doesn't (mess, change, her boss drinking out of her mug). Her life runs in a pleasing, predictable order. Until now. She's just been dumped. She's just been fired. Her local café has run out of banana muffins. Then, something truly unexpected happens: Cassie discovers she can go back and change the past. Now, Cassie should be able to find a way to fix the life she accidentally obliterated. And with time on her side, how hard can it be...? The hotly anticipated adult novel from the multi-million-copy bestselling author of Geek Girl, Holly Smale.
From Ensimbini, in the village of Somizi, in the shadow of the Ntokozo Hills, within the Kingdom of Langabi, during the reign of King Diliza, the cousin of Langabi’s founder, the late Queen Sukumani, there comes a hero. King Diliza, sun of the sky and leopard of the many markings, Babengabuzang’ elangeni. Owethu knows your secret.
A new collection of short stories by one of South Africa’s most original writers, A Little Light is a timely and sensitive evocation of places, bodies, politics, regrets and hope, all revealed in tightly controlled and beautifully lit stories. Mohlele’s daring writing is on full display with the publication of this volume.
A secretary like no other... In an epic spanning 40 years. All Hanna Fischer ever wanted to do was to study physics under the great Albert Einstein. But when, as a teenager in 1919, her life is suddenly turned upside-down, she is catapulted into a new and extraordinary life - as a secretary, a scientist, a sister and a spy. From racist gangs in Berlin to gangsters in New York City, Nazis in the 1930s and Hitler's inner circle during the Second World War, Hanna will encounter some of history's greatest minds and most terrible moments, all while desperately trying to stay alive. She is a most unique secretary and she will work for many bosses - from shrewd businessmen to vile Nazis, to the greatest boss of them all, Mr Albert Einstein... Spanning forty years, this is the thrilling tale of a young woman propelled through history's most dangerous times.
It's the perfect getaway. But the past will always find you . . .
A sharp and twisty exploration of female friendship from the New York Times bestselling author of A Flicker in the Dark and All the Dangerous Things. Lucy Sharpe is larger than life. Magnetic, addictive. Bold and dangerous. Especially for Margot, who meets Lucy at the end of their freshman year at a liberal arts college in South Carolina. Margot is the shy one, the careful one, always the sidekick and never the center of attention. But when Lucy singles her out at the end of the year, a year Margot spent studying and playing it safe, and asks her to room together, something in Margot can't say no―something daring, or starved, or maybe even envious. And so Margot finds herself living in an off-campus house with three other girls, Lucy, the ringleader; Sloane, the sarcastic one; and Nicole, the nice one, the three of them opposites but also deeply intertwined. It's a year that finds Margot finally coming out of the shell she's been in since the end of high school, when her best friend Eliza died three weeks after graduation. Margot and Lucy have become the closest of friends, but by the middle of their sophomore year, one of the fraternity boys from the house next door has been brutally murdered... and Lucy Sharpe is missing without a trace. From the author of A Flicker in the Dark and All the Dangerous Things comes a tantalizing thriller about the nature of friendship and belonging, about loyalty, envy, and betrayal―another gripping novel from an author quickly becoming the gold standard in psychological suspense.
The Witch’s Heart meets The Foxglove King in this debut fantasy about a woman who can bring people back from the dead, and the princess she must protect, no matter the cost. The first time Hellevir visited Death, she was ten years old… Since she was a little girl, Hellevir has been able to raise the dead. Every creature can be saved for a price, a price demanded by the shrouded figure who rules the afterlife, who takes a little more from Hellevir with each soul she resurrects. Such a gift can rarely remain a secret. When Princess Sullivain, sole heir to the kingdom’s throne, is assassinated, the Queen summons Hellevir to demand she bring her granddaughter back to life. But once is not enough; the killers might strike again. The Princess’ death would cause a civil war, so the Queen commands that Hellevir remain by her side. But Sullivain is no easy woman to be bound to, even as Hellevir begins to fall in love with her. With the threat of war looming, Hellevir must trade more and more of herself to keep the princess alive. But Death will always take what he is owed.
One hundred years. Seventeen assassins. One hell of a ride. Agent Seventeen, the most infamous hitman in the world, has quit. But whoever wants to become Assassin Eighteen must track him down and kill him first. So when a bullet hits the glass inches from his face, he knows who fired it - doesn't he? But the sniper isn't the hardened killer he was expecting. It's Mireille - a mysterious, silent child, abandoned in the woods with instructions to pull the trigger. Reuniting with his spiky lover, Kat, Seventeen must protect Mireille, and discover who sent her to kill him, and why. But the road he must travel is littered with bodies. And the answer, when it comes, will blow apart everything Seventeen thought he knew.
A hilariously filthy tale of sex, crime, and family dysfunction from the brilliantly twisted mind of John Waters, the legendary filmmaker and bestselling author of Mr. Know-It-All. Marsha Sprinkle: Suitcase thief. Scammer. Master of disguise. Dogs and children hate her. Her own family wants her dead. She's smart, she's desperate, she's disturbed, and she's on the run with a big chip on her shoulder. They call her "Liarmouth" - until one insane man makes her tell the truth. John Waters's first novel, Liarmouth, is a perfectly perverted "feel-bad romance," and the reader will thrill to hop aboard this delirious road trip of riotous revenge.
One of National Book Tokens’ '23 Books to Read in 2023' and a Times Literary Supplement Summer Book 2023. "My name is Morgan... And there aren’t enough words for all that I am." When King Uther Pendragon murders her father and tricks her mother into marriage, Morgan refuses to be crushed. Trapped amid the machinations of men in a world of isolated castles and gossiping courts, she discovers secret powers. Vengeful and brilliant, it's not long before Morgan becomes a worthy adversary to Merlin, influential sorcerer to the king. But fighting for her freedom, she risks losing everything – her reputation, her loved ones and her life. An atmospheric, feminist retelling of the early life of famed villainess Morgan le Fay, set against the colourful chivalric backdrop of Arthurian legend.
An early morning on a beach in Virginia. As he is taking his daily swim, Arman Bajalan - formerly an interpreter in Iraq - discovers a dead body. After surviving an assassination attempt that killed his wife and child, Arman has been given lonely sanctuary in the US. Now, sure that the murder is connected to his past, he knows he's still not safe. Seasoned detective Catherine Wheel and her fresh-off-the-beat partner have little to go on beyond a bus ticket in the man's pocket. It leads them to Sally Ewell, a local journalist as grief-stricken as Arman by the Iraq war, who is investigating a nefarious corporation: one on the cusp of landing a multi-billion-dollar government defence contract. As victims mount around Arman, taking the team down wrong turns and towards startling evidence, they find themselves in a race, committed to unravelling the truth and keeping Arman alive - even if it costs them everything. A Line in the Sand is a sinuous, powerful and white-knuckle thriller, from the award-winning author of The Yellow Birds, shot through with treachery, trauma and the long tentacles of war. |
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