Sumia Sukkar's The Boy From Aleppo Who Painted The War is about a 14-year-old boy with Asperger Syndrome who attempts to understand the Syrian conflict and its effect on his life by painting his feelings. Yasmine, his beautiful older sister, devotes herself to him, but has to cope with her own traumas when she is taken by soldiers. Their three brothers also struggle - on whether or not to take sides and the consequences of their eventual choices. The book has recently been dramatised by BBC Radio 4. The Boy From Aleppo Who Painted The War is the powerful and deeply moving debut novel from 21-year- old Sumia Sukkar. It chronicles the intimate sufferings of a family in the midst of civil war with uncommon compassion, wit and imaginative force. Told mainly from a challenged young man's perspective, it achieves the timeless dignity of a true report from an unpredictable and frightening place. It will take its place among the list of necessary books to read about how we preserve love and beauty during brutal times. The story is sure to become a beloved classic, as it follows in the footsteps of other novels touching on the lives of young people during war. "Writing my timely novel was a way for me to express my grief towards the tragedies of what's happening in my country," says Sumia. "Readers will find it interesting to experience the traumatising events of war through the eyes of an innocent young autistic boy who has lived his whole life completely dependent on his family and then having to be separated from them. It contains a blend of political events, emotional drive and Arabian tradition."

Set amid the social turmoil of the late sixties, "Right to Kill" is a Brooklyn tale about street smart characters, loyalty, romance, gritty combat, murder, and a touch of humor - all contributing to epic moral dilemma.

A law student from a blue-collar neighborhood, Sean Cercone, puts his life on hold to join the Marine Corps. He makes his way from Gravesend, Brooklyn through Marine officer training and onto the blood soaked fields of Quang Tri. The crucible of vicious combat in Vietnam and a senseless killing back home crush his moral compass.

Sean makes a clandestine trip out of the war zone back to his neighborhood to carry out vengeful mission and subsequently returns undetected to Vietnam. Coming home a second time damaged in body and mind, his family, boyhood friends, a war widow, and a holocaust survivor all try to help him attain peace and move on with his life.

It is 1940, the Blitz is raging over London and other key cities in Britain and tens of thousands of children are being evacuated to safe havens, both within the UK and the Commonwealth. Patricia is six-years-old when she is squirrelled away in an evacuation school deep in the heart of Shropshire. She is left there with the promise from her parents that 'the war will be over very soon and then you can come home'. The 'very soon' lengthens into five long years. This book chronicles the challenges, adventures and misadventures, the triumphs, tragedies and angst that face Patricia.

When Mark, an American soldier serving in Germany in the early 1950s, meets Lauren, a young German girl, their lives change forever. But love is never easy, and for these two it may well be impossible. In a world still reeling from the horrors of war and genocide, the budding love between a Jewish soldier and a German Catholic girl is controversial and dangerous.

It is a time in history that demands the same dedication and focus on duty as in the war years. Both of the lovers are pressured from all sides, and each feels the impossibility of their love-but neither can deny or forget it. Mark is faced with military duty, a possible court martial, and a threatening sociopath. Lauren is expected to play the role of the dutiful German daughter who follows the path dictated by her father. In addition to her obligations to her father, she is expected to focus only on school, work, her church, and her duty to country.

Their very different backgrounds stand as obstacles they can't disregard. Neither is so naive as to ignore the considerable cultural and societal pressure they face. But the heart does not always listen to logic, and soon they are irresistibly drawn together-come what may.

Despite all the many forces they face, can they find the strength to stay together in a world that propels them apart?

"Carl and I must make twenty trips back and forth carrying wounded to those who can offer comfort and medical aid. Each time I look at our litter-now covered with blood and gore-and wonder whether we've done our bit in time. Others scurry about clearing the aftermath of the battle. Burial details are already working to inter the dead before daylight and scavengers descend on this killing ground. The smell is worse than any hog butchering I was ever a party to. Already I can hear the buzz of flies and see the beady little eyes of small animals drawn to the smell of fresh blood. We stand over one soldier writhing in this "sacred ground" as the sergeant called it and lift him ever so gently onto the litter. These men's blood may make the ground sacred, but by now I can see this place for what it actually is-a sea of Virginia mud trying to clutch and claim the dying. This wounded boy wears the blue of the Feds. He's calling out a name and reaching toward me, grasping at me with his trembling fingers as I lean closer. A strange feeling of comradeship comes to me when I realize how like my own fellow soldiers this Yankee fighter looks-just another man doing his duty, whatever his beliefs may be."

Fifteen-year-old Weston Newcomb is fairly surprised when he passes the early entrance exam into the university at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in May of 1943. But the escape from his home in Loris is welcome. Skipping his senior year at a small town high school, West is now somewhat at a disadvantage, both in youth and in education at this large university.

In his first class, he encounters a strangely antagonistic professor, a specialist in Thomas Wolfe, who complicates his life. However, his classmates give him a much broader education. Each new acquaintance seems to have lived a life startlingly different from his own. Self-centered and solipsistic but hungry for skills to serve others, West encounters a gamut of friendships as he stumbles, fumbles, and struggles toward social and sexual adulthood.

Counterpoint to his progress are the guns of World War II. Nazis have invaded Poland, the Japanese have struck Pearl Harbor, and atrocities engulf the planet. Only gradually does West perceive the importance of the war. He integrates personal growth and a discovery of authoritarianism at its worst. He experiences the dark midnight of FDR's death and the bright noon of war's end. He finds his chance for manhood in a world he must help to rebuild. West learns that war is hell, but so is growing up.

The spawn of the devil, the elite of the Russian Red Army were playing football with what looked like a doll's head. They were using the head of a newborn dead baby. He tore himself away as his abdomen muscles contracted and reached to their maximum. He felt sick but there was nothing more to give, his stomach had been empty for days. If a token gesture of defiance was required. He finally bought up his own bile.

Set during the 2nd World War, Mushroom Cloud is an account of what could have happened if Germany had developed the nuclear bomb before America and the Americans could not support, or help Britain anymore. What if Adolf Hitler had such a hold over Britain that Churchill had to surrender to Germany? What would have become of the Royal Family, the Prime Minister and the government? But most importantly, what would have happened to the British people and their way of life? This gripping, sometimes harrowing story follows the lives of four different groups of people as they react to a cataclysmic event in war-torn Europe. In the cause of freedom, some risk their lives, some lose their lives and others find true love. Alan Whichello's first novel demonstrates a natural story-telling ability, which will have the reader hooked from the start