Emma Bekker se debuutpundel Skryn (poësie) is goed ontvang en die eerste druk het uitverkoop. Hierdie bundel kortverhale getuig van dieselfde fyn waarneming, musikaliteit, verbeeldingrykeid en sensualiteit. Dit gaan hier oor struktuur, oor lae van betekenis en gevoel, oor die skelette van stories wat met vel oorgetrek word. Die verhale is soms donker, soms humoristies, altyd vreesloos en eroties gelaai. Die onderwerpe strek van ’n porn-ster se hartseer oor sy ma se dood tot ’n uitbundige relaas van ’n skoolkonsert.

A moving tale of second chances and creating a life worth living from the Number One bestselling author, Danielle Steel.

Charlie Vincent feels trapped in his treadmill of a life. He's wealthy and successful doing a job he doesn't want to do, in a marriage to a woman where the romance died many years ago. All that interests Isabelle is his money to fund her extravagant lifestyle. The children have left home and there is nothing for him to look forward to. One Friday evening he leaves work in Paris after yet another row with his CEO, to head to their Normandy chateau where Isabelle has invited guests for the weekend. He's been working late every night, he's tired and he's not concentrating. Just an hour away from the chateau, his car veers off the road, down a cliff and into the sea.

The accident should've killed him and he almost felt ready to die. However, he does escape the vehicle and he somehow finds the strength to climb to safety. The area is remote but in the growing darkness he sees a light on in a cottage in the woods. He knocks on the door and is greeted by Aude, an artist who is escaping her own demons.

This fateful meeting will change Charlie's and Aude's lives forever.

Rehana Rossouw’s unique voice gives life and drama to this family saga. It is the story of the Fourie family, residents of Hanover Park in the Cape Flats during the height of the struggle era. The main characters include Magda, the churchgoing mother, who doesn’t see what’s going on in front of her; Neville, the concerned and loving but not always effectual father; Suzette, the oldest daughter, who is bound and determined to get away and make a better life for herself via a career in modelling; Nicky, the smart and sensitive middle child, who proves herself capable of making unselfish choices; and Anthony, the naive and doomed son, who gets caught up with a gang and meets a sad end. In What Will People Say the setting is everything, and the author doesn’t stint on the details of the world her characters inhabit. Readers who have never set foot in Hanover Park will feel they are there, and those who know the place will nod in recognition of the sensory details the author loads into her writing. Nor does the author shy away from the difficult issues faced by those living in this marginalised and disadvantaged community, which came into being as a result of the forced removals from Cape Town. How these issues affect the members of a particular family and their relationships with one another are the focus of the author’s close-up lens. Generously spiced with Cape Flats slang; lots of vivid and gritty description that give an authentic feel to the story; plenty of plot – the writer draws us in and makes us curious about what will happen next; and very human characters we come to care about.

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Danielle Steel comes a powerful novel about a woman running her family’s luxury department store and the wealthy investor who threatens to take it over.

Spencer Brooke always knew she was destined to be CEO of her grandfather’s business—the most respected and luxurious department store in New York City. Brooke’s has been at the center of every happy memory she has, but it hasn’t been an easy journey. Seven years after her father’s death, her life is very different from the days when she walked through the store with her grandfather as a young girl. She may be the owner of Brooke’s, but she’s also now a divorced single mother of twin boys. And with the ever-evolving landscape of the fashion industry comes new challenges for Spencer and the legacy she’s inherited.

Mike Weston is known for making enormous profits by transforming small businesses into bigger, more successful ones. With his marriage at a breaking point and his children grown up, investing is where he thrives—where he can build something greater. And Brooke’s feels like the perfect opportunity. Yet the firm’s beautiful and savvy CEO turns down the offer before they even meet.

Spencer has no interest in outside investors meddling in her family business; her grandfather never saw the need for them, and neither does she. She refuses to be tempted by Mike’s offer, despite her big dreams of expanding the store. But when bad luck strikes, suddenly she is backed into a corner.

In Worthy Opponents, Danielle Steel crafts a thrilling story about a powerful woman—and her equally formidable opponent.

The New York Times bestselling author of Flight Behaviour, The Lacuna, and The Poisonwood Bible returns with a timely novel that interweaves past and present to explore the human capacity for resiliency and compassion in times of great upheaval.

Willa Knox has always prided herself on being the embodiment of responsibility for her family. Which is why it’s so unnerving that she’s arrived at middle age with nothing to show for her hard work and dedication but a stack of unpaid bills and an inherited brick home in Vineland, New Jersey, that is literally falling apart. The magazine where she worked has folded, and the college where her husband had tenure has closed. The dilapidated house is also home to her ailing and cantankerous Greek father-in-law and her two grown children: her stubborn, free-spirited daughter, Tig, and her dutiful debt-ridden, ivy educated son, Zeke, who has arrived with his unplanned baby in the wake of a life-shattering development.

In an act of desperation, Willa begins to investigate the history of her home, hoping that the local historical preservation society might take an interest and provide funding for its direly needed repairs. Through her research into Vineland’s past and its creation as a Utopian community, she discovers a kindred spirit from the 1880s, Thatcher Greenwood.

A science teacher with a lifelong passion for honest investigation, Thatcher finds himself under siege in his community for telling the truth: his employer forbids him to speak of the exciting new theory recently published by Charles Darwin. Thatcher’s friendships with a brilliant woman scientist and a renegade newspaper editor draw him into a vendetta with the town’s most powerful men. At home, his new wife and status-conscious mother-in-law bristle at the risk of scandal, and dismiss his financial worries and the news that their elegant house is structurally unsound.

Brilliantly executed and compulsively readable, Unsheltered is the story of two families, in two centuries, who live at the corner of Sixth and Plum, as they navigate the challenges of surviving a world in the throes of major cultural shifts. In this mesmerizing story told in alternating chapters, Willa and Thatcher come to realize that though the future is uncertain, even unnerving, shelter can be found in the bonds of kindred—whether family or friends—and in the strength of the human spirit.

When a soldier with a troubled past and a struggling songwriter agree to a marriage of convenience for the military benefits, neither expects much after saying “I do.” Then tragedy strikes, and the line between what’s real and what’s pretend begins to blur in this smart and surprising romance perfect for fans of Nicholas Sparks and Jojo Moyes.

Cassie Salazar and Luke Morrow couldn’t be more different. Sharp-witted Cassie works nights at a bar in Austin, Texas to make ends meet while pursuing her dream of becoming a singer/songwriter. Luke is an Army trainee, about to ship out for duty, who finds comfort in the unswerving discipline of service. But a chance encounter at Cassie’s bar changes the course of both their lives.

Cassie is drowning in medical bills after being diagnosed with diabetes. When she runs into her old friend Frankie, now enlisted in the Army, she proposes a deal: she’ll marry him in exchange for better medical insurance and they can split the increased paycheck that comes with having a “family.” When Frankie declines, his attractive but frustratingly intense friend Luke volunteers to marry Cassie instead. What she doesn’t know is that he has desperate reasons of his own to get married.

In this unforgettable love story, Cassie and Luke must set aside their differences to make it look like a real marriage...unless, somewhere along the way, it becomes one...

Leigh Fletcher: happily married stepmum to two gorgeous boys goes missing on Monday. Her husband Mark says he knows nothing of her whereabouts. She simply went to work and just never came home. Their family is shattered.

Kai Janssen: married to wealthy Dutch businessman, Daan, vanishes the same week. Kai left their luxurious penthouse and glamorous world without a backward glance. She seemingly evaporated into thin air. Daan is distraught.     

DC Clements knows that people disappear all the time – far too frequently. Most run away from things, some run towards, others are taken but find their way back. A sad few never return. These two women are from very different worlds, their disappearances are unlikely to be connected. And yet, at a gut level, the DC believes they might be.

How could these women walk away from their families, husbands and homes willingly? Clements is determined to unearth the truth, no matter how shocking and devastating it may be.

The Sunday Times Number One bestseller Adele Parks returns with her most provocative, compelling book to date: Both Of You.

From the best-selling author of How We Buried Puso, Three Egg Dilemma is set at a homestead overlooking a valley and around a bar in the Kingdom of Lesotho. The story follows the life of EG (short for ‘Example’) and a group of ill-assorted friends and neighbours as they attempt to survive a breakdown of civil certainty.

A visionary novel, Morojele has built worlds and characters with his dazzling prose. It is set to become a classic of Southern African literature.

You never forget your first love. 18 years ago, Olivia learned to live without Sean Kenyon.

She moved on, building a life with her husband Richmond and their two children in the picturesque town Kesterley-on-Sea.

But when Sean unexpectedly appears on Olivia’s doorstep, her world is turned upside down once more.

As old feelings resurface, and new truths come to light, Olivia finds herself questioning everything.

A woman reeling from a disastrous love affair finds love and hope in Shakespeare and Palestine.

After years away from her family's homeland, and reeling from a disastrous love affair, actress Sonia Nasir returns to Haifa to visit her older sister Haneen. While Haneen made a life here commuting to Tel Aviv to teach at the university, Sonia remained in London to focus on her acting career and now dissolute marriage. On her return, she finds her relationship to Palestine is fragile, both bone-deep and new.

When Sonia meets the charismatic and candid Mariam, a local director, she joins a production of Hamlet in the West Bank. Soon, Sonia is rehearsing Gertrude's lines in classical Arabic with a dedicated group of men who, in spite of competing egos and priorities, all want to bring Shakespeare to that side of the wall. As opening night draws closer and the warring intensifies, it becomes clear just how many obstacles stand before the troupe. Amidst it all, the life Sonia once knew starts to give way to the daunting, exhilarating possibility of finding a new self in her ancestral home.

Timely, thoughtful, and passionate, Isabella Hammad's highly anticipated second novel is an exquisite story of the connection to be found in family and shared resistance.

The bestselling novel from the author of The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO START AGAIN. AND AGAIN. It's always awkward when five thousand kronor goes missing. When it happens at a certain grotty hotel in south Stockholm, it's particularly awkward because the money belongs to the hitman currently staying in room seven. Per Persson, the hotel receptionist, just wants to mind his own business, and preferably not get murdered. Johanna Kjellander, temporarily resident in room eight, is a priest without a vocation, and, as of last week, without a parish. But right now she has two things at her disposal: an envelope containing five thousand kronor, and an excellent idea . . . Featuring one violent killer, two shrewd business brains and many crates of Moldovan red wine, Hitman Anders and the Meaning of It All is an outrageously zany story with as many laughs as Jonasson's multimillion-copy bestseller The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared. 'Enormous fun' The Times 'A thrilling ride' Financial Times

In this title, Seven Steps To Heaven, this streetwise philosopher of the shebeens and entrepreneur par excellence takes the back seat as her son Kokoroshe, street urchin turned lawyer, takes centre stage.

This is a multilayered family saga, a riveting tale of love, betrayal, and a search for identity - sexual and otherwise.

Dark and understated, but sometimes boisterous and with the in-your-face humour that made Bitches' Brew a hit with readers and critics alike, is the engine that drives Seven Steps To Heaven to a painful yet satisfying climax.

Ná ’n jagongeluk is niks op die familieplaas Soetkloof ooit weer dieselfde nie. Die 15-jarige De Viljee is dood en sy broer en suster, die 18-jarige tweeling Cornél en Ragel, se lewe is verwoes. Cornél slaan op die vlug, want hy kan nie sy gebroke ouers in die oë kyk nie. Die koeël het immers uit sy jaggeweer gekom.

In die nasleep van die tragedie moet Ragel meisie-alleen red wat te redde is op Soetkloof. Dan kom daar ’n groot droogte en die Opkomsrivier, hul laaste oorblywende reddingsboei, verdor. Boonop is hul grond in die gedrang, want ’n yslike bewaringsgroep wil al die plase in die distrik op koop.

Gaan Ragel aanhou om vir haar erfgrond te baklei of gaan die noodlot die oorhand kry? Kan die luiperdman die jong, taai vrou weer ’n proesel van lewensvreugde gee? En gaan Cornél ooit lewend na Soetkloof terugkeer?

Solank as die aarde, Lucia Prinsloo se derde roman, is uiteindelik ’n verhaal van oorwinning en hoop. Want solank as die aarde bly staan, sal saaityd en oestyd nie ophou nie, sal koue weer warm word, winter weer somer en nag weer dag.

One minute Lou is happily employed, with a perfect flat. The next, her home and job have gone. Suddenly she has to start over.

The last thing Lou wants is to move to a tiny Cotswolds village. She certainly doesn't intend to work for curmudgeonly eighty-year-old Edgar Allsopp. But Edgar is about to make her the kind of promise nobody could ignore. In return, she secretly vows to help him fall in love with life again.

Foxwell is also home to Remy, whose charm and charisma are proving hard to ignore. But Lou hasn't recovered from the last time she fell for a charmer. She needs a distraction - and luckily one's about to turn up.

Secrets never stay hidden for long in Foxwell, nor are promises always kept. And no one could guess what lies ahead...

A charming coming-of-age novel set in a Johannesburg township.

A car has collided with a Coca-Cola truck in Alexandra. The overturned trailer is spilling its contents, which residents are carrying off in their plastic ‘Shangaan Gucci’ bags. With two other bystanders, Lerato Morolong, age fourteen, helps the injured truck driver. The woman who drives them to hospital is Professor Ngobese, matriarch of the family at Number 80, the only house in the neighbourhood with a street address, aka Those White People. Here begins Lerato’s relationship with the Ngobeses – Auntie Gugu and her daughter Janine, who becomes Lerato’s bf and one half of the dancing duo, Two Tons o’ Fun (because life’s too short to spend in a tent dress).

As Lerato’s story unfolds, you’ll meet her quick-fingered, beer-loving, maneating mom June-Rose, who’s not afraid to use the knife she keeps in her bra, and has passed on her tough survivor’s spirit to her daughters, especially 12-year-old Florence. When June-Rose brings home yet another man, Florence runs away with dire consequences. Revelations emerge, such as the truth about Lerato’s father, who lost his way in the conflicts at the end of apartheid.

Rich and humorous, this vibrant coming-of-age story sees a young woman uncover her skill as a writer, explore her sexuality, travel, and finally understand her mother.

Life of Pi is a contemporary novel about one boy's story of endurance after a disaster at sea leaves him the sole survivor in a lifeboat for 227 days with a fierce Bengal tiger. The story charts the life and death experiences of the protagonist, Pi, as he is forced to draw on his spiritual and mental strengths to survive every part of his adventure. The layers of vivid story-telling reveal the many complexities of Pi's extraordinary journey.

Features:

- Includes introductory notes about the author, and background information about the novel, themes and characters

- Annotations in the margins highlight literary concepts to guide learners' thinking as the novel progresses

- Footnotes throughout the novel provides learners with explanations of new words and key concepts

- Short questions, contextual questions and essay questions address all cognitive levels, prepare learners for their exams and promote critical thinking

- Includes answers to all questions

The Booker Prize–winning author of The Luminaries brings us Birnam Wood, a gripping thriller of high drama and kaleidoscopic insight into what drives us to survive.

Birnam Wood is on the move . . .

A landslide has closed the Korowai Pass on New Zealand’s South Island, cutting off the town of Thorndike and leaving a sizable farm abandoned. The disaster presents an opportunity for Birnam Wood, an undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic guerrilla gardening collective that plants crops wherever no one will notice. For years, the group has struggled to break even. To occupy the farm at Thorndike would mean a shot at solvency at last.

But the enigmatic American billionaire Robert Lemoine also has an interest in the place: he has snatched it up to build his end-times bunker, or so he tells Birnam’s founder, Mira, when he catches her on the property. He’s intrigued by Mira, and by Birnam Wood; although they’re poles apart politically, it seems Lemoine and the group might have enemies in common. But can Birnam trust him? And, as their ideals and ideologies are tested, can they trust one another?

A gripping psychological thriller from the Booker Prize–winning author of The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood is Shakespearean in its drama, Austenian in its wit, and, like both influences, fascinated by what makes us who we are. A brilliantly constructed study of intentions, actions, and consequences, it is a mesmerizing, unflinching consideration of the human impulse to ensure our own survival.

Alex Stern returns in another tale of murder and dark magic set among the Ivy League elite.

Galaxy 'Alex' Stern is determined to break Darlington out of hell - even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale. But Alex is playing with forces far beyond her control, and when faculty members begin to die off, she knows these aren't just accidents.

Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if Alex is going to survive, she'll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university's very walls.

White lies. Dark humor. Deadly consequences…

Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars: same year at Yale, same debut year in publishing. But Athena's a cross-genre literary darling, and June didn't even get a paperback release. Nobody wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks.

So when June witnesses Athena's death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena's just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers to the British and French war efforts during World War I.

So what if June edits Athena's novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song--complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn't this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That's what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree.

But June can't get away from Athena's shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June's (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.

Kate has failed at life. Once she had everything - a great job in local journalism, a happy marriage to Andrew and a baby on the way - but when her second child, Kirsty, is born profoundly disabled, it all starts to fall apart. Five years on from Kirsty's birth, Kate is at the end of her tether, smarting from a disastrous affair, unable to love her children, furious with her husband, mourning the career she lost. She decides the only way to survive is to do the unthinkable - and leave her family. Years later, when Adam and Kirsty have grown up, Andrew publishes his memoir about Kirsty learning how to sign - something they thought she would never be able to do. But Kate, who has since moved to LA and is now married to a film producer, discovers her new husband wants to make the book into a film. Kate decides she must stop this, even if it means losing the fragile new family she's found and having to confront the one she left all those years before. Moving between the present day and the twenty years from 2002 to 2022, revealing secrets along the way and brushing against real-life events, the story follows the fractured family as their lives develop and move apart. THIS COULD BE US is a book about loss, family, and redemption.

Your fate arrives in a box on your doorstep. Do you open it?

It seems like just another morning. You make a cup of tea. Check the news. Open the front door.

On your doorstep is a box.

Inside the box is the exact number of years you have left to live. The same box appears on every doorstep across the world. Do you open yours?

Four strangers, two cities, one chance online meeting.

Jess is a yummy mummy of two whose life is slowly unravelling and who has recently separated from her husband. Ginger is a happily widowed granny with a salty tongue and a wicked sense of humour. The gorgeous and sensitive Matt is an almost-qualified psychologist, who still lives with his parents. And Queenie, a librarian from Cape Town, has an absent boyfriend and a secret writing habit.

What could these four strangers possibly have in common?

They are all die-hard Marian Keyes fans. And when they hear that Marian is due to visit South Africa to attend a literary festival, they are all desperate to meet her. Together they come up with a mad-cap plan.

Will they succeed – or will life intervene?

From Ronald H. Balson, author of Once We Were Brothers, Saving Sophie is the powerful story of the lengths a father will go through to protect his daughter and an action-packed thriller that will take you on an unforgettable journey of murder and deception, testing the bonds of family and love.

Jack Sommers was just an ordinary accountant from Chicago - that is, until his wife passed away, his young daughter was kidnapped, and he became the main suspect in an $88 million dollar embezzlement case. Now Jack is on the run, hoping to avoid the feds long enough to rescue his daughter, Sophie, from her maternal grandfather, a suspected terrorist in Palestine.

With the help of investigative team Liam and Catherine, and a new CIA operative, a secret mission is launched to not only rescue Sophie but also to thwart a major terrorist attack in Hebron. But will being caught in the crossfires of the Palestine-Israeli conflict keep their team from accomplishing the task at hand, or can they overcome the odds and save countless lives, including their own?

An exhilarating, addictive take on obsession, race, gender and power dynamics through the lens of a corrosive relationship.

I'M A FAN tells the story of an unnamed narrator's involvement in a seemingly unequal romantic relationship.

With a clear and unforgiving eye, Sheena Patel makes startling connections between power struggles at the heart of human relationships to those in the wider world, offering a devastating critique of social media, access and patriarchal systems.

Banished for centuries, as punishment for trying to measure time, the inventor of the world's first clock is finally granted his freedom, along with a mission: a chance to redeem himself by teaching two people the true meaning of time.

He embarks on a journey with two unlikely partners: a teenage girl who is about to give up on life and a wealthy, ageing businessman who wants to live for ever. To save himself, he must save them both.

Gripping, and filled with deep human truth, this unforgettable story will inspire readers everywhere to reconsider their own notions of time and just how precious it truly is.