News Blog @ Wellington City Libraries

For this month’s ‘Other Genre’ novels, the popular Horror/Ghosts/Vampires fiction was selected from the most recent additions to the collection. Everything horrific is included, demonology, paranormal and supernatural, vampires, witches, psychics and even Bedbugs the subject and title of Ben H Winters new horror novel.

The shape stealer / Lee Carroll.
“Garet Jones, jewelry designer and the last in a line of powerful women destined to protect the mortal world from supernatural evils, has traveled back in time to rescue Will Hughes, her 400-year-old lover, from vampirism. But when she returns to the present it’s with the wrong Will Hughes, the 19-year-old youth who loved Garet’s ancestor, Marguerite. Worse, the evil Babylonian deity Marduk has returned with them to the 21st century. In her pursuit of a way to defeat Marduk and find “her” Will Hughes, Garet discovers a group of warriors known as the Knights Temporal, whose job is to preserve the time line from those who would change it for their own selfish purposes.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Wide open / Deborah Coates.Wide Open
“When Sergeant Hallie Michaels returns home to South Dakota from Afghanistan on ten days’ compassionate leave, her sister Dell’s ghost is waiting at the airport to greet her. The sheriff says that Dell’s death was a suicide, but Hallie doesn’t believe it. As Hallie pushes for answers, she attracts more ghosts, local women who disappeared without a trace and discovers a disturbing pattern. Now she needs to not just figure out what happened to Dell but to make sure no one else shares her fate”(adapted from Book cover)

Dark predator : a Carpathian novel / Christine Feehan.
“As brutal as the undead he hunted, Zacarias De La Cruz was a master executioner. Now his stark and savage journey is over. After a thousand years in a grey world, he has accomplished everything he set out to do, his brothers are safeguarded, and each has found a woman. Zacarias has walked the edge of madness. But without a hunt to define him, Zacarias wonders, for the first time in his life, who he really is. The answer awaits him back home in Peru, in the betrayal of a woman who is readying her trap, in the vengeance of an old enemy, in the inevitable consequences of a bloody family legacy, and in the deliverance of a life mate he never could have imagined” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

The quickening / Julie Myerson.
“Rachel and Dan want to go somewhere hot in January. Recently married and expecting their first baby, they decide on an island in the Caribbean. Why not turn it into a honeymoon, Dan suggests, a holiday in paradise. It ought to be perfect. Except that, for Rachel, it’s not. Things take a sinister turn as soon as they arrive. As furniture shifts and objects fly around, as a waitress begs her to leave and a fellow guest makes her increasingly uneasy, Rachel realizes everything she holds most dear is at stake and nothing is quite as it seems. “(adapted from Syndetics summary)

Biting cold : a Chicagoland vampires novel / Chloe Neill. “Turned into a vampire against her will, Merit found her way into the dark circle of Chicago’s vampire underground, where she learned there was more to supernaturals than met the eye, and more supernaturals than the public ever imagined. And not all the secrets she learned were for sharing, among humans or inhumans. Merit is on the hunt, charging across the stark American Midwest, tailing a rogue supernatural, intent on stealing an ancient artefact that could unleash catastrophic evil on the world. But Merit is also the prey. An enemy of Chicagoland is hunting her, and he’ll stop at nothing to get the book for himself. No mercy allowed. No rules apply. No lives spared.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

Last days / Adam Nevill.
“British filmmaker Kyle Freeman is on his last financial legs when he’s offered a deal that sounds too good to be true: 100,000 dollars to help Max Solomon, publisher of the hot self-help book of the moment, make a documentary about a cult. In 1975, nine people were found dead at the headquarters of the Temple of the Last Days in an abandoned mine in Arizona. Among the corpses was Sister Katherine, the founder of the temple, beheaded at her own request. Freeman, who’s given a tight schedule to complete the project, soon gets the feeling that supernatural forces are at work and that his producer has been less than forthcoming.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Grave memory : an Alex Craft novel / Kalayna Price.
“Grave witch and police consultant Alex Craft uses her ability to raise the dead temporarily to solve crimes. When the shade of a suicide victim can’t recall his passing, Alex determines that his death is actually a murder.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Downpour : a Greywalker novel / Kat Richardson.
“After being shot in the back and dying, again, Greywalker Harper Blaine’s only respite from the chaos is her work. But while conducting a pre-trial investigation in the Olympic Peninsula, she sees a ghostly car accident whose victim insists that he was murdered and that the nearby community of Sunset Lakes is to blame. Harper soon learns that the icy waters of the lake hide a terrible power, and a host of hellish beings under the thrall of a sinister cabal that will use the darkest of arts to achieve their fiendish ends.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Lover at last : a novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood / J.R. Ward.
“Qhuinn, son of no one, is used to being on his own. Disavowed from his bloodline, shunned by the aristocracy, he has finally found an identity as one of the most brutal fighters in the war against the Lessening Society. But his life is not complete. Even as the prospect of having a family of his own seems to be within reach, he is empty on the inside, his heart given to another. Blay, after years of unrequited love, has moved on from his feelings for Qhuinn and has found his perfect match in a Chosen female. Fate seems to have taken these vampire soldiers in different directions, but as the battle over the race’s throne intensifies, and new players on the scene in Caldwell create mortal danger for the Brotherhood, Qhuinn finally learns the true definition of courage.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

Bedbugs / Ben H. Winters.
“Susan and Alex Wendt have found their dream apartment. Sure, the landlady is a little eccentric. And the elderly handyman drops some cryptic remarks about the basement. But the rent is so low; it’s too good to pass up, a big mistake. Susan soon discovers that her new home is crawling with bedbugs, or is it? She awakens every morning with fresh bites, but neither Alex nor their daughter Emma has a single welt. An exterminator searches the property and turns up nothing. The landlady insists her building is clean. Susan fears she’s going mad, until a more sinister explanation presents itself: she may literally be confronting the bedbug problem from Hell.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Romance novels are the feature of this month’s “other genre” selections. From the delightful, Emily and Einstein by Linda Frances Lee to the suspense of Elizabeth Lowell’s Dangerous Refuge, all types of romantic fiction are represented here.

Destined to play / Indigo Bloome.
“When 37-year-old psychologist, Alexandra Blake, leaves her comfortable suburban existence to give a series of lectures , she meets up with Dr Jeremy Quinn, the man who opened her eyes and body to the world in ways she never thought possible. After a few glasses of champagne in his luxurious hotel penthouse, he presents her with an extraordinary proposition. Alexandra knows that they never promise each other something they can’t commit to and that he will challenge her every inhibition. But she soon finds herself seduced into a level of surrender and danger she could never have imagined.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

Destined to feel / Indigo Bloome.
“This is e next thrilling erotic adventure from the creator of Destined to Play. Psychologist Alexandra Blake has been awakened sexually by her lover, Jeremy Quinn. Their erotic journey has seen Alexandra explore her innermost sexual fantasies and pushed her boundaries to their very limit.Her world is plunged into uncertainty when she is abducted in London and Alexandra finds herself caught up in a dangerous game being played out in the shadows. Her captors want to use her to explore the darkest enigma of female sexuality and Alexandra is powerless to escape, but does she even want to?” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

Elza’s kitchen / Marc Fitten.
“Divorcee Elza owns a little restaurant in post communist Hungary. She’s in a dead-end relationship with the Sous-Chef, restless and dissatisfied, and desperate for the Critic to visit, taste her marvelous pork tenderloin, and nominate her for the coveted Silver Ladle award. She entreats two friends, the Professor of Sauces and the Professor of Meats, to persuade the Critic to give her a shot. Her failed relationship with the Sous-Chef, combined with the Critic’s late, drunken arrival, and a violent incident with a trio of loitering Gypsy children cause everything to unravel. Elza must rebuild not just her business but her life.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Z : a novel of Zelda Fitzgerald / Therese Anne Fowler.
“From the moment gorgeous Zelda laid eyes on her officer husband, her days were filled with magical moments, as Scott began to receive critical acclaim, and the pair navigated a social circuit graced by the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Tallulah Bankhead, and Gertrude Stein. But the high life dropped low when Fitzgerald’s good fortune began to fizzle, and his already excessive drinking increased. As her husband grew more distant and distracted, Zelda fell into the arms of a charming Frenchman, but she gave up the romance in hopes of saving her marriage. Could the dazzling literary It couple ever find its way back to bliss?” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

The ambassador’s daughter / Pam Jenoff.
“Conflicted Margot accompanies her German diplomat father to Paris for the treaty negotiations following WWI. Traveling to England and then France, Margot deliberately delays the inevitable return to Berlin and avoids the impending union with her injured fiancé Stefan. Guilty about abandoning their commitment, Margot feels detached from the life she’s expected to lead, shielding herself “from the truth that inevitably awaits.” Though at first an outsider in Paris and bored with the social functions she must attend, her world changes when she meets Krysia, a pianist from Poland with radical political affiliations, an ethereal appearance, and an affinity for forthright speech–and then Georg, the striking but troubled German naval officer with “strong features, seemingly etched from granite.” The two share an immediate and undeniable attraction, but with new introductions come new afflictions. Margot quickly becomes entangled in a political fiasco as well as a dangerous love triangle.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Where the light falls / Katherine Keenum.
“Paris attracts artists from everywhere. One is Jeanette Palmer, daughter of a prominent Ohio family, who has left Vassar College under a cloud of scandal. Amid the city’s great bohemian neighborhoods and teaching studios, Jeanette befriends other female artists, as well as an American Civil War veteran named Edward Murer. She begins to achieve a level of artistic success. And her happiness increases as she and Edward grow more intimate with each other. But Edward is plagued by his demons and addicted to laudanum, and as the world opens its arms to Jeanette, and the society around her is transformed by cultural and scientific innovations, she must resolve a conflict utterly new to so many women: the choice between ambition and love.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Four in hand / Stephanie Laurens.Four in Hand
“Along with the dukedom of Twyford, London’s most notorious rogue had inherited ward ship of four devilishly attractive sisters, including the irresistible Caroline Twinning. The eldest Twinning was everything he had ever wanted in a woman, but even Max couldn’t seduce his own ward, or could he? After all, he did have a substantial reputation to protect and what better challenge than the one woman capable of stealing his heart?” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

Emily and Einstein / Linda Francis Lee.Emily and Einstein
“Sandy Portman, a wealthy New Yorker who attracts women like bees to flowers, marries naive and optimistic Emily, a young editor. Sandy becomes bored with Emily, but he is killed while crossing the street on his way to ask her for a divorce. He then returns miraculously as an ugly mutt, Einstein, to try to find his way to redemption. Sandy as Einstein must understand himself and become a “true man,” while Emily must find the real Emily under the false self she thought she should be.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Dangerous refuge / Elizabeth Lowell.
“Beautiful, sweet Shay and dark, dangerous Tanner don’t have a lot in common. He’s a suspicious big city policeman who’s come home to his family’s ranch. Shay works for an environmental conservancy that acquires and protects old ranches and she wants to preserve the Davis homestead. The suspicious death of Tanner’s uncle throws the two opposites together and sparks fly. Working as a pair, using Shay’s sweet personality and town connections, as well as Tanner’s experience, they set out to find justice, never expecting to find love along the way.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

These selections of new Historical Novels are the feature of this month’s ‘Other Genre’ fiction. All give a well researched glimpse into the past from Ancient Rome to post World War II Canada. Highly recommended is Susanna Moore’s, The Life of Objects, set in Berlin on the eve of the Second World War

Betrayals / Ian Callinan.
“Betrayals plots the destinies of three people of very different background and personalities as they live their lives in Ipswich, Brisbane, Canberra, Vietnam, Oxford, Moscow and , ultimately, Bucharest. Each is profoundly affected by, and has an important role in the machinations of the great powers in the Cold War. It is a novel of an epoch, a story of high hope, despair, and happiness. With roles written by others but inevitably linking the protagonists Cecily Towne, Tim Fallon, and the Romanian, Rulokov, into a net of intrigue from which they cannot extricate themselves.” (adapted from Book cover)

Shadows on the Nile / Kate Furnivall.
“1932, London. 27-year-old Jessica Kenton’s stable life is torn apart when her younger brother, Timothy, vanishes. Vowing to find him, she follows Timothy’s trail to the lush and exotic lands of Egypt but she doesn’t expect the danger she is confronted with. There are powerful people who do not want her brother found and not everything is as it seems.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Hard twisted : a novel / C. Joseph Greaves.
“Lucile Garrett is just thirteen when she meets Clint Palmer, a charismatic stranger who will forever change her life. The year is 1934, and as the windblown dust of the Great Depression rakes the Oklahoma plains, Palmer offers Lucile and her father, homeless and hungry, the irresistible promise of a better future. But when they follow Palmer to Texas, Lucile’s father mysteriously disappears, launching man and girl on an epic journey through the American Southwest: a spree of violence and murder that culminates in one of the most celebrated criminal trials of the era.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

Hannibal : enemy of Rome / Ben Kane.
“In the First Punic War, the Roman legions defeated and humiliated Carthage, their only serious rival for power in the Mediterranean. Now a brilliant young Carthaginian general, called Hannibal, is out for revenge. Caught up in the maelstrom are two young boys, Hanno, the son of a distinguished soldier and confidant of Hannibal, and Quintus, son of a Roman equestrian and landowner. A disastrous adventure will see Hanno sold into slavery and bought by Quintus’ father. Although an unexpected friendship springs up between the two boys, and with Quintus’ sister, Aurelia, the fortunes of the two warring empires once again separates them. They find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict and an alliance forged through slavery will be played out to its stunning conclusion in battle.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Hostile shores : an Alan Lewrie naval adventure / Dewey Lambdin.
“Participating in the 1805 Battle of Cape Town after the death of Admiral Nelson, Captain Lewrie voyages to South America to assist Britain’s campaigns on the Spanish colonies only to confront a formidable adversary.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

The life of objects / Susanna Moore.
“Beatrice “Maeve” Palmer thinks she is escaping a dull life in rural Ireland when she accepts an invitation from the mysterious Countess Hartenfels to travel with her to Germany. Beatrice is to become the exclusive lace maker for the Metzenburgs, a Berlin couple known for their art collections and exquisite taste. But it is 1938, Germany is under Nazi leadership and is preparing for war, and the Metzenburgs are preparing to flee to their country estate. Beatrice spends her days packing treasures belonging not only to the family but to their friends, who are leaving the country or fear their possessions will be confiscated. Beatrice understands little about the political situation in Europe, yet it will have a profound effect on her life.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

The accursed / Joyce Carol Oates.
“New Jersey, 1905: soon-to-be commander-in-chief Woodrow Wilson is president of Princeton University. On a nearby farm, Socialist author Upton Sinclair, enjoying the success of his novel ‘The Jungle’, has taken up residence with his family. This is a quiet, bookish community, elite, intellectual and indisputably privileged. But when a savage lynching in a nearby town is hushed up, a horrifying chain of events is initiated, until it becomes apparent that the families of Princeton have been beset by a powerful curse. The Devil has come to this little town and not a soul will be spared. This is an eerie tale of psychological horror that sees the real inhabitants of turn-of-the-century Princeton fall under the influence of a supernatural power.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

The Imposter Bride
“In post-WWII Montreal, Canada, Lily Kramer, a young refugee, marries Nathan, the brother of the man with whom she had corresponded and who, after catching his first glimpse of his bride-to-be, refused to marry her. But Lily is no saint herself, and not who she portrays herself to be. Told in alternating chapters, Lily’s life after marrying Nathan is juxtaposed with the life of her daughter, Ruth, abandoned soon after she was born. Two notebooks and a mysterious diamond are all that remain for Ruth of her mother, along with a need to know the truth.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Betrayal : a Kydd Sea adventure / Julian Stockwin.
“It is 1806 and Kydd is the captain of the frigate HMS L’Aurore. When Commodore Popham decides to sail his small British squadron to South America to foment revolt against the Spanish, Kydd agrees to support the wild scheme without knowing that Popham plans to start a deadly war without the proper authority; the plan is ill-conceived, poorly supported, and doomed by treachery. Though the British capture Buenos Aires, the locals don’t rise against the Spanish, as had been expected, and while Popham achieves his objective, Kydd and the crew are beset by massive enemy forces and surprising betrayals. Based on a factual debacle easily overlooked by history, this novel presents a masterly Napoleonic-era atmosphere, with rich descriptions of the military, politics, and society of the time.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Valentine Grey / Sandi Toksvig.
“London 1897 and a young girl, Valentine Grey, arrives in England. She’s been brought up in the remote and sunny climes of India and finds being forced into corsets and skirts in damp and cold country insufferable. The only bright spot: her exciting cousin, Reggie. Reggie, and his lover Frank seek out the adventure the clandestine bars and streets of London offer and are happy to include Valentine in their secret, showing her theatre, gardens – even teaching her how to ride a bicycle. And then comes the Boer War and Reggie’s father volunteers him; the empire must be defended. But it won’t be Reggie who dons the Volunteer Regiment’s garb. Valentine takes her chance, puts on her cousin’s uniform, leaving Reggie behind and heads off to war. And for a long while it’s glorious and liberating for both of the cousins, but war is not glorious and in Victorian London homosexuality is not liberating.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

An exciting selection of Short Story collections make up this month’s fiction Other Genres section. Highly recommend reading, from well know fiction writes including Emma Donoghue, Sue Grafton, Joanne Harris, and Alice Munro.

Astray / Emma Donoghue.
“The fascinating characters that roam across the pages of Emma Donoghue’s latest fact-inspired fictions have all gone astray: they are emigrants, runaways, drifters. They cross other borders, too: those of race, law, sex and sanity. They travel for love or money, incognito or under duress.” (adpated from book cover)

Kinsey and me : stories / Sue Grafton.
“Kinsey Millhone, PI, captures vengeful murderers, exposes elaborate scams, and outsmarts the criminals in her usual witty, lovable way in nine stories written between 1986 and 1991 and first privately published in a limited edition of 300 copies. These tales are every bit as engaging to read as Grafton’s full-length novels. The second section of this collection features the character of Kit Blue as the author herself, writing a fictionalized history of her own difficulties growing up as the child of alcoholic parents.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

A cat, a hat, and a piece of string : stories / by Joanne Harris.
“A second short story collection from Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat and Peaches for Monsieur le Curé. Stories are like Russian dolls; open them up, and in each one you’ll find another story. Conjured from a wickedly imaginative pen, this is a new collection of short stories that showcases Joanne Harris’s exceptional storytelling art.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Reality, reality / Jackie Kay.
“These stories are about memories, love, sex and the power of the imagination to see us through the most difficult times. The women of Reality, Reality are mesmerizing, whether in love or in solitude. Grace and Rose, glowing with pride, are the first to marry on Shetland; Hadassah, named for the Morning Star, burns as brightly. Margaret, alone in her care home, places her hope in a cherry red cardigan; Elina Makropulos, whose voice is the toast of generations, is desperate to be allowed to grow old. Stef cooks for made-up judges on the TV show in her head. Pat diets for one hundred and forty-three days to find her ‘Mini-me’. Dionne longs for a child; Mrs Vadnie Marlene Sevlon for her husband. And Elizabeth Ellen carries her new baby into a future she didn’t know could be hers. In these fifteen extraordinary stories, Jackie Kay celebrates the richness and power of dream-life to inspire, to repair, and to make real.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

Let the old dreams die : and other stories / John Ajvide Lindqvist ; translated from the Swedish by Marlaine Delargy.
“From the author of the acclaimed vampire novel, Let the right one in, this collection of stories show John Ajvide Lindqvist’s rich imagination. They are about love and death and what we do when the two collide and the monsters emerge.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

Love is murder / edited by Sandra Brown. Love Is Murder
“Love Is Murder is the third Thriller anthology written exclusively by members of International Thriller Writers, Inc., that has 1635 members representing 28 countries worldwide and over three billion books in print. This anthology features 30 tales of suspense from very popular writers such as Lori Armstrong, Lee Child, and Sherrilyn Kenyon, The action spans the globe, imparting a real feel for locales as diverse as the Mexican jungle; Halifax, Nova Scotia; London, England; and south Texas.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

The midnight promise : a detective’s story in ten cases / Zane Lovitt.
“John Dorn is a private investigator. Just like his father used to be. It says private inquiry agent in John’s yellow pages ad because that’s what his old man called himself, back before his business folded, his wife left him and he drank himself to death. But John’s not going to end up like his father. He doesn’t have a wife, or much business. He doesn’t really drink, either. Not yet. In each of these ten delicious stories Zane Lovitt presents an intriguing investigation filled with humour and complex, beautifully observed characters. At their centre is John Dorn, solving not so much crimes as funny human puzzles; but the crimes, and the criminals, are forever lurking nearby, taunting him from the city’s cold underworld.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

Dear life / Alice Munro.
“Alice Munro captures the essence of life in her brilliant new collection of stories. Moments of change, chance encounters, the twist of fate that leads a person to a new way of thinking or being: the stories in Dear Life build to form a radiant, indelible portrait of just how dangerous and strange ordinary life can be. Many of these stories are grounded in Munro’s home territory, the small Canadian towns around Lake Huron. The book ends with four powerful pieces, ‘autobiographical in feeling’, set during the time of Munro’s own childhood, in the area where she grew up. Munro describes this quartet as ‘not quite stories’ but ‘the first and last and the closest things I have to say about my own life’.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

Significant objects / [edited by] Rob Walker & Joshua Glenn.
“Can a great story transform a worthless trinket into a significant object? The Significant objects project set out to answer that question once and for all, by recruiting a highly impressive crew of creative writers to invent stories about an unimpressive menagerie of items rescued from thrift stores and yard sales. That secondhand flotsam definitely becomes more valuable: sold on eBay, objects originally picked up for a dollar or so sold for thousands of dollars in total making the project a sensation in the literary blogosphere along the way. But something else happened, too: The stories created were astonishing, a cavalcade of surprising responses to the challenge of manufacturing significance. Who would have believed that random junk could inspire so much imagination?” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Sunscreen & lipstick / stories by Kim Scott … [et. al.] ; [introduction by Liz Byrski].
“From the mad excitement of first love to the grief of losing a parent, this is a summer collection about mums, daughters, wives and girlfriends from some of Australia’s best-loved writers. Included are stories by Elizabeth Jolley, Liz Byrski and Joan London.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

This month’s selection of Other Genre fiction features Suspense/Thriller novels, exciting escapism in every read. Especially recommended is the latest novel from Michael Connelly titled The Black Box, another dangerous, but intriguing investigation for the popular character Harry Bosch.

The empty glass / J.I. Baker.
“This debut novel re-creates the circumstances surrounding Marilyn Monroe’s mysterious death, using a mixture of fact and fiction. L.A. County Deputy Coroner Ben Fitzgerald is called to Monroe’s modest house in Brentwood during the early morning hours of August 5, 1962. He immediately notices several things amiss at the scene. Gossip columnist Jo Carnahan, claiming to work for the coroner’s office, is attempting to steal Monroe’s diary, and the position of the star’s dead body means she couldn’t have died of an overdose. It soon becomes apparent that a number of powerful people are invested in covering up the actual cause of Monroe’s death, among them, the Kennedy brothers, the Mafia, and the LAPD. As Ben comes under the sway of the sultry Jo, who is obsessed with deciphering and publishing the secrets contained in Monroe’s diary, the two find themselves in increasing danger.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

The Venice conspiracy / Sam Christer.
“When ex-priest Tom Shaman, jaded from years in the Los Angeles ghetto, decides on a last-minute trip to Venice, he gets much more than he expected. A brutal killer is on the loose and Tom finds himself in the midst of a series of ritualistic killings unlike anything Venice has ever seen. Enlisted by the Italian police, Tom teams up with young investigator Valentina Morassi to dig deep into the city’s darkest history, stretching from an ancient civilization to the sexual decadence of eighteenth-century Italy to the gritty underworld of modern-day Venice. As Valentina and Tom trace the killings through the centuries, they uncover a deadly secret that generations have killed to protect: a priceless mosaic known as the Gates of Hell.” (adapted from Amazon.com)

Threat vector / Tom Clancy with Mark Greaney.
“Jack Ryan has only just moved back into the Oval Office when he is faced with a new international threat. An aborted coup in the People’s Republic of China has left President Wei Zhen Lin with no choice but to agree with the expansionist policies of General Su Ke Qiang. They have declared the South China Sea a protectorate and are planning an invasion of Taiwan. The Ryan administration is determined to thwart China’s ambitions, but the stakes are dangerously high as a new breed of powerful Chinese anti-ship missile endangers the US Navy’s plans to protect the island. Meanwhile, Chinese cyberwarfare experts have launched a devastating attack on American infrastructure. It’s a new combat arena, but it’s every bit as deadly as any that has gone before.” (adapted from Amazon.com)

The black box : a novel / Michael Connelly.
“In a case that spans 20 years, Harry Bosch links the bullet from a recent crime to a file from 1992, the killing of a young female photographer during the L.A. riots. Harry originally investigated the murder, but it was then handed off to the Riot Crimes Task Force and never solved. Now Bosch’s ballistics match indicates that her death was not random violence, but something more personal, and connected to a deeper intrigue. Like an investigator combing through the wreckage after a plane crash, Bosch searches for the “black box,” the one piece of evidence that will pull the case together.” (adapted from Amazon.com)

Harry Lipkin, private eye / Barry Fantoni.Harry Lipkin, Private Eye
“Harry Lipkin is an 87-year-old Jewish private eye, plying his trade in Miami, but he’s neither cute nor abrasive. He’s just a shamus plugging away at his job, with an occasional stop for blintzes. Years ago his wife dumped him, and he tells tales of what the bad city does to innocents, but, really, he brings up all these hard-boiled staples mainly to show his lack of interest in them. A wealthy widow’s heirlooms are vanishing from her house, and Harry interrogates the staff and investigates their lives, looking for a motive.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Shadow Creek : a novel / Joy Fielding.
“Due to a last-minute change in plans, a group of unlikely travelling companions finds themselves on a camping trip in the Adirondacks. They include the soon-to-be-divorced Valerie; her oddball friends, Melissa and James; her moody teenage daughter, Brianne; and Val’s estranged husband’s fiancée, Jennifer. Val is dealing with unresolved feelings toward her ex husband and is grappling with jealousy and resentment toward his younger, prettier new flame, a woman with some serious issues of her own. Brianne is sixteen and openly rebellious, caught up in a web of secrets and lies. What Val and her companions don’t know is that a pair of crazed killers is wreaking havoc in the very same woods. When an elderly couple is found slaughtered and Brianne goes missing, Val finds herself in a nightmare much worse than anything she could have anticipated.” (adapted from Amazon.com)

The right hand / Derek Haas.
“Theft, kidnapping and assassination. There are some acts no government can sanction. There are some things all politicians must deny. Sometimes the left hand cannot know what the right hand is doing. Austin Clay is that right hand. His latest task: to track down a fellow CIA operative who has gone missing near Moscow. But nothing is what it seems, and he soon finds himself protecting a desperate woman with a deadly secret. Clay has always preferred to work on his own. But this time he has no choice and no idea who to trust.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

The cutting season / Attica Locke.
“Caren Gray manages Belle Vie, a sprawling antebellum plantation that sits between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, where the past and the present coexist uneasily. The estate’s owners have turned the place into an eerie tourist attraction, complete with full-dress re-enactments and carefully restored slave quarters. Outside the gates, a corporation with ambitious plans has been busy snapping up land from struggling families who have been growing sugar cane for generations, and now replacing local employees with illegal labourers. Tensions mount when the body of a female migrant worker is found in a shallow grave on the edge of the property, her throat cut clean. As the investigation gets under way, the list of suspects grows. But when fresh evidence comes to light and the sheriff’s department zeros in on a person of interest, Caren has a bad feeling that the police are chasing the wrong leads. Putting herself at risk, she ventures into dangerous territory as she unearths startling new facts about a very old mystery, the long-ago disappearance of a former slave, that has unsettling ties to the current murder.” (adapted from Amazon.com)

Did you miss me? / Karen Rose.
“The last thing Ford Elkhart remembers is walking his girlfriend back to her car. Now he’s lying tied and gagged on a cold, dark floor, with only one chance to escape before he ends up like the bones surrounding him. Assistant State’s Attorney Daphne Montgomery is devastated by her son’s disappearance and is immediately convinced that his kidnapping is connected to the white supremacist she’s just had jailed for murder. FBI Special Agent Joseph Carter isn’t so sure, especially when he learns that Ford’s girlfriend is also missing. Is Ford’s abduction payback for Daphne’s courtroom victory, or is he a pawn in an even more dangerous game?” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

The fallen angel / Daniel Silva.
“Bruised and war-weary following his secret war to bring down a terrorist mastermind, Gabriel Allon returns to his beloved Rome to restore a Caravaggio masterpiece. But early one morning Gabriel is summoned by his friend and occasional ally Monsignor Luigi Donati, the all-powerful private secretary to the Pope. The broken body of a beautiful woman lies beneath Michelangelo’s magnificent dome. Donati fears a public inquiry will inflict more wounds on an already-damaged Church so he calls upon Gabriel to use his matchless talents and experience to quietly pursue the truth – was it suicide, or something more sinister? Gabriel discovers that the woman revealed a dangerous secret that threatens powers beyond the Vatican and an old enemy plots revenge in the shadows, an unthinkable act of sabotage that will plunge the world into a conflict of apocalyptic proportions. Once again Gabriel must return to the ranks of his old intelligence service and place himself, and those he holds dear, on the razor’s edge of danger.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

New work from New Zealand writers features this month for in our “Other Genre” category. We have the latest thriller by Paul Cleave and the new novel from one of our best known and much acclaimed writers,C. K. Stead.

Lives we leave behind / Maxine Alterio.
“In July 1915 the hospital ship Maheno leaves Wellington with seventy New Zealand nurses on board. Addie Harrington and Meg Dutton are assigned to the same cabin. Quiet and cautious, Addie is taken aback by her impetuous, fun-loving roommate. The two women seem to have little in common other than a desire to serve their country. But as they care for injured and dying soldiers in Egypt and France, they discover that deep connections can develop under unusual circumstances. When Meg meets British surgeon Wallace Madison, she falls for him immediately and amidst the chaos of overloaded military hospitals they embark on an intense love affair. Addie suspects Wallace has much to hide and fears the relationship will destroy her friend.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

The Laughterhouse : a thriller / Paul Cleave.
“Theodore Tate never forgot his first crime scene, ten-year-old Jessica found dead in the ‘Laughterhouse’, an old abandoned slaughterhouse with the ‘S’ spray-painted over. The killer was found and arrested. Justice was served. Or was it? Fifteen years later, there’s a new killer on the loose and he has a list of people who were involved in Jessica’s murder case, among them Dr. Stanton, a man with three young daughters. If Tate is going to help them, he has to find the connection between the killer, the ‘Laughterhouse’, and a growing list of murder victims.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Soon / Charlotte Grimshaw.
“During the long summer holiday, the Lampton and Hallwright families gather in a large beach house belonging to Prime Minister David Hallwright and his wife Roza. The weather is perfect and outwardly all is well, but the harmony is disturbed when Simon Lampton’s brother Ford arrives for a visit. Ford casts a cold eye over the company, barely disguising his contempt for David Hallwright. To add to Simon’s discomfort a young man called Arthur Weeks makes contact, asking about Simon’s secret past affair. When Simon agrees to meet secretly with Arthur Weeks, the result will threaten the security of them all.” (adapted from Syndetic summary)

A Greekish trinity : tales from the Book of Michael / Michael Nicolaidi.
“A search for the origin of the ‘Nicolaidi’ name, not a memoir, although events from my past and present life are contained within it. Rather I see it as a Greekish trinity, a ‘devotion’ or bonded love story, melding fact and fiction, reason and emotion in overlapping worlds of so-called reality and the imagination” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

In her mothers’ shoes : a novel based on three true stories / Felicity Price. “ Three women caught in the adoption triangle, the birth mother, the adoptive mother and the daughter, are about to discover the emotional turmoil of confronting their pasts, when Kate Stewart traces her birth mother and finds she has a brother and sister who never knew she existed.” (adapted from Book cover)

The not so perfect life of Mo Lawrence / Catherine Robertson.
“Michelle Lawrence’s perfect life has been just as she’s designed it. But then her husband, Chad, ruins everything by taking a job in San Francisco, about as far from their comfortable family home as it’s possible to get without actually emigrating. Up until now, Chad’s primary focus has been keeping her happy, and Michelle can see no good reason why this should change. But change it has and Michelle now has to deal with Chad’s increasing detachment, while building a new life with her two small children in a place filled with cat-eating coyotes.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

The phoenix song / John Sinclair.
“A young violin prodigy grows up in Harbin and Shanghai amidst the absurd and often deadly politics of mid-century China. Under the dual influences of her revolutionary parents and the White Russian intellectuals who are her tutors (and who provide her with a link, personal and tragic, to the composer Dmitri Shostakovich) she is drawn into a precarious world of ideology and espionage where music must serve not only ‘the masses’, but also the unpredictable whims and grand strategies of great leaders.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Risk : a novel / C.K. Stead.
“Recently divorced New Zealander Sam Nola returns to London in 2002, where he spent two years in his early twenties. Life for Sam has never been better: a grown-up, half-French daughter from a long-ago affair has recently been in touch, and he has walked into a lucrative role in the booming banking sector. It is only when he learns of the deaths of two friends within a week that intrigue begins to intrude on his contentment, and life begin to feel a little more precarious.” (adapted from Book cover)

The two deaths of Pluto / Don Stephens. “ In 1985 a hastily assembled army surveillance team is deployed against “mercenaries” intent on creating havoc in the south of England. In 2010 there is a reunion for many of those who took part, with consequences none of them could have foreseen.” (adapted from Book cover)

Ancestry / Albert Wendt.
“Albert Wendt has created a fabulous and unique fictional world that has changed how we perceive Samoa, Aotearoa New Zealand, the Pacific and ourselves. In this collection of short stories, he continues to explore the nature of love, family and culture through the lives of people caught in the realities of modern contemporary life and the ancestral ties of their heritage.” (adapted from Book cover)

Writers from ten different countries are represented in this selection of new translated novels with new novels from Peter Hoeg, Henning Mankell and Orhan Pamuk. This is an opportunity to broaden your reading outlook and experience some great foreign fiction.

The Neruda case / Roberto Ampuero ; translated from the Spanish by Carolina De Robertis.
“At a party in 1970s Chile, Cayetano Brulé meets Pablo Neruda, the great poet and national hero, at the height of his fame. But the elderly poet is full of secrets, one is that he’s dying, and he recruits Cayetano to help him resolve another. So Cayetano takes on his first case as a private detective to solve Neruda’s last great mystery. Set against the fraught politics of pre-Pinochet Chile, Castro’s Cuba, and perilous behind-the-Wall East Berlin, The Neruda case spans countries, cultures, and political movements.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

From the land of the moon / Milena Agus ; translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein.
“A young, unnamed woman explores the life of her Sardinian grandmother, a romantic, bewitching, eccentric woman whose life was characterised by honour, passion and the abiding search for perfect love that spanned most of the 20th century. Ever in the background of this remarkable woman’s story is the stunning Sardinian landscape, the deep blue of the Mediterranean, the rugged mountains of the Sardinian back country, the charming villages lost in time.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

Always Coca-Cola / by Alexandra Chreiteh ; translated from the Arabic by Michelle Hartman.
“Always Coca-Cola is the story of three very different young women attending university in Beirut: Abeer, Jana, and Yasmine. The narrator, Abeer Ward (fragrant rose, in Arabic), daughter of a conservative family, admits wryly that her name is also the name of her father’s flower shop. Abeer’s bedroom window is filled by a view of a Coca-Cola sign featuring the image of her sexually adventurous friend, Jana. First-time novelist Alexandra Chreiteh asks us to see, with wonder, humor, and dismay, how inextricably confused naming and desire, identity and branding can be.”(adapted from Amazon.com)

The colonel / Mahmoud Dowlatabadi ; translated from the German by Tom Patterdale. “A pitch black, rainy night in a small Iranian town. Inside his house the Colonel is immersed in thought, remembering his wife, great patriots of the past, all of them assassinated or executed and his children, who had joined the different factions of the 1979 revolution. There is a knock on the door. Two young policemen have come to summon the Colonel to collect the tortured body of his youngest daughter and bury her before sunrise. The Islamic Revolution, like every other revolution in history, is devouring its own children. And whose fault is that? This shocking diatribe against the failures of the Iranian left over the last fifty years does not leave one taboo unbroken.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

The elephant keepers’ children / by Peter Hoeg ; translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken. “Peter and Tilte are trying to track down two notorious criminals: their parents. They are the pastor and the organist, respectively, of the only church on the tiny island of Finø. Known for fabricating cheap miracles to strengthen their congregation’s faith, they have been in trouble before. But this time their children suspect they are up to mischief on a far greater scale. When Peter and Tilte learn that scientific and religious leaders from around the world are assembling in Copenhagen for a conference, they know their parents are up to something. Peter and Tilte’s quest to find them exposes conspiracies, terrorist plots, an angry bishop, a deranged headmaster, two love-struck police officers, a deluded aristocrat and much more along the way.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk.)

Memoirs of a porcupine / Alain Mabanckou ; translated from the French by Helen Stevenson.
“All human beings, says an African legend, have an animal double. Some are benign, others wicked. When Kibandi, a boy living in a Congolese village, reaches the age of eleven, his father takes him out into the night, and forces him to drink a vile liquid from a jar which has been hidden for years in the earth. This is his initiation and, from this point on, he, and his double, a porcupine, become murderers, attacking neighbours, fellow villagers, and anyone unfortunate enough to cross their path. But now Kibandi is dead, and the porcupine, free of his master, is free to tell their story at last.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

The shadow girls / Henning Mankell ; translated from the Swedish by Ebba Segerberg.
Jesper Humlin is a poet of middling acclaim who is saddled by his underwhelming book sales, an exasperated girlfriend, a demanding mother, and a rapidly fading tan. His boy-wonder stockbroker has squandered Humlin’s investments, and his editor, who says he must write a crime novel to survive, begins to pitch and promote the nonexistent book despite Humlin’s emphatic refusals. Then, when he travels to Gothenburg to give a reading, he finds himself thrust into an entirely different world, where names shift, stories overlap, and histories are both deeply secret and in profound need of retelling. Leyla from Iran, Tanya from Russia, and Tea-Bag, who is from Africa but claims to be from Kurdistan (because Kurds might receive preferential treatment as refugees) these are the shadow girls who become Humlin’s unlikely pupils in impromptu writing workshops. Though he had imagined their stories as fodder for his own book, soon their intertwining lives require him to play a much different role.” (adapted Syndetics summary)

Silent house / Orhan Pamuk ; translated from the Turkish by Robert Finn.
“In an old mansion in Cennethisar, a former fishing village near Istanbul, an old widow Fatma awaits the annual summer visit of her grandchildren. She has lived in the village for decades, ever since her husband, an idealistic young doctor, first arrived to serve the poor fishermen. Now mostly bedridden, she is attended by her faithful servant Recep, a dwarf and the doctor’s illegitimate son. Her visiting grandchildren are Faruk, a dissipated failed historian; his sensitive leftist sister, Nilgun; and Metin, a high school student drawn to the fast life of the nouveaux riches, who dreams of going to America. But it is Recep’s nephew Hassan, a high-school dropout, lately fallen in with right-wing nationalists, who will draw the visiting family into the growing political cataclysm issuing from Turkey’s tumultuous century-long struggle for modernity.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

The misfortunates / Dimitri Verhulst ; translated from the Dutch by David Colmer. “Sobriety and moderation are alien concepts to the men in Dimmy’s family. Useless in all other respects, his three uncles have a rare talent for drinking, a flair for violence, and an unwavering commitment to the pub. And his father Pierre is no slouch either. Within hours of his son’s birth, Pierre plucks him from the maternity ward, props him on his bike, and takes him on an introductory tour of the village bars. His mother soon leaves them to it and as Dimmy grows up amid the stench of stale beer, he seems destined to follow the path of his forebears and make a low-life career in inebriation, until he begins to piece together his own plan for the future.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

Goya’s glass / Monika Zgustová ; translated from the Czech by Matthew Tree.
“The Duchess of Alba, known as Goya’s muse, recalls the passions of youth on her deathbed in the royal court of eighteenth-century Madrid. A young woman defies the protocols of her arranged marriage and pursues love and the life of a published writer until her readers condemn her as a danger to society in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Nina Berberova escapes persecution during the Russian Revolution and flees to Paris, where the intelligentsia naïvely covet the promise of a Soviet Union. These three women attempt to find passion and intimacy in worlds that rarely accommodate female desire.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Every month we compile lists of our picks of new fiction in various genres – science fiction & fantasy, contemporary fiction and mystery novels – and we always pick an extra, “other” genre to feature (past choices have included New Zealand fiction, short stories, chicklit, and historical fiction, amongst others). Novels by Australian writers are the subject of this month’s selection – with the latest works by well known authors, Murray Bail, Michelle De Kretser, and Drusilla Modjeska. Most of the selected novels are set in Australia, others are set in Paris, Hanoi, Papua New Guinea and Vienna, all provide great reading.

The voyage / Murray Bail.
“Frank Delage, piano manufacturer from Sydney, travels to Vienna, a city immersed in music, to present the Delage concert grand. He hopes to impress with its technical precision, its improvement on the old pianos of Europe. How could he not know his piano is all wrong for Vienna?” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

In the company of strangers / Liz Byrski.
“Ruby and Cat’s friendship was forged on an English dockside over sixty years ago when, both fearful, they boarded a ship bound for Australia. It was a friendship that was supposed to last a lifetime but when news of Cat’s death reaches Ruby back in London, it comes after a painful estrangement. Declan has also drifted away from Cat, but he is forced back to his aunt’s lavender farm, Benson’s Reach, when he learns that he and Ruby are co-beneficiaries. As these two very different people come together in Margaret River, they must learn to trust each other and to deal with the staff and guests. Can the legacy of Benson’s Reach triumph over the hurt of the past? Or is Cat’s duty-laden legacy simply too much for Ruby and Declan to keep alive?” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Questions of travel / Michelle de Kretser.
“A mesmerising literary novel, Questions of Travel charts two very different lives. Laura travels the world before returning to Sydney, where she works for a publisher of travel guides. Ravi dreams of being a tourist until he is driven from Sri Lanka by devastating events. Around these two superbly drawn characters, a double narrative assembles an enthralling array of people, places and stories, from Theo, whose life plays out in the long shadow of the past, to Hana, an Ethiopian woman determined to reinvent herself in Australia.” (adapted from Book cover)

Lighthouse Bay / Kimberley Freeman.
“1901: Isabella Winterbourne has suffered the worst loss a woman can know. She can no longer bear her husband or his oppressive upper-class family. On a voyage between London and Sydney to accompany a priceless gift to the Australian parliament, Isabella is the sole survivor of a shipwreck off the sun-drenched Queensland coast.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Nine days / Toni Jordan.
“The tiniest things, – a coin, a pendant, a photograph, a lie, can make or ruin lives.It is 1939. Deep in the working-class Melbourne suburb of Richmond, Kip Westaway, failed scholar and stable hand, is about to live through the most important day in his young life as Australia hovers unknowingly on the brink of war. What happens that day is the catalyst for momentous events strung across eight more moments in time; love and deception, near-misses and misunderstandings, all centred around the terrible thing that happens to a young girl and the repercussions it will have on the lives of her family, even those not yet born.“ (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

Caravan story / Wayne Macauley.
“A group of artists are removed from their homes and transported by caravan to a country town and offered the chance to ‘give back to society’. Wayne’s task is to write, create and be useful, but then he finds out about the rejection slips already written for the work he has yet to submit. A satirical, darkly humorous story.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Fishing for tigers : a novel / by Emily Maguire.
“Six years ago, Mischa Reese left her abusive husband and suffocating life in California and reinvented herself in steamy, chaotic Hanoi. In Vietnam, she finds satisfying work and enjoys a life of relative luxury and personal freedom. Thirty-five and single, Mischa believes that romance and passion are for teenagers; a view with which her cynical, promiscuous expat friends agree. But then a friend introduces Mischa to his visiting eighteen-year-old son. Cal is a strikingly attractive Vietnamese-Australian boy, but he’s resentful of his father, and of the nation which has stolen him away. His beauty and righteous idealism awaken something in Mischa and the two launch into an affair that threatens Mischa’s friendships and reputation and challenges her sense of herself as unselfish and good.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Watching the climbers on the mountain / Alex Miller.
“Set in the remote Central Highlands of Queensland this is the story of Ward Rankin, the disaffected station owner, and Ida, his unhappy wife, who sees the solution to her problems in her love for the young English stockman Robert Crofts, whose arrival on the station changes their lives forever. Against the backdrop of heat, torrential rain and the strange and lonely landscape, rises Mt Mooloolong, the scene of the novel’s thrilling conclusion. (adapted from Syndetics summary)

The mountain / Drusilla Modjeska.
“In 1968 Papua New Guinea is on the brink of independence, and everything is about to change. Amidst the turmoil filmmaker Leonard arrives from England with his Dutch wife, Rika, to study and film an isolated village high in the mountains. This sweeping novel takes the reader deep into this fascinating, complex country, whose culture and people cannot escape the march of modernity that threatens to overwhelm them. It is a riveting story of love, loss, grief and betrayal.” (adapted from Syndetic summary)

Assassin / Tara Moss.
“Former model turned forensic psychologist and PI Mak Vanderwall is missing, presumed dead in Paris. By hiring a hit man to kill her, the powerful and corrupt Cavanagh family aimed to silence her for good. But after narrowly escaping death, Mak has taken over her would-be killer’s world. She is very much alive and transformed.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

This month’s selection of new fiction by New Zealand writers includes five debut authors, all wonderful examples of new emerging talent. These include from Wellington, Sue Fitzmaurice, Desiree Jury and Kirsten McDougall. Also the brilliant new novel by Kirsty Gunn, titled The Big Music.

A halo of strawberries / Thomas W Devine. “ This is a story of moral choices, of a man forced to confront the depths of despair and salvage his soul. Peter Nugent, theatre manager and former actor, struggles first with his conscience then with his heart.” (adapted from Book cover)

Angels in the architecture / Sue Fitzmaurice.” Two boys each living in a different period of different period of English history, connect with a reality unseen by those around them. All about them is chaos, as Christianity vies with Islam for control of Jerusalem in the late 12th century, and assassinations and mayhem unfold wildly through1981. Lincoln Cathedral is the setting for a thrilling story, alongside an exploration of what is real, what can be known, what is faith and is there really a God?” (adapted from book cover)

The big music : [selected papers] / Kirsty Gunn. “Presented as a collection of found papers, appendices and notes, The Big Music tells the story of John Sutherland of ‘The Grey House’, who is dying and creating in the last days of his life a musical composition that will define it. Yet he has little idea of how his tune will echo or play out into the world – and as the book moves inevitably through its themes of death and birth, change and stasis, the sound of his solitary story comes to merge and connect with those around him.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

The spaces between / Russell Haley. “Jervis Kraik is beaten up and stabbed in Auckland’s Fort Street. Hew wakes in Whare Moemoea, a dubious medical institution on Auckland’s North Shore. But was Jervis really attacked? And is Moira, Kraik’s nurse, there to help him or tempt him into …what?” (adapted from Book cover)

Two shadows / Desiree Jury. “It is 1815, and Napoleon has been defeated. Lieutenant Ralph Fairfax returns to England haunted by his war in Spain. His hopes for peace are shattered by the secret his father never confessed. Instead of marrying his neighbour Flavia Stanton, he is kidnapped, and wakes as a convict, bound for the prison colony of New South Wales. Here he must fight to survive, trapped between his conflicting identities as gentleman and convict. Meanwhile Flavia, devastated by Ralph’s desertion, tries to rebuild her life. But her generosity and growing awareness of injustice set her at odds with her family. A fateful decision plays out against the demands for political reform, which culminate in the Peterloo Massacre of 1819.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

The invisible rider / Kirsten McDougall ; [drawings by Gerard Crewdson]. “Philip Fetch is a lawyer with an office in a suburban shopping mall, a husband and father, and a cyclist on Wellington’s narrow and winding streets. He is also a man who increasingly finds simple things in life baffling. As he moves through the sometimes alarming and sometimes comical episodes of this novel, a break in the hurtling flow of events looms ahead. Is it safe for Philip to pull out and pass?” (adapted from Book cover)

A better place : a novel of early New Zealand / Enid Meyer. “Set in Greytown in the Wairarapa in the late 1860s this novel tells the story of Kate, who arrived from Devon with two young children to re-unite with her husband. He had sailed from England two years previously to take up land in Greytown, the first inland township in New Zealand. Life is hard, but there are happy times too as settlers work together to ensure that they have, indeed, achieved “a better place’.” (adapted from Book cover)

Second chances / Charity Norman. In the quiet of a winter’s night, the rescue helicopter is sent to airlift a five-year-old boy with severe internal injuries. He’s fallen from the upstairs verandah of an isolated farmhouse, and may not last the next few hours. At first, Finn’s fall looks like a horrible accident; after all, he’s prone to sleepwalking. Only his frantic mother, Martha McNamara, knows how it really happened. And she isn’t telling. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Martha only wants the best for her family. That’s why she moved heaven and earth to move them to the other side of the world, to start their lives afresh. And now she’s faced with decisions she never dreamed she’d have to make, decisions with potentially devastating consequences.” (adapted from Book cover)

Land of hope and glory / Geoffrey Wilson.
“This impressive debut fuses fantasy with alternate history, reversing the British Empire’s conquest of India. Wilson’s version of 19th-century England has been invaded and conquered by the Indian empire of Rajthana, which rules all of Europe with vast armies and a magical source known as sattva. Jack Casey is a retired soldier who wants nothing to do with a growing rebellion of English natives, but when his daughter is arrested for being a rebel sympathizer, Casey is blackmailed into tracking down the mysterious rebel leader known as the Ghost, Casey’s former comrade in arms. If he turns in the Ghost, he’ll save his daughter from the gallows. Suffering from a magical wound that could kill him at any time, Casey begins his quest in an England on the verge of all-out war.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

The girl below / Bianca Zander. “After ten years in New Zealand, Suki returns to London, to a city that won’t let her in. However, a chance visit with Peggy, an old family friend who still lives in the building where she grew up, convinces Suki that there is a way to reconnect with the life she left behind a decade earlier. But the more involved she becomes with Peggy’s dysfunctional family, including Peggy’s wayward sixteen-year-old grandson, the more Suki finds herself mysteriously slipping back in time to the night of a party her parents threw in their garden more than twenty years ago, when something happened in an old, long-unused air-raid shelter.”(adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

This month’s new ‘Other Genre’ post is a selection of Chick Lit novels. These include two debut novelists, Amy Bratley and Meredith Goldstein and two old favourites, Chris Manby and Alice Peterson.

The Saturday Supper Club / Amy Bratley.
“Eve had her world torn apart three years ago, when the love of her life Ethan disappeared, and she never found out why. But now, her life is rosy. With a lovely new boyfriend, Joe, and a café opening on the cards, things finally seem to be falling into place, until she agrees to take part in a supper club competition for a local newspaper. Eve is cooking the first dinner and who should turn up on her doorstep expecting a three-course meal, but her long lost love Ethan.” – (adapted from Amazon.co.uk summary)

The singles : a novel / Meredith Goldstein.
“Hannah is a bridesmaid anxious to see her ex and his new girlfriend; her complicated, dress-specific bra is not helping. Vicki is struggling with seasonal affective disorder and an unfulfilling job. Joe, the bride’s beloved black-sheep uncle, develops quite a crush on Vicki. Phil wasn’t even invited to the wedding, but he goes because his sick mother asks him to. Rob RSVP’d but doesn’t actually attend. The novel is narrated in alternating chapters by the characters that go from likably neurotic to a little creepy (especially the men) and back to likable.” – (adapted from Syndetics summary)

I heart London / Lindsey Kelk.
“Angela Clark has fallen in love with New York – and it’s starting to love her back. But when she’s summoned home to England, she’s at risk of losing her shiny new life to rain, warm beer and bad memories. There’s Mark, the ex-boyfriend, who she ran to New York to get away from. There’s Louisa, her best friend, with her terrifying new baby and there’s her mum, still talking to her as though she’s fifteen. Now there’s a wedding in the offing, and everyone remembers how well Angela behaved at the last one. Can the arrival of boyfriend Alex and best friend Jenny save her from a re-run of her old self?” – (adapted from Amazon. co.uk summary)

What I did on my holidays / Chrissie Manby.
“Sophie Sturgeon can’t wait for her annual summer holiday. Not only will it be a week away from work, it will be a chance to reconnect with her boyfriend Callum. So this upcoming trip to Majorca is a big deal. Sophie’s spent a lot of time getting ready. She’s bought a new wardrobe. She’s been waxed to within an inch of her life. She’s determined she and Callum will have the best time ever. Then Callum dumps her, the night before they’re due to leave. In a show of bravery and independence, Sophie says she’ll go to Majorca alone, but in fact, she hides in her London flat. But when her friends, family, and even Callum seem so surprised and delighted at her single girl courage, Sophie decides to go all out and recreate the ultimate ‘fake break’.” – (adapted from Amazon.co.uk summary)

Nine uses for an ex-boyfriend / Sarra Manning.
“She has red hair and a temper to match, as her mother is constantly reminding her. She can’t wear heels, is terrified of heights and being a primary school teacher isn’t exactly the job she dreamed of doing, especially when her class are stuck on the two times table. At least Hope has Jack, and Jack is the God of boyfriends. He’s sweet, kind, funny, has a killer smile, a cool job on a fashion magazine and he’s pretty (but in a manly way). Hope knew that Jack was The One ever since their first kiss after the Youth Club Disco and thirteen years later they’re still totally in love. They’re even officially pre-engaged. And then Hope catches Jack kissing her best friend Susie.” – (adapted from Amazon.co.uk summary)

Better Together / Sheila O’Flanagan.
“When high-flying journalist Sheridan Gray loses her job, her boyfriend and her flat, she knows she must pick herself up and make a new start. But how will she adjust to small-town living and local reporting? Meanwhile, home-loving Nina Fallon’s life is shattered when the exploits of her actor husband become national news. Now she’s avoiding friends as she runs Ardbawn’s guesthouse on her own. When Sheridan moves into Ardbawn, she realises Nina holds the key to a story that will make her name as a reporter again. But as she gets closer to the truth, Sheridan risks jeopardising her relationship with the man she has come to love.” – (adapted from Amazon.co.uk summary)

Ten years on / Alice Peterson.
“Rebecca is happily married to Olly and content with her job at a glamorous London art gallery. But when tragedy strikes, she decides to move back to her childhood home in the country, hoping time will help her to heal. Joe, born in the same country town as Rebecca, had a falling out with her a decade earlier. Now he’s the successful owner of a wine bar and is breaking local hearts by dating a striking actress, Peta. Rebecca finds living with her parents again a challenge. Nor is it easy to discover that Joe lives and works too close for comfort. When she sees him once more, memories rush back to haunt her, along with unanswered questions about the past.” – (adapted from Syndetics summary)

The greatest love story of all time : and how it was nearly ruined by an evil cat, gin and unsuitable men / Lucy Robinson.
“It’s Fran’s thirtieth birthday and things are good. She’s bluffed her way into a Very Posh Job and her outlandishly handsome and talented boyfriend Michael is escorting her to the Ritz with a bulge the shape of a ring box in his pocket. But something has gone wrong, very wrong. By the end of the evening Fran is howling in bed with a bottle of cheap brandy and one of Michael’s old socks.” – (adapted from Amazon.co.uk summary)

The desperate bride’s diet club / Alison Sherlock.
“Violet Saunders is astounded when her boyfriend gets down on one knee and proposes. At size 18-20, she can’t think why anyone would want to marry her and euphoria quickly turns to horror as she contemplates squeezing herself into a wedding dress. When a leaflet from dieting club New You! drops through her letterbox, she hurries to enrol, but is soon traumatised by the terrifying Trudie, who secretly despises her fat clients, while pretending to encourage them. At work, Violet’s half-Italian boss persuades her to take a break from dieting and lunch with him at his family’s delicatessen. All at once Violet experiences an explosion of beautiful tastes and textures. Inspired, she persuades her fellow dieters to form a new club, with secret weigh-ins at her house while pretending to Trudie, of whom they are all petrified, that it is the New You! diet which is transforming them.” – (adapted from Amazon.co.uk summary)

Recipe for love / Sasha Wagstaff.
“Talented, passionate and notoriously private, Italian chef Rocco Disanti never talks to journalists. So why, when Cassia Blake has just three months to organise her wedding, has he suddenly granted her magazine an exclusive, all-access interview? Against Cassia’s better judgement, she hands the wedding planning over to her frosty mother-in-law, and flies out to Italy to spend time with Rocco. But Rocco isn’t exactly looking forward to Cassia’s arrival. Persuaded to do the interview to help publicise his business, he has enough on his plate with his fiery girlfriend, wedding-obsessed sister and fiercely protective grandmother.” – (adapted from Amazon.co.uk summary)