Fiction Genres Recent Picks

April 2010 - Historical fiction

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Conflict of empires by Sam Barone. (2010)
"The beginning of civilization is fraught with war, invasion, plunder and rapine. The little city state of Akkad is carving out an Empire on the banks of the mighty Tigris River, prosperity has returned after the bloody pitched battles waged by Akkad's ruler Eskkar and his beautiful wife Trella. But from the south comes Akkad's greatest threat, Sumer, a port city at the hub of the great sea trade routes. Sumer is poised to give birth to the mightiest empire in history. It is ruled by an incestuous parricide and his power hungry sister who are determined to crush and enslave the nation state on their northern borders. Esskar and Trella must prepare their fledgling nation for total war before it is too late. This time it will be a battle not of villages or of roving warrior bands, but a battle for Empire, for the known world, with no quarter given. As ever Eskkar, the ultimate warrior and battle tactician must pit his wits against a vastly superior force in a battle to the death." (Amazon)

Alcestis, Katharine Beutner. (c2010)
"In Greek mythology, Alcestis is known as the good wife; she loved her husband so much that she died to save his life and was sent to the underworld in his place. Alcestis tells of a childhood spent with her sisters and of her marriage at the age of fifteen to Admetus, the young king of Pherae, a man she barely knows, who is kind but whose heart belongs to a god. She also tells the part of the story that's never been told: What happened to Alcestis in the three days she spent in the underworld before being rescued by Heracles? In the realm of the dead, Alcestis falls in love with the goddess Persephone and discovers the true horror and beauty of death." (Amazon)

A trace of smoke Rebecca Cantrell. (2009)
"It's 1931 in Berlin, and though the Weimar Republic has begun to crumble, the celebrated decadence of the era remains in full flower. Hannah Vogel is a crime reporter, on intimate terms with Berlin's underbelly, but that doesn't protect her from the shock of seeing her brother's picture posted in the police department's Hall of the Unnamed Dead. She's reluctant to make a formal identification until she knows what happened to him; scandal may lurk behind his death, as Ernst was a cross-dressing cabaret star whose list of male lovers included at least one Nazi leader. There's also the matter of the orphan girl who turns up on Hannah's doorstep, claiming that Ernst is her father and Hannah her mother! Hannah follows Ernst's trail where most commonsensical Germans know not to go, deep into the Nazi power structure." (Amazon)

The surrendered Chang-rae Lee. (2010)
"June Han has forged a life thousands of miles from her birthplace: she has built a business in New York, survived a husband, and borne a child. But her past holds more secrets than she has ever been able to tell, and thirty years after her escape from war-ravaged Korea, the time has come for her to confront them. Hector Brennan, fighter, drinker and 'failure grand and total', is the man who long ago saved June's life. And between them lies the story of the beautiful, damaged Sylvie Tanner, whose elusive love they both once sought. On a journey that takes them from the scorched hillsides and abandoned rice paddies of a shattered Korea to a blood-soaked century-old Italian battlefield, together June and Hector go in search of their past, bound together by a legacy of shocking acts of violence and love." (Amazon)

The betrayal of the blood lily Lauren Willig. (2010)
"Everyone warned Miss Penelope Deveraux that her unruly behaviour would land her in disgrace someday. She never imagined she'd be whisked off to India to give the scandal of her hasty marriage time to die down. As Lady Frederick Staines, Penelope plunges into the treacherous waters of the court of the Nizam of Hyderabad, where no one is quite what they seem, even her husband. In a strange country, where elaborate court dress masks even more elaborate intrigues and a dangerous spy called the Marigold leaves venomous cobras as his calling card, there is only one person Penelope can trust."(Amazon)

Houri Mehrdad Balali. (c2009)
"Growing up in Iran under the shah, Shahed realizes his dream to leave his hated philanderer dad (Baba) and get to paradise in America, but he winds up pumping gas on the graveyard shift in California, unable to find love or community. He refuses to return for Baba's funeral in 1979, and when he does go back, three years later; he finds the world transformed by the fundamentalist rule under repressive Islamic radicals. Now he must weigh the past, its dreams and crimes, excitement and betrayal, against the desolation of the present. Islamic culture unfolds through details of family relations, feasts and rites, circumcision, women's roles and the vibrancy of everyday life for the poor in a country with thousands of years of history." (Amazon)

Dream of reason Rosa Chacel ; translated by Carol Maier. (c2009)
"This meditative novel, grounded in the thinking of Spain's great modern philosopher Ortega y Gasset, unfolds as the journal of a bourgeois chemist who makes his way in Buenos Aires just before and during the Spanish Civil War. Tracing his relationship with three women, Santiago Hernandez explores the power of his own intentions and the limits of human reason. His introspective experiment, set against the background of world-altering events, documents the workings of a self-absorbed mind speculating on the inseparability of self and circumstance and is a brilliant enactment of how, from such tensions, narrative emerges." (Amazon)

Delilah : a novel India Edghill. (2009)
"Given to the temple of Atargatis as a child, Delilah is raised to be a priestess to the Five Cities that rule Canaan. With her beloved friend Aylah, Delilah grows up under the watchful eyes of high priestess Derceto, who sees the devout young priestesses as valuable playing pieces in her political schemes. In the hills of Canaan, the Israelites chafe under the rule of the Five Cities, and choose Samson to lead them to victory. A reluctant warrior, Samson is a man of great heart who prefers peace to war. But fearing a rebellion, those who rule the Five Cities will do anything to capture Samson. When Samson catches a glimpse of Delilah, he is ready to risk his freedom to marry her, and Derceto seizes the chance to have Samson at her mercy. The Temple's intrigues against Samson force Aylah and Delilah apart, lead Delilah to question her own heart, and change her future forever." (Amazon)

Hostage queen Freda Lightfoot. (2010)
"Marguerite de Valois is the most beautiful woman in the French Court, and the subject of great scandal and intrigue. Her own brothers: the mad Charles IX and the bisexual Henri III, will stop at nothing to control her. Margot loves Henri of Guise but is married off to the Huguenot Henry of Navarre. By this means her mother Catherine de Medici hopes to bring peace to the realm. But within days of the wedding the streets of Paris are awash with blood in the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. Not only are her new husband's life in danger, but her own too as her mother and brother hold them hostage in the Louvre." (Amazon)

The anarchist : a novel John Smolens. (c2009)
"On September 6, 1901, President McKinley was shot twice by a young, unbalanced anarchist, Leon Czolgosz; McKinley died a week later. The weeks preceding and following the assassination are the subject of this intense, moody, and engrossing novel. It portrays the seamier side of the Gilded Age, capturing the virulence of class hatred and the aura of violence that hung over various radical groups. The characters include a Russian Jewish whore with a heart of gold and corrupt policemen and politicians. At the centre of the story are two contrasting men drawn together by events: Norris is a hard-nosed Pinkerton detective with contempt for working-class activists and Hyde is his informer with ambivalent feelings toward the anarchist movement." (Amazon)

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