THREE DAYS' READING
This section includes books that once you start reading them, you won't be able to put them down. Pure pop-fiction.
We include "Crime" and "Thrillers" here.
Maeve Binchy
QUENTINS
Synopsis
Every table at Quentins Restaurant has a thousand stories to tell: tales
of love, betrayal and revenge. Ella Brady wants to make a documentary
about the renowned Dublin restaurant that has captured the spirit of a
generation and a city in the years it has been open. In Maeve Binchy's
magical QUENTINS you will meet new friends and old: the twins from SCARLET
FEATHER, the Signora from EVENING CLASS, Ria from TARA ROAD and a host
of fresh faces. There is Monica, the ever cheerful Australian waitress,
and Blouse Brennan, whose simplicity disguises a sharp mind and a heart
of gold. Presiding over Quentins are Patrick and Brenda Brennan, who have
made Quentins such a legend. But even they have a story and a sadness
which is hidden from the public gaze. As Ella uncovers more of what has
gone on, she wonders about the wisdom of bringing it to the screen. Should
the restaurant keep its secrets.
Available in the library
Louis de Bernières
Captain
Corelli's Mandolin
Synopsis
When the Axis powers reach the Greek island of Cephallonia, a young Italian
captain is billeted in the doctor's house. Captain Corelli turns out to
be an accomplished musician, and for a while the war seems to suit them
well. But then the brutality of the conflict catches up with them.
Captain
Corelli's Mandolin is
set in the early days of the second world war, before Benito Mussolini
invaded Greece. Dr Iannis practices medicine on the island of Cephalonia,
accompanied by his daughter, Pelagia, to whom he imparts much of his healing
art. Even when the Italians do invade, life isn't so bad--at first anyway.
The officer in command of the Italian garrison is the cultured Captain
Antonio Corelli, who responds to a Nazi greeting of "Heil Hitler"
with his own "Heil Puccini", and whose most precious possession
is his mandolin. It isn't long before Corelli and Pelagia are involved
in a heated affair--despite her engagement to a young fisherman, Mandras,
who has gone off to join Greek partisans. Love is complicated enough in
wartime, even when the lovers are on the same side. And for Corelli and
Pelagia, it becomes increasingly difficult to negotiate the minefield
of allegiances, both personal and political, as all around them atrocities
mount, former friends become enemies and the ugliness of war infects everyone
it touches.
British author Louis de Bernières is well known for his forays
into magical realism in such novels as The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether
Parts, Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord and The Troublesome Offspring
of Cardinal Guzman. Here he keeps it to a minimum, though certainly the
secondary characters with whom he populates his island--the drunken priest,
the strongman, the fisherman who swims with dolphins--would be at home
in any of his wildly imaginative Latin American fictions. Instead, de
Bernières seems interested in dissecting the nature of history
as he tells his ever-darkening tale from many different perspectives.
Captain Corelli's Mandolin works on many levels, as a love story, a war
story and a deconstruction of just what determines the facts that make
it into the history books.
Available
in the library
Ben Elton
Dead
Famous
Synopsis
One house. Ten contestants. Thirty cameras. Forty microphones. Yet again
the public gorges its voyeuristic appetite as another group of unknown
and unremarkable people submit themselves to the brutal exposure of the
televised real-life soap opera, House Arrest. Everybody knows the rules:
total strangers are forced to live together while the rest of the country
watches them do it. Who will crack first? Who will have sex with whom?
Who will the public love and who will they hate? All the usual questions.
And then, suddenly, there are some new ones. Who is the murderer? How
did he or she manage to kill under the constant gaze of the thirty television
cameras? Why did they do it? And who will be next?
High society
From the
Back Cover
The war on drugs has been lost. The simple fact is that the whole world
is rapidly becoming one vast criminal network. From pop stars and royal
princes to crack whores and street kids, from the Groucho Club toilets
to the poppy fields of Afghanistan, we are all partners in crime.
High Society is a story about Britain today, a criminal nation in which everybody is either breaking the law or knows people who do. It takes the reader on a hilarious, heartbreaking and terrifying journey through the kaleidoscope world that the law has created and from which the law offers no protection.
Excerpted from High Society by Ben Elton.
St Hilda's Church Hall, Soho
'My name's Tommy Hanson and I'm an alcoholic.'
The young man had risen from his place in the circle of grey plastic chairs
and now, having thus announced himself, surveyed the ring of expectant
faces. The atmosphere in the little church hall, which until then had
been quietly respectful, was suddenly electric.
'But of course you know that.'
That famous smile. Those puppy-dog eyes. That jolly, wise, endearing Accrington
accent, still only slightly Americanized.
'We're all alcoholics, us. That's why we're here. AA - Arseholes Anonymous
as I like to call it.
'Why state the fookin' obvious? But we have to go through the motions,
don't we? Do it right. That's the rules, in't it? Make your confession,
pray for serenity, chip in for the biccies and wash up your teacup.'
There wasn't a woman in the circle who wouldn't have washed Tommy's teacup
for him and more besides - some of the men, too, but everyone tried to
concentrate. This was after all supposed
to be anonymous.
'So, like I say, my name's Tommy Hanson and I'm an alcoholic. Plus I'm
also a cokehead, but that's me narcotics meeting. Eh,
I've got a full day 'aven't I? All day talking about being a
stupid, screwed-up, self-indulgent twat. I'll be knackered by teatime.
I'll need a drink and a nice line or two of charlie.
'Don't get me wrong. I love my meetings, I do. Live for 'em. We all do,
us arseholes. Testifying, emoting, talking about ourselves. That's all
we've got left, in't it?
'So I'm going to tell you about that night - the famous night of the Brit
Awards - because I don't think it would be possible for a person to be
any more drunk than I ended up that night. Well, you've seen it all in
the papers, anyway, so I'm not telling you anything you don't know, except
that this is what really happened, not what them bastards put in the stories
they wrote. As it happens, I'd fallen off the wagon that day, see, so
I was a disaster waiting to happen, weren't I? You know the score, all
you repeat offenders. That's the problem with laying off the beer for
a while. You lose your tolerance, so when you do give it a shake, you're
monged on three halves of shandy. I'd been dry for a whole month, which
had been a huge effort for me 'cos I love me pint, I do, but Elton John
had said that if he ever saw me with another drink in me 'and he'd whack
me with his tiara. So I was making a special effort. Well, he is rock
royalty, so you have to do it, don't you?
'God, though, I were sick of being sober and there was just no way I was
going to keep it up. You know the rules, you have to want to get clean,
don't you, and I didn't. Well, come on. It was the Brits! What is the
point of being sober at the fookin' Brit Awards? Believe me, I've won
a toilet full of them things in my time and that is one crap night if
you're straight. One crap boring night. But if you're buzzing, if you're
pissed up and mad for it, if you're Champagne Charlie on a spree, then
it's brilliant. And when I say charlie I think you know what I mean. Because
I wasn't off the charlie, don't forget. No way! One wagon at a time, I
say, so I was wired even before I started drinking, strung out tighter
than a duck's arse. But I wanted to be drunk, see. Some nights you want
to do drugs, but some nights you want to get lathered, and the Brits is
a booze night for sure, or at least that's how you want to kick off. If
you're pissed up at the Brits the night's your oyster. You can fight all
the other pop-star lads. You can chuck ice and bread rolls at the pathetic
politicians who are sat there pretending to be hip and leering at all
the birds. You can pull a couple of the dancers and you can make a speech
so dazzlingly shite that it actually sounds ironic and a bit John Lennon-ish.
Basically, you can do what you fookin' well like. You can have it as large
as you fancy. But you can't if you're sober. Like, if you're kidding yourself
you're on the wagon.
'So as I live and breathe, God save me from ever being sober at the Brits.
Which is why, as of this moment, seeing as how I've definitely gone straight
and I'm here talking to you lot at this meeting, I have sworn I will never
go to another one. Mind you, I said the same thing last year, didn't I?'
The Paget household, Dalston
Peter Paget stared at his wife. She stared back at him. In all their years
of marriage never had they felt such a bond. Never had they been so alive
together, locked in union as a single force. They knew that the decision
they had just made would change their lives for ever. Their lives and
their daughters' lives. It would certainly bring down untold anger and
contempt upon Peter's head. It would cost him the party whip and almost
inevitably his job come the next election. The path that he had chosen
led directly to professional ruin.
'You have to do it, Pete. I'm proud of you. Really, really proud. The
girls will be, too, when we tell them.'
'Oh sure. Hey, girls, your dad's going to make himself unemployed and
unemployable on a point of hopeless principle.'
'They won't see things that way and you know it.'
'No, I suppose not. They're good girls. Smartarse little cows, of course,
but good deep down.'
Available in the library
Stephen Fry
The
Hippopotamus
Synopsis
Fired from his newspaper and disgusted with a world that undervalues him,
Ted Wallace seeks a few months repose and free drink at the country mansion
of his old friend, Lord Logan. But strange things have been going on at
Swafford Hall, phenomena beyond the comprehension of a hippopotamus like
Ted.
The Stars' Tennis Balls
Reviews
Amazon.co.uk
Review
Ned Maddstone has it all. He's handsome and talented; he has the love
of a beautiful woman and in 1980, he stands at the brink of a glittering
future. He rounds off an outstanding public school career with a sailing
trip to Scotland, which is where his fortunes enter a terrifying tailspin.
Determined to honour the dying wish of his sailing instructor, Ned returns
to London, where the schemes of jealous classmates catapult him into a
10-year nightmare. Confined to a solitary Hell, believed dead by all those
who loved him, Ned transforms from a terminally nice guy into a creature
bent on revenge, a revenge both satisfying and apocalyptic.
Few writers can deliver so much in one package, but here Stephen Fry combines a riotous satire of the privileged classes with elements of the darkest thrillers. While the plot bounces from the sublime to the surreal, his characters remain acutely real. Ned's classmates, slow-witted hedonist Rufus Cade, and the Machiavellian climber Ashley Barson-Garland--who is aroused by the sight of straw boaters--are masterful creations. This novel has nothing to do with tennis, and everything to do with the cruel logic of Fate. Game, set and match to Mr Fry. - - Matthew Baylis
Available in the library
Arthur Golden
Memoirs of a Geisha 
Synopsis
Summoning up more than 20 years of Japan's most dramatic history, the
geisha's story uncovers a hidden world of eroticism and enchantment, exploitation
and degradation. It moves from a small fishing village in 1929 to the
glamorous and decadent Kyoto of the 30s and on to postwar New York.
Sue Grafton
A is for Alibi
Synopsis
Mystery novel featuring wise-cracking female private investigator, Kinsey
Millhone. When Nikki comes out of jail after serving a sentence for murdering
her husband, she calls in Kinsey Millhone to track down the real killer.
Jane Green
Bookends
Synopsis
Cath and Si are best friends, both unlucky in love. Cath is scatty, messy
and emotionally closed, Si is impossibly tidy, bitchy and desperate for
a man of his own. When Portia steps back into their lives, her reappearance
sets off a chain of events that tests them to the limit.
Jane Green's novel is about the love and trust and enduring friendships of a bunch of young hopefuls whose lives take the usual twists and turns and ups and downs as they mature into thoughtful, rounded adults. Green is an author whose readers either love or hate her, If you love her, you'll want to read her fourth novel; if you don't, you might be surprised by Bookends. --Carey Green
Jemina J.
Synopsis
Jemima Jones is overweight - about seven stone overweight. Treated like
a slave by her thin and bitchy flatmates, lorded over at the "Kilburn
Herald" by the beautiful Geraldine, her only consolation is food.
That and a passion for her charming, sexy colleague Ben. Her life needs
to change and soon.
Mr Maybe
Synopsis
At 27, Libby thinks there's a lot to be said for a rich husband. So when
Nick comes along - lovely, funny, and with no money whatsoever - she decides
he's only good for a fling. Wealthy banker Ed, on the other hand, could
possibly be the answer. But does Libby really know what she needs?
John Grisham
The
Runaway Jury
Synopsis
A tale of suspense which goes behind the closed doors of a Mississippi
court. In a landmark trial involving hundreds of millions of dollars,
the jury starts to behave mysteriously, and at least one juror is convinced
that he's being watched. Is the jury being manipulated? If so, by whom,
and why?
The
Street Lawyer
Synopsis
Michael was a rising star at "Drake and Sweeney", a giant Washington
DC firm with 800 lawyers. But a violent encounter with a homeless man
stopped him cold. Michael survived; his assailant did not. Michael did
some digging, and found a dirty little secret, which involved "Drake
and Sweeney".
The
King of Torts
The
Brethren
Synopsis
Trumble, a minimum security federal prison, is home to an assortment of
criminals, including three former judges. One of their scams goes awry,
it ensnares the wrong victim, an innocent on the outside, a man with dangerous
friends.
Nick Hornby
High
Fidelity
Synopsis
Rob is a music junkie who owns record shop in Islington. Unable to make
his relationship with Laura work, he seeks refuge in the company of the
two hopeless guys, and in a one night stand, only to find that life with
Laura has its unexpected attractions.
Available
in the library
About
a Boy
Synopsis
Will is 36 and doesn't really want children. But then he comes across
12-year-old Marcus and it's pretty clear that Marcus would like a dad.
The trouble is, Marcus is weird - a boy who prefers Joni Mitchell to Nirvana.
He also knows something about Will that he can definitely use.
Available
in the library
How to Be Good
Synopsis
According to her own moral calculations, Katie Carr has earned her affair.
She's a doctor, and doctors are decent people, and her husband David is
the "Angriest Man" in Holloway. When David suddenly becomes
good, Katie's sums no longer add up, and she is forced to ask herself
some questions.
Available in the library
P.D. JAMES
A
Certain Justice
Although
A Certain Justice begins with news of a murder, the victim isn't set to
die for another four weeks. Publicly respected but privately loathed,
Venetia Aldridge has far more enemies than a brilliant London criminal
lawyer should--and at least one of them is determined to do her in. Venetia
plies her superior trade in courts that harbour "the illusion that
the passions of men were susceptible to order and control," but her
past and private life are exceedingly unruly. Her married lover is intent
on giving her up; her daughter loathes her; her fellow barristers are
determined that she not become the next head of chambers. Even the cleaning
woman seems to have something on her. The outline alone of this complex
novel would take pages (as would the eclectic inventory of players), but
P. D. James makes us admire far more than her brilliantly developed plot.
James in fact creates a crowded gallery of surprisingly decent suspects,
along with one suitably vile creature--who happens to be Aldridge's last
client. A superior murder mystery, A Certain Justice is also a gripping
anatomy of wild justice. James's characters can be overcome by hate, but
she is equally concerned with love's manifestations--human, divine, destructive,
and healing.
Synopsis
Venetia Aldridge QC is a distinguished barrister. Four weeks after agreeing
to defend Gerry Ashe, accused of the brutal murder of his aunt, Miss Aldridge
is found dead. Adam Dalgliesh investigates, only to find that her many
enemies include colleagues, criminals, family - and even her lover.
Lisa Jewell
Ralph's
Party
Synopsis
A novel about a group of young (and not so young) Londoners and their
relationships, decribing what it's like to be living in London in the
late 1990s.
Available in the library
Thirty-Nothing
"What
did you do with the rabbit?" Not a surefire line to seduce a woman
perhaps but when Dig Ryan bumps into his first love after a 12-year gap
he just can't help himself. Instead of winning her back with his wit and
whispered sweet nothings, Dig finds himself faced with an affliction he
didn't know he had--he says completely the wrong thing at completely the
wrong time. Often. But his ex, the delicious Delilah, seems as keen as
he is and it looks like Dig is about to put the something into his thirty-nothing
life.
So where does that leave Nadine--Dig's best friend since school? Instead
of being thrilled that Dig is settling down, the reunion unlocks her insecurities
and she regresses into the "big ginger gooseberry" she was as
a teenager. She realises--just when it's too late--that she's in love
with him, that she's always been in love with him. And, to make matters
worse, she thinks she just might feel better if she gets back in touch
with her ex (who Dig reckons is the Antichrist). The result is irresistible;
an immensely enjoyable read that will guzzle up the hours and more than
delight.
Thirty-nothing is Lisa Jewell's second novel, hot on the heels of Ralph's
Party, which sold more than 200,000 copies and was the UK's top-selling
debut novel of 1999. Lisa, who is currently writing her third novel, has
also contributed a short story to the War Child anthology Girl's Night
In, alongside Amy Jenkins, Marian Keyes and Freya North. Her Web site
(www.lisa-jewell.co.uk) has a great guide to writing and getting published,
plus a quirky list of Lisa's favourite novels and further information
about her work. --Jane Honey
Marian Keyes
Lucy
Sullivan is getting married
Synopsis
Lucy Sullivan is getting married, or is she? Mrs Nolan has read her tarot
cards and predicted that Lucy will be walking up the aisle within the
year. There is the small matter of no boyfriend, but then Lucy meets Gus
and starts to wonder. Could he be the future Mr Lucy Sullivan?
Last
Chance Saloon
Synopsis
Tara, Katherine and Fintan have been friends since they were teenagers
in Knockaway, County Clare, in the days of legwarmers, pink stretch jeans
and Duran Duran. Now in their early 30s, they live in London where they
are still bound together. But fate is about to step in and alter their
lives.
Rachel's
Holiday
Synopsis
Rachel Walsh is 27 and the miserable owner of size 8 feet. Overly fond
of recreational drugs, she gets frogmarched into the Cloisters, Dublin's
answer to the Betty Ford Clinic. Once there, she seeks redemption in the
shape of Chris, a "man with a past".
Watermelon
Book Description
It’s bad enough that Claire’s husband James left her the day
he was at the birth of their first child – I mean, if he thought
it was going to upset him that much he should have just stayed at home
– but to rub salt into the episiotomy, he didn’t even have
the decency to leave her for someone skinny!He’s just absconded,
leaving Claire with a newborn baby, a broken heart, two extra stone and
an …er…birth canal ten times its normal size.In the absence
of any better offers, Claire goes home to her family. To her beautiful
sister Helen, her soap-watching mother, her bewildered father. And in
a story that’s both hilarious and bitter-sweet, Claire just gets
better.A lot better.In fact so much better that when James slithers back
into her life he’s in for a bit of a surprise.
Sushi
for beginners
Synopsis
A nervous breakdown seems like a great idea: all that lying in bed and
watching daytime TV. But who's going to have it? Will it be housewife
Clodagh, who spends her days microwaving pasta for her demanding toddlers
and waiting for her beautiful husband Dylan to come home? Or Lisa, hard,
brittle and shiny as an M&M, reeling from the shock of a demotion
from her fabulous job in London to a one-horse magazine in Dublin? Or
Ashling, so normal she's weird?
Available in the library
Angels
Synopsis
Maggie Walsh has always done everything by the book - right up until the
day she walks out on her marriage. Follow her on a journey of discovery,
from suburbia to a suntan, complete with cocktails and heartache, as she
discovers what she really wants from life.
Available in the library
Josie Lloyd, Emlyn Rees
Come
Together
Synopsis
Follows the fortunes of Jack - struggling painter, lad about town, charmer
- and Amy - disorganized, funny and looking for love. Whilst Jack outlines
his tactics for a night on the town and the seduction of the gorgeous
Amy, Amy plans how to hook the first decent man she's met in ages.
Available in the library
Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
The
Nanny Diaries
David Nicholls
Starter for ten
Synopsis
It's 1985 and Brian Jackson has arrived at university with a burning ambition
- to make it onto TV's foremost general knowledge quiz. But no sooner
has he embarked on 'The Challenge' than he finds himself falling hopelessly
in love with his teammate, the beautiful and charismatic would-be actress,
Alice Harbinson. When Alice fails to fall for his slightly over-eager
charms, Brian comes up with a foolproof plan to capture her heart once
and for all. He's going to win the game, at any cost, because - after
all - everyone knows that what a woman really wants from a man is a comprehensive
grasp of general knowledge...Starter for Ten is a comedy about love, class,
growing-up and the all-important difference between knowledge and wisdom.
Are you up to the challenge of the funniest novel in years?
Excerpted from Starter for Ten by David Nicholls.
Then she starts to dance. They’re playing ‘Love Cats’
by The Cure, and in a witty and incisive interpretation of the song’s
lyric, she’s dancing a little bit like a cat, bored and aloof and
supple, with one arm occasionally flung up above her head like a, well,
like a cat’s tail! She is the most amazing dancer in the world!
Now she’s got her hands under her chin like two little paws, and
she is the eponymous Love Cat, and she is so wonderfully, wonderfully,
wonderfully, wonderfully pretty, and an idea hits me, a plan so beautiful
in its simplicity and yet so ingenious and infallible, that I’m
amazed I haven’t thought of it before.
Dance! I will woo her through the medium of contemporary dance.
The record changes, and it’s ‘Sex Machine’ by James Brown, which is fine by me, because I do feel like getting up and being a sex machine now you come to mention it. I carefully place the can of Red Stripe on the floor, where it is immediately kicked over, but I don’t mind, and it doesn’t matter. I won’t be needing it where I’m going. I start to do some warm-up moves at the edge of the dance-floor, a little gingerly at first, but I’m glad I wore my brogues instead of my Green Flash, as the flat soles slide gratifyingly on the parquet floor, giving me a kind of funky, loose-limbed feel. Then warily at first, like I’m back at the ice-rink, clinging to the walls, I carefully make my way on to the dance-floor itself, and get up get on up over to her.
She’s dancing in her little group of five again, tight as a fist, one of those impregnable defence formations that the Roman infantry used to repel the barbarians. The cat-eyed girl sees me first, and emits her high-pitched warning signal, and Blonde Kate Bush breaks formation, turns and sees me and looks me in the eye and I take my cue, let the music enter me, and dance like I have never danced before.
I’m dancing as if my life depended on it, biting my lower lip seductively, both as an erotic signifier and an aid to concentration, and looking her straight in the eye, daring, just daring her to look away. Which she does. So I slide on round, back into her eye line, and I let rip. I’m dancing as if I was wearing the Red Shoes, and then I think maybe I was right, maybe it’s because of those pants, the pants Mum gave me, the Red Pants, but whatever it is, I’m dancing like James Brown, I’ve got funk and soul and a brand-new bag, I’m the hardest-working man in show-business, I’m a machine made specifically for the purpose of sex, sliding and spinning through 360, 720 degrees and once actually through 810 degrees, which leaves me facing the wrong way, and momentarily disorientated, but it’s okay because James Brown is saying ‘take it to the bridge’ so I do, I take it to the bridge, wherever that is, and on the way to the bridge my hand goes to my neck and rips away the white cardboard dog-collar in a gesture of righteous contempt for organised religion, and I hurl the cardboard dog-collar onto the floor, into the middle of a group of people who’ve formed a circle around me now, and are clapping and laughing and pointing in awe and admiration, as I spin and duck and touch the floor, my cardigan flying free behind me. My glasses have steamed up a bit, so I can’t see Kate Bush’s face amongst them, just a glimpse of that chippy, dark-haired Jewish girl, Rebecca whatsername, but it’s too late to stop dancing now, because James Brown is asking me to shake my moneymaker, shake my moneymaker, and I have to think for a minute because I’m not sure what my moneymaker is specifically. My head? No, my ass, of course, so I shake it as best I can, anointing the crowd around me with sweat, like a wet dog, and then all of a sudden there’s a jab of horns and the song is over and I. Am. Spent.
I look for her face among the cheering crowd, but she’s definitely gone. Not to worry. The important thing is to have made an impression. Our paths will cross again, tomorrow, one p.m., at The Challenge auditions.
Maggie O'Farrell
My
Lover's Love
Synopsis
A compulsive tale of betrayal and its impact upon a group of flatmates
and lovers, Maggie O'Farrell's second novel does not disappoint. With
the sensuality, passion and emotional acuteness which characterised her
debut, she has written a gripping exploration of the ambivalence at the
heart of intimate relationships, a keenly observed portrayal of shifting
metropolitan lives and a superbly imagined story of a haunting. When Lily
moves into Marcus's flat and plunges headlong into a relationship, she
must contend not merely with the disapproval of flatmate Aidan, but with
a more intangible, hostile presence. Could it be that Sinead, Marcus's
ex, is trying to communicate with her? When Lily begins to 'see' Sinead
first about the flat, and then on the streets of London, she must question
not merely her sanity, but whether the man she loves is someone she can,
or indeed ought to live with at all.
Allison Pearson
I
Don't Know How She Does It
Synopsis
Meet Kate Reddy, fund manager and mother of two. She can juggle nine different
currencies in five different time zones and get herself and two children
washed and dressed and out of the house in half an hour. A victim of time
famine, Kate counts seconds like other women count calories. As she hurtles
between appointments, through her head spools the crazy tape-loop of the
working mother's life: must remember client reports, bouncy castles, transatlantic
phone call, nativity play, check Dow Jones, cancel hygienist, squeeze
sagging pelvic floor, make time for sex. Factor in a manipulative nanny,
an Australian boss who looks at Kate's breasts as if they're on special
offer, a long suffering husband, her quietly aghast in-laws, two needy
children and an e-mail lover, and you have a woman juggling so many balls
that some day soon something's going to hit the ground. In an uproariously
funny and achingly sad novel, Allison Pearson captures the guilty secret
lives of working mothers, the self-recriminations, comic deceptions, forgeries,
giddy exhaustion and despair as no other writer has ever done. With fierce
irony and a sparkling style, she brilliantly dramatises the dilemma of
working motherhood at the start of the 21st century.
Available in the library
Kathy Reiths
Grave
Secrets
Synopsis
Dr. Temperance Brennan, forensic anthropologist for the medical examiners
in Montreal and North Carolina, departs from home turf to journey to Guatemala,
where her skills will be tested to the limit. It was a summer morning
in 1982 when soldiers entered the village of Chupan Ya and rounded up
the women and children. Families and neighbors refer to their lost members
as "the disappeared". The bodies are said to lie in a mass grave.
Tempe brings all her skill to uncover the savagery of the past. But something
savage is happening today. Four girls are missing from Guatemala City,
including the daughter of a high-ranking government official. When a young
archaeologist is brutally murdered, Tempe realizes that she may be the
next victim in a web of intrigue that connects the historical and contemporary
murders.
Donna Tartt
The
Secret History
Synopsis
The narrator of this story is a boy who leaves California to attend a
college in New England. He falls in with a group of students of Ancient
Greek. Four of their number work themselves into a trance-like condition
one night, and murder a local farmer. Bunny then tries to blackmail the
others.
Available in the library
Joanna Trollope
The Best of Friends
From the
Back Cover
Gina and Laurence had been the best of friends ever since they were idealistic
teenagers. They had never been in love - just friends. Gina had eventually
married the exquisitely tasteful Fergus (who had changed his name from
Leslie to something more upmarket), and Laurence had married down-to-earth
Hilary. Gina and Fergus lived in stylish perfection at High Place. Laurence
and Hilary had spent their married lives turning Laurence's legacy, The
Bee House, into both home and hotel. Then,
with elegant disdain, Fergus Bedford announced he was leaving Gina and
their teenage daughter. As Gina's misery ricocheted through the two homes,
she turned for emotional support to Laurence, her dearest friend. And
as Laurence gave comfort, so his own marriage and the stability of his
children edged towards destruction.
The Rector's Wife
From the
Back Cover
For twenty years Anna Bouverie, as a priest's wife (£9000 a year
and a redbrick rectory that looked like a bus shelter) had served God
and the parish in a diversity of ways. She had organised the deanery suppers,
made cakes for the Brownies' Easter Cake Bake, delivered parish magazines,
washed and ironed her husband's surplices (not altogether perfectly according
to Miss Dunstable), grown her own vegetables and clothed herself and her
children in left-over jumble-sale items.
When her husband failed to gain promotion to archdeacon and retreated
into isolated bitterness, and the bullying of her younger daughter at
the local comprehensive reached unendurable proportions, Anna suddenly
rebelled. Taking a job in the local supermarket she earned money, a sense
of her own worth, the shocked disapproval of the parish, and the icy fury
of her husband.