Fiction
June 11th, 2010 by Alison
Anderson: Final Cut
When Claire regains consciousness after a stranger causes her car to crash in a snowstorm, she is frantic to discover her nine-year-old daughter Emma missing from the back seat. Then Emma is found in the woods nearby, unharmed but cradling a child’s skull. She claims it ‘called to her’ – and she can hear another voice nearby….
Meanwhile, forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod is trying to discover the identity of a corpse found badly burned in a skip. The body is wearing a soldier’s ID tag, but DNA tests show it’s not him. When DS Michael McNab asks for her help identifying the remains Emma found, they discover the two cases are linked in ways they could never have imagined…
Check availability on East Renfrewshire Libraries’ catalogue.
June 10th, 2010 by Alison
Ahern: PS, I Love You
Everyone needs a guardian angel…Some people wait their whole lives to find their soul mates. But not Holly and Gerry. Childhood sweethearts, they could finish each other’s sentences and even when they fought, they laughed. No one could imagine Holly and Gerry without each other. Until the unthinkable happens. Gerry’s death devastates Holly. But as her 30th birthday looms, Gerry comes back to her. He’s left her a bundle of notes, one for each of the months after his death, gently guiding Holly into her new life without him, each note signed ‘PS, I Love You’. As the notes are gradually opened, and as the year unfolds, Holly is both cheered up and challenged. The man who knows her better than anyone sets out to teach her that life goes on. With some help from her friends, and her noisy and loving family, Holly finds herself laughing, crying, singing, dancing - and being braver than ever before. Life is for living, she realises - but it always helps if there’s an angel watching over you…
Check availability on East Renfrewshire Libraries’ catalogue.
June 10th, 2010 by Alison
Allende: Ine
It is the beginning of the Spanish conquest of the Americans, and when Inés’s shiftless husband disappears to the New World, she uses the opportunity to search for him as an excuse to flee her stifling homeland and seek adventure. After a treacherous journey to Peru, she learns of his death in battle. She meets and begins a passionate love affair with a man who seeks only honor and glory: Pedro Valdivia, war hero and field marshal to the famed Francisco Pizarro. Together, Inés and Valdivia will build the new city of Santiago and wage a ruthless war against the indigenous Chileans. The horrific struggle will change them forever, pulling each toward their separate destinies.
June 10th, 2010 by Alison
- Ali: Brick Lane
Still in her teenage years, Nazneen finds herself in an arranged marriage with a disappointed man who is twenty years older. Away from the mud and heat of her Bangladeshi village, home is now a cramped flat in a high-rise block in London’s East End. Nazneen knows not a word of English, and is forced to depend on her husband. But unlike him she is practical and wise, and befriends a fellow Asian girl Razia, who helps her understand the strange ways of her adopted new British home. Nazneen keeps in touch with her sister Hasina back in the village. But the rebellious Hasina has kicked against cultural tradition and run off in a ‘love marriage’ with the man of her dreams. When he suddenly turns violent, she is forced into the degrading job of garment girl in a cloth factory. Confined in her flat by tradition and family duty, Nazneen also sews furiously for a living, shut away with her buttons and linings - until the radical Karim steps unexpectedly into her life. On a background of racial conflict and tension, they embark on a love affair that forces Nazneen finally to take control of her fate. Strikingly imagined, gracious and funny, this novel is at once epic and intimate. Exploring the role of Fate in our lives - those who accept it; those who defy it - it traces the extraordinary transformation of an Asian girl, from cautious and shy to bold and dignified woman.
Check availability on East Renfrewshire Libraries’ catalogue.
June 10th, 2010 by Alison
- CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE
Fifteen-year-old Kambili’s world is circumscribed by the high walls of her family compound and the frangipani trees she can see from her bedroom window. Her wealthy Catholic father, although generous and well-respected in the community, is repressive and fanatically religious at home. Her life is lived under his shadow and regulated by schedules: prayers, sleep, study, and more prayer. She lives in fear of his violence and the words in her text books turn to blood in front of her eyes.
When Nigeria begins to fall apart under a military coup, Kambili’s father, involved with the unfolding political crisis, sends Kambili and her brother away to their aunt’s house. The house is noisy and full of laughter. Here she discovers love and a life – dangerous and heathen –beyond the confines of her father’s authority. The visit will lift the silence from her world and, in time, reveal a terrible, bruising secret at the heart of her family life
June 10th, 2010 by Alison
Adichie: Half of a Yellow Sun
In 1960s Nigeria, a country blighted by civil war, three lives intersect. Ugwu, a boy from a poor village, works as a houseboy for a university lecturer. Olanna, a young woman, has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos to live with her charismatic new lover, the professor. The third is Richard, a shy Englishman in thrall to Olanna’s enigmatic twin sister. When the shocking horror of the war engulfs them, their loyalties are severely tested as they are pulled apart and thrown together in ways that none of them imagined.
Check availability on East Renfrewshire Libraries’ catalogue.
February 5th, 2010 by Alison
McDermid: A Darker Domain
It seemed like an unsolvable mystery at the time: a wealthy heiress and son kidnapped in fife, then a botched payoff, leaving her dead with no trace of the child.
So when, over twenty-five years later, a possible clue is discovered by a journalist in Tuscany, cold-case expert DI Karen Pirie doesn’t hold much hope of unravelling the infamous enigma.
She’s already investigating a case from the same year. At the height of the miners’ strike, Mike Prentice broke ranks to join ‘scab’ strike breakers down south. But new evidence suggests Mick’s disappearance may not be as straightforward as that – and Karen finds herself drawn into a dark domain of secrets, betrayal and murder…
February 4th, 2010 by Alison
- Ness: The Knife of Never Letting Go
Book review on “The knife of never letting go”
By Patrick Ness
I thought the book was an interesting story which kept me engaged until the end which was a cliff hanger leading on to the second book. I enjoyed it and I can’t wait to read the second book. It is about a boy called Todd who lives on new world. On new world everybody can hear each others thoughts and it is sometimes just a muddle of thoughts so the people simply called it “the noise.” He lives in Prentistown which is the only town on new world. Or is it? The rule on Prentistown is that when you turn 13 you become of age and Todd is the last boy to turn 13. He is 12 years old 12 months old (there are 13months in new world.) As Todd starts to see things that he is told doesn’t exist he is dragged out of Prentistown and into nothingness. Will he survive and reach his destination? Or will he get caught
By John (St. Ninians High School)
February 2nd, 2010 by Alison
- Hooper: Newes from the Dead
‘Newes from the Dead’
By Mary Hooper
I enjoyed this book but found it quite gruesome. It was about a girl who was accused of murder, even though she was innocent, and sentenced to be hanged.
After she was hanged though, the men at the place where the body was put afterwards realised she was still alive and try everything to bring her back to consciousness. It is also an account on her story and how she ends up being convicted of murder.
All in all I thought this book was very interesting and I enjoyed it a lot.
By Kathleen (St. Ninians High School)
January 7th, 2010 by Alison
- Gray: Ostrich Boys
This is a very interesting book. It tells the story of Sim, Kenny, Blake and their dead best friend, Ross. When Ross’ funeral doesn’t live up to their expectations, Kenny, Sim and Blake decide to take Ross’ urn on an epic adventure to Ross, far away in Scotland. The three friends undergo scrupulous hardship and realise what good friends are when problems arise and they work together throughout the book. I loved this book because it is exciting and fast-paced, full of adventure and great description. It opened my eyes as to what happens when death destructs a group of friends as quickly as it did in this story. Nearer the end, the setting is tranquil and so gives a peaceful ending to the book. It is an enticing book and I would recommend it to everybody.
Rhea (Woodfarm High School)
