Fiction
January 6th, 2010 by Alison
- Black Rabbit Summer
“BLACK RABBIT SUMMER”
by Kevin Brooks
I really enjoyed reading “black rabbit summer”. It was a gripping story which I didn’t want to put down. It had a very good story line and there are lots of secrets to be discovered which made it even more interesting.
Pete, Nicole, Eric, Pauly, and Raymond used to hang out together as kids. Now that they’ve graduated from high school and are heading their separate ways, Nicole plans a final party, followed by a night at the fair. Pete tries to watch out for his best friend, Raymond, who everyone else calls “Mental Ray” because Raymond believes his rabbit speaks to him. Somehow, Pete loses track of Raymond, who never turns up after the fair. Neither does a local celebrity, Stella Ross. Now Raymond and all the gang are suspects in what turns out to be a murder case. A local gang member, Wes, threatens Pete when he tries to do his own investigation. Pete knows he’s getting closer to the truth, if he doesn’t get killed first.
By Lauren ( St Ninians High School)
November 4th, 2009 by Alison
Shaffer: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
January 1946: writer Juliet Ashton receives a letter from a stranger, a founding member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. And so begins a remarkable tale of the island of Guernsey during the German occupation, and of a society as extraordinary as its name.
Check availability on East Renfrewshire Libraries’ catalogue.
November 4th, 2009 by Alison
OHagan: Personality
Maria Tambini is a 13-year-old girl with an amazing singing voice. Growing up above her mother’s chip shop on the Scottish island of Bute, living at the centre of her family’s dream of fame, Maria is an extraordinary girl making ready to escape the ordinary life.
We first meet her amidst the faded grandeur of the seaside resort of Rothesay, with the Argyll hills and the Eighties in front of her, and behind her a long shadow: the secret story of her Italian-immigrant family. When Maria wins a national TV talent show she is taken to London and becomes an instant star of what used to be called light entertainment; she sings with Dean Martin and tours America, can fill the London Palladium, yet all the while ‘the girl with the giant voice’ is losing herself in fame and begins a private war against her own body. Maria becomes a living exhibit in the modern drama of celebrity: is it possible that she can be saved by love? Or is she to be consumed by an obsessive culture, by family lies and her number one fan?
Check availability on East Renfrewshire Libraries’ catalogue.
November 4th, 2009 by Alison
Paisley: White Rose Rebel
Anne Farquharson, a tempestuous and independentminded daughter of Scotland, is elated when the Jacobites rebel in 1745, fighting to regain the Stuart throne of Scotland for Bonnie Prince Charlie, and horrified when her husband, Aeneas Macintosh, joins the English army. She raises his clan and, with her previous lover at her side, joins the uprising to become its legendary “Colonel Anne.” Incorporating fascinating historical detail about the military role of Scottish women during the eighteenth century, Janet Paisley creates a marvelously entertaining tale of this extraordinary young woman who used her heart, sexuality, intellect, and sword to defend her people.
Check availability on East Renfrewshire Libraries’ catalogue.
November 4th, 2009 by Alison
Barry: The Secret Scripture
In The Secret Scripture, Barry revisits County Sligo, Ireland, the setting for his previous three books, to tell the unforgettable story of Roseanne McNulty. Once one of the most beguiling women in Sligo, she is now a resident of Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital and nearing her hundredth year. Set against an Ireland besieged by conflict, The Secret Scripture is an engrossing tale of one woman’s life, and a vivid reminder of the stranglehold that the Catholic church had on individuals throughout much of the twentieth century.
Check availability on East Renfrewshire Libraries’ catalogue.
November 4th, 2009 by Alison
Ebershoff: The 19th Wife
Jordan returns from California to Utah to visit his mother in jail. As a teenager he was expelled from his family and religious community, a secretive Mormon offshoot sect. Now his father has been found shot dead in front of his computer, and one of his many wives - Jordan’s mother - is accused of the crime.
Over a century earlier, Ann Eliza Young, the nineteenth wife of Brigham Young, Prophet and Leader of the Mormon Church, tells the sensational story of how her own parents were drawn into plural marriage, and how she herself battled for her freedom and escaped her powerful husband, to lead a crusade to end polygamy in the United States.
Bold, shocking and gripping, The 19th Wife expertly weaves together these two narratives: a pageturning literary mystery and an enthralling epic of love and faith.
Check availablity on East Renfrewshire Libraries’ catalogue.
November 4th, 2009 by Alison
Smith: Child 44
MGB officer Leo is a man who never questions the Party Line. He arrests whomever he is told to arrest. He dismisses the horrific death of a young boy because he is told to, because he believes the Party stance that there can be no murder in Communist Russia. Leo is the perfect soldier of the regime.
But suddenly his confidence that everything he does serves a great good is shaken. He is forced to watch a man he knows to be innocent be brutally tortured. And then he is told to arrest his own wife.
Leo understands how the State works: Trust and check, but check particularly on those we trust. He faces a stark choice: his wife or his life.
And still the killings of children continue…
Check availability on East Renfrewshire Libraries’ catalogue.
November 4th, 2009 by Alison
Gale: Notes from an Exhibition
When troubled artist Rachel Kelly dies raving in her attic studio in Penzance, her saintly husband and adult children have more than the usual mess to clear up. She leaves behind her paintings of genius - but she leaves also a legacy of secrets and emotional damage it will take months to unravel.
Check availability on East Renfrewshire Libraries’ catalogue.
December 6th, 2008 by editor
Donovan: Being Emily
Things are never dull in the O’Connell family. Still, Fiona, squeezed between her quite brother and her mischievous line-dancing twin sisters, thinks life in their tenement flat is far less interesting than Emily Bronte’s.
But tragedy is not confined to Victorian novels. And life for Fiona in this happy domestic set-up is about to change forever. Following the devasting events of a single day, her family can never be the same. But - perhaps - new relationships will develop, built on a solid foundation of love.
Check availablity on East Renfrewshire Libraries’ catalogue
December 5th, 2008 by Alison
Gregson: East of the sun
Autumn 1928. The Kaisar-i-Hind is en route to Bombay. In Cabin D38, Viva Holloway, an inexperienced chaperone, is beginning to feel as though she’s made a mistake. Her advert in The Lady has resulted in three unsettling young charges to be escorted to India.
Rose, a beautiful, dangerously naive English girl, is about to be married to the cavalry officer she has met a handful of times. Victoria, her bridesmaid, is determined to lose her virginity en route before finding a husband of her own. And overshadowing all three, the dangerously malevolent presence of Guy Glover.
But nothing frightens Viva as much as her real reasons for the voyage: firstly to lead an independent life, husband-less life as a writer, and secondly, to confront her own explosive past.
Three potential Memsahibs with a multitude of reasons for leaving their homeland - but the cargo of hopes and secrets they carry can do little to prepare them for what lies ahead in India.
From the parties of the wealthy Bombay socialites, to the ragged orphans on Tamarind Stree, EAST OF THE SUN is an utterly engaging novel that will captivate readers everywhere.