The Point Of Rescue
Sally Thorning is watching the news with her husband when she hears a name she ought not to recognise - Mark Bretherick.
The previous year, a work trip Sally had planned was cancelled at the last minute. Desperate for a break from her busy life juggling her job and a young family, Sally didn't tell her husband that the trip had fallen through. Instead, she treated herself to a secret holiday in a remote hotel. All she wanted was a bit of peace and some time to herself - but it didn't work out that way. Because Sally met Mark Bretherick.
As Sally watches the news she realises that all the details are the same: where he lives, his job, his wife Geraldine and daughter Lucy. But the picture on the news is of a man Sally has never seen before. And Geraldine and Lucy Bretherick are both dead.
A compelling and disquieting story, The Point Of Rescue reinforces Sophie Hannah's reputation as a great new thriller writer. Her ingenious, almost surreal mysteries are so intricately constructed that it's impossible to guess how they will end.
Sophie lives in Yorkshire with her husband and two young children. She is an award-winning and best selling poet and short story writer. She regularly performs her poetry live to audiences nationwide and abroad and recently won first prize in the Daphne Du Maurier Festival Short Story Competition for her psychological suspense story The Octopus Nest.
The Observer newspaper described her debut crime novel, Little Face as 'one of the best reads of 2006' and translation rights were sold to ten countries. Hurting Distance was published in August 2007 and the two books have now sold over 150,000 copies. Another mainstream paper said 'Hurting Distance confirms Sophie Hannah as a rivetingly original arrival in crime fiction'.
Regarded as adept at picking creepy scenarios that are guaranteed to terrify The Point Of Rescue is Sophie Hannah's third novel and don't be surprised to see her name flash across the television screens as Hat Trick Productions have optioned all three novels for a Prime Suspect-style television series.
The Point Of Rescue is published by Hodder & Stoughton and out now in Hardback. Price: £12.99. ISBN: 978 0 340 93310 7.
I Dared To Call Him Father
One of the first things I noticed about the book I Dared to Call Him Father is that the print was big enough for me not to need my 'special' reading glasses, the next things I noticed strengthened my faith in such a way it was a wonder to behold.
In I Dared to Call Him Father we meet Bisquis Sheikh, a Pakistani woman of noble birth. Recently 'left' by her husband, a high-ranking government official she has retreated to her family home to live out her days with her small grandson Maimed and a few servants in the quiet luxury of a huge house. She is revered by the community who respects her wishes not to be disturbed by them.
However, the deep-down peace she sought eludes her as a number of strange occurrences unrelated to her upbringing or Muslim religion began to manifest itself to her. A series of strange dreams launch her on a quest that would bring her to crisis point. Was Islam still the right way for her, or could God be known more personally?
Seeking reassurance Bisquis searches in the Qumran where she found references to the prophet Jesus. Confused and curious she borrows a Christian Bible from one of her servants. She wants to see if more light could be shed on this mysterious figure called Jesus. This decision changed her life for ever.
Her journey towards Christianity, a faith that people in her village have been murdered for having, remains a classic case history in the ongoing dialogue between Muslims and Christians. Initially reluctant to embrace change Bisques, who feels the palpable presence of God in the room, soon learns that He is in total control.
I Dared To Call Him Father is a true and fascinating story of faith and courage in the face of danger and difficulty spanning a number of years. What is great about this updated classic is that it includes previously unpublished material which brings the story up to date. In other words it continues long after Bisques has gone to join her Father and answers many of the questions the reader may be left with; explaining what has become of all of the characters that Bisques had come into contact with.
I Dared To Call Him Father by Bilquis Sheikh (with Richard Schneider) is published by Kingsway Communications. ISBN: 1-84291-151-1
By Belinda Raye
Isabella Moon by Laura Benedict
A small town in the deep south of America is still scarred by the mysterious disappearance a year ago of a young girl called Isabella Moon. Faced with an almost complete lack of evidence or even a body, the case of the missing girl is still open, and, though the commotion and media circus which engulfed the small town has long since subsided, Sheriff Bill Delaney is no nearer a resolution.
Enter the protagonist of the story, Kate Russell who knows that Isabella is not missing, but dead. And she knows that her spirit is not resting in peace. For the ghost of the young girl has disrupted Kate’s idyllic life, beckoning her to follow, to reveal to Kate the truth about her death…
As the ghost of Isabella draws Kate into the investigation, their small town will be forever changed by the disappearance of the young girl, undone by murder, secrets and lies. Written by first-time novelist, Laura Benedict, ‘Isabella Moon’ is an extraordinary debut filled with wonderful characters.
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, Laura Benedict worked in public radio and sales promotion before marriage took her to West Virginia, where she began her own copywriting and marketing company.
When asked about her inspiration for the novel, Benedict states that, "My own daughter was quite small when Polly Klass, a little girl in California who was abducted from her own home, was murdered. While the character of Isabella Moon is younger than Polly Klass was, she is still an endangered child who suffers at the hands of careless or venal or criminal adults."
Laura Benedict is a writer to watch out for.
'Isabella Moon' by Laura Benedict is published by William Heinemann. Price: £12.99. ISBN 978-0-434-01704-1.
Lost in Pilgrim State by Jaquenline Walker
Dorothy travelled abroad with big hopes. Instead we meet her in 1951 where she is incarcerated in Pilgrim State, a mental facility in New York State. She had come to New York from Jamaica to study medicine but has been forcibly sectioned and is battling to keep her children and her sanity. She will struggle with both all her life. Dorothy and her children return to Jamaica before finally making a home in London in the early 60s.
After the vibrancy of Harlem and the warmth of Jamaica, London appears grey and unwelcoming. Here they face prejudice, poverty and separation but they make the city their home, a place where their love and ability to find hope and joy even in the most desperate circumstances can finally take root.
Pilgrim State, by Jacqueline Walker tells the story of her mother's life. It is in part tragic yet celebrates the life-affirming nature of family and the bonds between mothers and daughters which can never be broken.
Jacqueline had wanted to write about her mother for as long as she could remember, as a way to make sense of what happened to them. "As I became older I became aware of how few children like me had come to Britain in that Windrush generation, so it wasn't just my story, it was a piece of Black history I was recording."
The book is appropriately timed, as 2008 marks the 50th anniversary of the Empire Windrush’s epic voyage from the West Indies to the UK.
After Jacqueline's children were born it became even more important to have a permanent record of her family's past. "I was pretty sure that once my generation was gone, there would be no one around to explain the records and other information my brothers and I had spent so many years researching," says Jacqueline. "Although it may be a bit of a cliché, I wanted to give my children a sense of their roots, of what courage and determination it had taken for my mother, as a single-parent Black woman in the late 50s, to bring us to this country without the support of friends or family."
Pilgrim State seemed an appropriate way of celebrating that courage, a good way to acknowledge the power and caring determination which in many ways typifies the strength of Caribbean women who, like Dorothy, made the journey to settle elsewhere. "They were real history-makers, but most of all I wanted to pay tribute to my mother, give myself a chance to recognise the extraordinary power of the mother/daughter relationship which makes it possible for women not just to survive almost anything, but so often to turn that experience into triumph."
"I went back for the first time about seventeen years ago. It was an emotional journey. As soon as the plane door opened, the place smelt like home. A few years later I took my children; I felt it was important to give them a real sense of the place."
Jacqueline Walker has been a teacher and has taught creative writing as well has having completed two Arvon writing courses. Pilgrim State is her first book. Haunting, powerful and beautifully written, Dorothy's story resonates long after the final page.
Pilgrim State is published by Sceptre Books and available from April 2008. ISBN: 9780 340 960 785. Price: £19.99.
By Alison Murray
Duma Key By Stephen King
King fans will not be disappointed with the latest offering of the grand master of suspense!
Duma Key is a strange place with too much history. It gets winter visitors, and has a thriving artistic community, but there’s a part of the island that really does not welcome you… a part that does its best to repel.
Unwittingly Edger Freemantle chooses this place to recuperate after a free accident. He is drawn to this beautiful, eerily remote stretch of land off Florida’s West Coast, uninhabited but for a few houses owned by an old lady named Elizabeth. Once a famous patron of the arts there is an air of mystery about Elizabeth and her twin sisters who disappeared in the 1920s, and the haunting secret to which this strange old lady holds the key.
Encouraged by his youngest daughter, Edgar who lost his right arm in the accident takes up painting, discovering a unique talent he had not been aware of before. But soon some strange and disturbing things begin to happen to his paintings. They start becoming predictive, even dangerous to those who buy them. Edgar knows when he has to because his missing arm begins to itch, but he does not know what it is he has to paint, or why, until the picture is done. Further more the paintings have the ability to heal or go to the other extreme.
Stephen King is the author of more than forty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers, some of which have been turned into celebrated films, including The Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me.
In 1999, King was hit by a van and required many operations to mend his broken limbs
His most recent are Cell and Lisey’s Story, however Duma Keys, a psychological thriller with a twist to chill, is King writing at the top of his game. A page-turner if ever there was one.
Dumas Keys is published by Hodder & Stoughton. Hardback £18.99. ISBN: 978-0-340-95219-1.
City of Thieves
From David Benioff, the acclaimed author of The 25th Hour and the screenwriter who brought The Kite Runner to the big screen, comes a tale of cunning and accidental bravery…
When seventeen-year-old Lev is caught looting the body a dead German paratrooper, his options appear bleak. However, instead of the expected execution Lev and a handsome soldier arrested for desertion called Kolya gets given the task of finding a dozen eggs for a colonel’s daughter’s wedding cake.
Either he finds a dozen eggs for wedding cake, or in four days time his ration card will be destroyed, and he will face starvation. The Germans, however, have cut off all supplies to the city. There’s not a squirrel or rat left alive in Leningrad, never mind a chicken…
Lev and Kolya, a self-styled seducer of women and spinner of tales, sets off on a quest that will lead him into the heart of a cannibal’s lair, out into the forests of the tundra and right into the clutches of the Germans. Before the four days are out, Lev will battle for his life across the chess-board, have a crash course in literature and fall in love with the most dangerous sniper in the Russian militia.
City of Thieves is set in the darkest days of the siege of Leningrad. It tells the story of a quixotic quest through a land ravaged by famine, hardened by war and ruled with capricious violence. The book is loosely based on the war-time exploits of David Benioff’s grandfather.
Born David Friedman, before he changed his name to Benioff, his mother's maiden name, and began his career as a Hollywood screenwriter. The New-Yorker worked as a club bouncer and high school English teacher until he won recognition for his debut book, The 25th Hour. The book was later adapted into a film starring Edward Norton and directed by Spike Lee.
He is also the author of the screenplays for the films Troy and The Kite Runner and the forthcoming Stay and Wolverine.
Despite the print being ridiculously small, with the vivid immediacy of a Hollywood movie but the moral ambiguity and intricate characterisation of the best literary fiction, City of Thieves will be enjoyed in one breathless sitting by readers who grew up loving The Silver Sword and I am David.
Benioff lives in Los Angeles with his wife, actress Amanda Pete, and is already working on his next novel.
City of Thieves by David Benioff is published by Sceptre Hardback. Price: £12.99.
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