English books
COURTNEY ALLISON MOULTON – SHADOWS IN THE SILENCE
CRAIG DAVIDSON – RUST AND BONE
Rust and Bone conjures a savage world of prizefighters, gamblers and sex addicts; dogs fight to the death and bare-knuckled men fight for survival on the most extreme margins.
And yet these gritty stories are tempered by gentleness, the quiet understanding in the most intimate relationships. A whale trainer’s accident, a boy’s life endangered – where human vulnerability is so close to the surface, the humanity of these characters heralds redemption and hope.
CYCLING BRITAIN
DAN SMITH – BIG GAME
13-year-old Oskari is sent into the cold wilderness on an ancient test of manhood. He must survive armed only with a bow and arrow. But instead, he stumbles upon an escape pod from a burning airliner: Air Force One. Terrorists have shot down the President of the United States.
The boy hunter and the world’s most powerful man are suddenly the hunted, in a race against a deadly enemy.
Dance Dance Dance – Haruki Murakami
This wildly propulsive novel by the acclaimed author of A Wild Sheep Chase focuses on a man searching for a former lover who vanished mysteriously from a seedy hotel. But each new clue to Kiki's whereabouts leads him deeper into a labryrinth of physical violence and metaphysical dread. "A world-class writer".--Washington Post Book World
DANIEL CLAY – BROKEN
Skunk Cunningham is a normal little girl, who nags her dad about smoking and always thrashes him on the X-box. She’s being bullied by the Oswald girls who live next-door. And she has a crush on Mike, the au pair’s boyfriend, who also happens to be her new teacher at school.
But then one day Skunk watches Bob Oswald beat friendless teenager Rick Buckley to a bloody pulp, and life on Drummond Square is never the same again.
Now a major film – winner of ‘Best British Independent Film’ and ‘Best Supporting Actor’ for Rory Kinnear at the British Independent Film Awards 2012 – Broken is Skunk’s attempt to withstand a world intent on breaking all she holds precious, as her neighbourhood struggles to rebound from this brutal act of cruelty.
DANIEL KEHLMANN – F: A NOVEL
It's the summer before the financial crisis. Martin Friedland, a Catholic priest without faith, overweight because he's always hungry, meets his half-brother Eric for dinner. The heavily indebted financial advisor, teetering on the brink of prison, has unsettling visions, but he shares them with no one. Shadowy men, even two children, warn him of something, but are these warnings really meant for him, or perhaps for his twin brother Ivan, the art connoisseur and aesthete who looks exactly like him? And so the disaster unfolds.
Daniel Kehlmann tells the story of three brothers who—each in their own way—are swindlers, hypocrites, and forgers. They've settled into their lives, but suddenly an abyss opens up. A moment of inattention, a coincidence, a wrong step, and what seemed like a ghostly nightmare becomes reality.
A novel about lies and truth, about family, forgery and the power of fiction: a virtuoso work of art – multifaceted, mysterious and bold.
DANIEL POLANSKY – SHE WHO WAITS
The third novel in the brilliant dark fantasy Low Town series
Low Town: the worst ghetto in the worst city in the Thirteen Lands. Good only for depravity and death. And Warden, long ago a respected agent in the formidable Black House, is now the most depraved Low Town denizen of them all. As a younger man, Warden carried out more than his fair share of terrible deeds, and never as many as when he worked for the Black House. But Warden's growing older, and the vultures are circling. Low Town is changing, faster than even he can control, and Warden knows that if he doesn't get out soon, he may never get out at all. But Warden must finally reckon with his terrible past if he can ever hope to escape it. A hospital full of lunatics, a conspiracy against the corrupt new king, and a ghetto full of thieves and murderers stand between him and his slim hope for the future. And behind them all waits the one person whose betrayal Warden never expected. The one person who left him, broken and bitter, to become the man he is today. The one woman he ever loved. She who waits behind all things.
DANIEL POLANSKY – TOMORROW THE KILLING
Dark, violent, and shot through with corruption, TOMORROW, THE KILLING is a fantastic successor to THE STRAIGHT RAZOR CURE, one of the most heralded fantasy debuts of recent times.
Once he was a hero of the Great War, and then a member of the dreaded Black House. Now he is the criminal linchpin of Low Town. His name is Warden. He thought he had left the war behind him, but a summons from up above brings the past sharply, uncomfortably, back into focus. General Montgomery's daughter is missing somewhere in Low Town, searching for clues about her brother's murder. The general wants her found, before the stinking streets can lay claim to her, too.
TOMORROW, THE KILLING was chosen as one of the best novels of 2012 by Forbidden Planet, Fantasy Faction, The Founding Fields and A Fantastical Librarian.
DARREN SHAN – CIRQUE DU FREAK
In the tradition of Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, and Stephen King's Salem's Lot, the nightmare continues for the new vampire's assistant in the popular Saga of Darren Shan.
Darren Shan was just an ordinary schoolboy until his visit to the Cirque Du Freak. Now, as he struggles with his new life as a Vampire's Assistant, he tries desperately to resist the one temptation that sickens him, the one thing that can keep him alive. But destiny is calling. The Wolf Man is waiting.
DARREN SHAN – CIRQUE DU FREAK (TUNNELS OF BLOOD)
Book 3 in a compelling series about a boy who visits a mysterious freak show that leads him on a journey into a dark world of vampires.
Darren Shan, the Vampire's Assistant, gets a taste of the city when he leaves the Cirque Du Freak with Evra and Mr. Crepsley. When corpses, drained of blood, are discovered, Darren and Evra are compelled to confront a foul creature of the night who may prove to be the end of them all...
DAVID ANTHONY DURHAM – OTHER LANDS
“David Anthony Durham has serious chops. I can’t wait to read whatever he writes next."
—George R. R. Martin
David Anthony Durham’s gripping Acacia Trilogy continues with an epic novel where loyalties are tested, new worlds are discovered, and battle lines are being drawn.
A few years have passed since Queen Corinn has usurped control of the Known World—and she now rules with an iron fist. With plans to expand her empire, she sends her brother, Dariel, on an exploratory mission across the sea to The Other Lands. There, he discovers an alliance of tribes that have no interest in being ruled by Queen Corinn and the Akarans. In fact, Dariel’s arrival ignites a firestorm that once more exposes The Known World to a massive invasion, one unlike anything they have yet faced . . .
DAVID BILSBOROUGH – A FIRE IN THE NORTH
This second volume picks up the ongoing story in a tunnel leading out of enchanted mountain realm of Eotunlandt. Fighting their way through subterranean dangers, Nibulus and his diminished retinue of ‘questers’ finally reach the open again, only to discover that their rivals the Thieves have mysteriously disappeared.
Meanwhile, Gapp and a sinisterly altered Methuselech continue towards Wrythe, the last settlement. They find the population strangely degenerated, under the influence of a local leader, in fact the evil being Scathur who has been hiding there for five hundred years, awaiting his moment of vengeance. Scathur recognises that inside Methuselech is the outcast soul of a rival necromancer, Mauglad, so imprisons them both till they manage to flee for their lives.
The rest of the original questers also turn up for a scary sojourn in Wrythe, before heading on to Melhus island with Scathur’s deathly henchmen in pursuit. During strange dreams, the wanderer Bolldhe learns he must use a strange sword he has found to kill the evil demigod Drauglir, once and for all. They all venture into Melhus (the Underworld), contesting with the hosts of the dead sent against them. There ensues a colossal battle, with thrills and spills and monumental destruction, before the questers achieve an unexpected victory –and most of them will return to Nordwas sadder but wiser.
DAVID DALGLISH – A DANCE OF MIRRORS
One has conquered a city. The other covets an entire nation.
Haern is the King's Watcher, protector against thieves and nobles who would fill the night with blood. Yet hundreds of miles away, an assassin known as the Wraith has begun slaughtering those in power, leaving the symbol of the Watcher in mockery.
When Haern travels south to confront this copycat, he finds a city ruled by the corrupt, the greedy and the dangerous. Rioters fill the streets and the threat of war hangs over everything. To forge peace, Haern must confront the deadly Wraith, a killer who would shape the kingdom's future with the blade of his sword.
Man or God; what happens when the lines are blurred?
Fantasy author David Dalglish spins a tale of retribution and darkness, and an underworld reaching for ultimate power
DAVID EDDINGS – Guardians Of The West
BOOK 1 OF THE MALLOREON, the worldwide bestselling fantasy series by one of the godfathers of the tradition. Discover the epic stories that inspired generations of fantasy writers - from Raymond Feist's The Riftwar Cycle to George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones.
Evil doesn't disappear. It just changes form...
The evil God Torak is slain, and Garion, the long-awaited King of Riva, hopes for peace. And for a while he gets his wish.
But then a darker prophecy is revealed, and new and more insidious forces gather. As danger mounts from all quarters, and his son is kidnapped, Garion has no choice but to follow his fate, wherever it might lead...
