14 Fiction FICTION


Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures. - Jessamyn West


75565 CHRIST THE LORD:


The Road to Cana by Anne Rice


Anne Rice’s second book in her hugely ambitious and scrupulously researched life of Christ begins in the last winter of the ‘hidden years’, culminates with 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness, and concludes with a miracle - the turning of water into wine at the marriage in Cana. We see Jesus,


Yeshua Bar Joseph during a winter of no rain, endless dust and disruption in Judea. Whispers of a virgin birth have long surrounded Jesus. His brothers, mother and friends wait for some sign of the path he will take. Both divine and human, he struggles with the demands of his family, the human need for love and his overwhelming sense of destiny. Now aged 30, this quiet man of Nazareth emerges from his baptism in the River Jordan to confront his mission - and the devil. He is urged to call on Israel to rise up and cast off the yoke of Rome, but his is a different and greater calling. 242pp in large softback.


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75586 IS THERE ANYTHING YOU WANT?


by Margaret Forster What do Mrs H., Rachel, Edwina, Ida, Sarah, Dot and Chrissie have in common? They are all survivors and all connected by the same hospital clinic in a small Northern town. At its heart is the strong, difficult but finally vulnerable woman. Mrs H. is generous and helpful to a sometimes comical fault.


She lives alone with a secret that she tells no one. Her niece is a young doctor who can’t take the strain, and who wants something different from life. Among them are the other women in the list, the walking wounded getting on with their lives. Ida, once beautiful and now hiding her scars under layers of fat; tiny Dot who is stronger than she seems; Edwina, a mother who lives vicariously through others, even her wild daughter, and Rachel who finds out almost too late what it is like to soar above the crowd. Not to mention the men in their lives. By the gifted storyteller. 244pp with fairly large print.


£16.99 NOW £4 75589 LAND OF MARVELS: A


Novel by Barry Unsworth Archaeologist John Somerville is excavating the ruins of Tell Erdek to discover the secrets of ancient Mesopotamia. The year is 1914 and he is in a race against the beginning of World War I and the German, French and Russian advances in the Near East which are covering the region with bridges and railways. Local support is


essential, but Somerville’s Bedouin contact Jehar has his own agenda as he seeks to raise a hundred gold pounds to marry a beautiful Circassian girl. Meanwhile, Somerville’s fellow archaeologist Howard Palmer has a limited commitment to the cause and is falling in love with his assistant Patricia, a modern girl whom Edith, Somerville’s wife, dislikes for her confident manner with the men. Edith herself is attracted to Elliott, an American who is there to keep an eye on Major Manning, a military pundit with his own interpreter who claims to be assessing the loyalties of the local chiefs in the event of war. When Elliott tells Edith that Manning is also spying for a hostile power, a train of events is put in motion that results in tragedy, though the personal cataclysm is dwarfed by the momentous discovery made at the site. 287pp. £18.99 NOW £4


75601 SEASON OF LEAVES by Catherine Law


A bundle of unopened letters from Rose Pepper’s Czech lover Krystof, discovered in her old age, lead her and her daughters to Prague, and the truth that is buried there. Her extraordinary story, following her heart and the love of her life, takes Rose from the bombed-out rubble of Plymouth in World War Two to a farm on the windswept cliffs of


Cornwall and then to post-war Prague, seething with spies and informers. But on her journey lies danger and betrayal, while awaiting her in England with terrible patience is the cold, controlling man she married. Could going back and reliving the pain of lost love be too much for her to bear? Dare she open Krystof’s crumbling letters and come face to face with what happened to him? 344pp in paperback. £7.99 NOW £3


75242 THE LAST STORYTELLER: A Novel of


Ireland by Frank Delaney The unparalleled master of Irish historical fiction brings a drama of daring and intrigue to the page. Ben MacCarthy is living through the tumultuous events of Ireland in 1956 when the national mood is downtrodden, poverty, corruption and an armed rebellion rattle the


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countryside. Ben wants no part of the upstart insurrection along the northern border. He unknowingly falls in with an IRA sympathiser and is compromised into running guns, yet despite his perilous circumstances, all he can think about is finding his former wife and true love, the actress Venetia Kelly. Parted forcibly from Ben years ago, Venetia has returned to Ireland with her new husband, a brutal man and coarse but popular stage performer by the name of Gentleman Jack. 385pp, roughcut pages. £22.50 NOW £6


75561 BLOOD OF HONOUR:


Featuring Jack Tanner by James Holland


At Hiraklion, Jack Tanner and the rest of the 2nd Battalion Yorks Rangers find themselves battling in vicious close-quarter fighting against the German paratroopers. Leading a counter-attack, it is Peploe and Tanner’s B Company that helps drive the enemy back, but this success is short-lived and once again,


Tanner and Sykes find themselves faced with a bitter retreat. Not only has a new subaltern Guy Liddell recently arrived on the island determined to make life difficult, but Tanner has offended Alopex, a powerful kapitan on Crete who has sworn to kill him. Now the Germans are invading and enemy bombers ensure their attempted evacuation is scuppered. Tanner is forced to flee to the mountainous interior where only Alopex can help. Set in Crete, May 1941 and packed with superb historical detail and testosterone-fuelled escapism. 381pp. £14.99 NOW £4


75569 DAISY CLUB by Charlotte Bingham Typeset in nice big 13 pt type, the novel begins in the autumn of 1938. Twistleton is a village untouched by time. Daisy, Jean, Freddie and their friends Aurelia and Laura are devoted to the place, so when war breaks out the village becomes the embodiment of everything for which they are fighting. For the previous generation, the conflict causes private despair increased when


Twistleton is requisitioned by the Army. Turfed out of their homes, the villagers take refuge at Twistleton Hall. It is here that the evacuees from the East End, butler and countryman weld together to fight common enemies, whether drunken troops in the village, bombs in the air or rationing and the bitter weather. They all know only victory will do. Love is their one all-too- fleeting consolation, and also their final triumph. 474pp from the popular romantic novelist. £6.99 NOW £3


75687 HERE WAS A MAN by Norah Lofts


First published in 1936, this is everything a good historical novel should be - beautifully told, filled with believable characters, expertly researched. Sir Walter Raleigh was one of the brightest stars in the Elizabethan firmament. Born into relative obscurity in rural Devon, he grew up in the company of smugglers and fishermen and listening to stories of voyages to far


flung lands. His lust for adventure was to take him from the bloody battlefields of Europe to the colonies of the New World and on to the dazzling court of Good Queen Bess. He was a naval commander against the Spanish Armada and led two expeditions to South America to search for El Dorado. This beautifully spun fiction is the story of his relationship with the two women who dominated his life - Elizabeth his queen, and Bess, her lady-in-waiting and his secret wife. 190pp in reprinted paperback.


£7.99 NOW £4


75611 TULIP GIRL by Margaret Dickinson Abandoned outside an orphanage as a newborn baby, spirited Maddie March has had to fight her way through life so when she finds a home at Few Farm with Frank Brackenbury and his household, she welcomes the chance of a fresh start. Work on the farm is hard, but believing herself truly loved for the first time by the farmer’s son, Michael, even the animosity of the


housekeeper Mrs Trowbridge cannot mar Maddie’s newfound happiness. 1947 brings a harsh winter, threatening the Brackenburys’ livelihood and all seems lost until Maddie has an idea that might save them all from poverty. But then she discovers she is pregnant. A captivating Lincolnshire saga from the popular author. 440pp in paperback. £6.99 NOW £3


75615 WHERE THE HEART


IS by Annie Groves The country is going forward together, but will the Campions? Three years into the war and the country is facing its darkest days. The changes have affected everyone, not least the Campion family. Eldest son Luke is fighting on the African Front, Emily is harbouring romantic thoughts about Wilhelm, the German POW, and Bella still pines for her forbidden


love. The war effort has steered twins Lou and Sasha on different paths, but has it driven a wedge between them? The family along with the rest of the nation must face their fears and endure, since all their tomorrows depend upon it. A heartfelt story. 425pp in paperback. £6.99 NOW £3


74583 AN IRISH COUNTRY


WEDDING by Patrick Taylor Love is in the air in the colourful Ulster village of Ballybucklebo where Dr Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly has finally proposed to the darling of his youth, Kitty O’Hallorhan. There’s a wedding to be planned, but before O’Reilly can make it to the altar, he and his young colleague Barry Laverty, MB, must deal with the usual round of


eccentric patients. Easing their troubled housekeeper’s mind is going to be a challenge, on top of the doctors’ many pressing duties which are more than simply splinting broken bones and tending to aches and pains. It can also mean helping a struggling young couple acquire their first home, clearing the name of a cat accused of preying on a neighbour’s prize racing pigeons, and encouraging a bright young working class girl who dreams of some day becoming a doctor herself. 428pp. $24.99 NOW £5


74584 PRAY FOR US


SINNERS by Patrick Taylor In Belfast in 1973 the Troubles are raging. Two Ulstermen, two sides - on one, British Army bomb-disposal officer Marcus Richardson. On the other, Davy MacCutcheon, Provisional IRA armourer who has been constructing bombs since his teens. When Marcus is nearly killed by an exploding car bomb, he welcomes the offer of a transfer to


the élite SAS, provided that first he accepts an undercover mission to infiltrate the Falls Road ghetto, join the Provisional IRA, identify their upper echelon, and expose their bomb maker. When Davy’s devices are used by the Provos who have switched from military targets to civilian disruption, the bomb maker begins to question what he is doing. Maiming and killing innocent people, one horrific death haunts his nightmares and his request to be discharged is countered by an order that he go on one last mission - a critical attack on a high-ranking British politician. A runaway series of events leaves both men in an abandoned farmhouse. 332pp. $24.99 NOW £6


74594 CUJO by Stephen King Iconic terror from the bestselling author. Cujo is a huge St Bernard dog, the best friend Brett Camber has ever had. Then one day Cujo chases a rabbit into a bolt-hole. Except it isn’t a rabbit’s warren anymore, it is a cave inhabited by rabid bats. Cujo falls very sick, and the gentle giant who once protected the family becomes a vortex of horror inexorably drawing in all the people around him. Once upon a time, a monster came to the small town of Castle Rock, Maine, not a werewolf, vampire or ghoul, he was only a cop. 420pp, paperback. £8.99 NOW £2.50


74595 DARK FIRE by C. J. Sansom It is 1540 and the hottest summer in the 16th century. Matthew Shardlake, believing himself out of favour with Thomas Cromwell, is busy trying to maintain his legal practice and keep a low profile, but his involvement with a murder case, defending a girl accused of brutally murdering her young cousin, brings him once again into contact with the king’s chief minister, and a new assignment. The secret of Greek Fire, the legendary substance with which the Byzantines destroyed the Arab navies, has been lost for centuries. Now an official of the Court of Augmentations has discovered the formula in the library of a dissolved London monastery. Shardlake is sent to recover it. 595pp, paperback. £6.99 NOW £3


74602 SOVEREIGN by C. J. Sansom Autumn, 1541. King Henry VIII has set out on a spectacular Progress to the North to attend an extravagant submission by his rebellious subjects in York. Already in the city are lawyer Matthew Shardlake and his assistant John Barak. Shardlake has reluctantly undertaken a special mission for Archbishop Cranmer to ensure the welfare of an important but dangerous conspirator who is to be returned to London for interrogation. But the murder of a York glazier involves Shardlake in deeper mysteries. The investigators stumble upon a cache of secret documents which could threaten the Tudor throne. 662pp, paperback.


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74610 CHANGELING by Kenzaburo Oe When Kogito’s brother-in-law Goro gives him an old- fashioned tape recorder, Kogito has no idea how it will change his life. A box full of tapes accompanies it, and Kogito’s first attempt to listen is on a crowded train, when his fellow-passengers are startled to hear pornographic dialogue issuing forth. When Kogito returns the tapes, Goro gives him another collection, and this time there is a message from Goro saying that when he is on the Other Side he is not going to stop communicating with Kogito. He commits suicide immediately afterwards. Sends them all into a past where key books hold a profound significance, including Maurice Sendak’s Outside Over There and the crucifixion narratives of the Christian Bible. 468pp. £19.99 NOW £5


74926 22 BRITANNIA ROAD by Amanda Hodgkinson


‘Housekeeper of housewife?’ the soldier asks Silvana as she and seven year old Aurek board the ship that will take them to England at the end of World War Two and where her husband Janusz is waiting for them. ‘Survivor’ she answers. Janusz wants them to be a proper English family and is determined to forget the ghosts of war. He pins his hopes for a normal life on a small house 22 Britannia Road with an English garden out back. Having spent the war hiding, Aurek is wild, almost feral, and doesn’t know how to tie his shoelaces or sleep in a bed. Here are the private terrors of two Polish survivors who only want to bury the past in the comforting conformities of English life. 321pp. ONLY £4


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74688 BEETHOVEN CONFIDENTIAL and BRAHMS GETS LAID by Ken Russell


These new novel-biographies are based on the known facts of the great musicians Beethoven (1770- 1827) and Brahms (1833-1937). The gestation for the first novel Beethoven Confidential included a film script in which Anthony Hopkins was to play the deaf


composer. Now the mystery of the identity of Beethoven’s secret love, the ‘Immortal Beloved’ is at long last revealed. Brahms was renowned for beer, beard and belly. The doughty bachelor enjoyed a quiet beer and walks in the Black Forest but was no shrinking violet. He was full of white-hot passion and sensuality and had a complex emotional relationship with Clara, wife of Robert Schumann. Hold on to your hats for the sex romp! 190pp in paperback. £12.95 NOW £6


74689 ELGAR: The Erotic Variations and DELIUS: A Moment with Venus by Ken Russell


Filmmaker Ken Russell made a celebrated BBC Monitor television film on Elgar, the Worcestershire composer. Here is his portrayal as a devoted husband whose career hinges largely on the support of his wife. But here in the novel the man emerges from his Victorian


morality complete with mistresses and muses including Rosa Burley. The second novel Delius: A Moment with Venus is largely based on the recollections of the composer’s amanuensis, Eric Fenby. Some of the extra- marital material in this novel was unknown to Russell when he made his film, but the baptism of Frederick Delius the Yorkshire man, as ‘Fritz’ is the hilarious starting point for the revelations about the secret life of this cantankerous old Pagan genius. 190pp in paperback.


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74854 BABES IN THE WOOD by Ruth Rendell There hadn’t been anything like this kind of rain in living memory. The River Brede had burst its banks and not a single house in the valley had escaped flooding. In the midst of all this, two teenagers Giles and Sophie Dade, and Joanna Troy, the woman who had been looking after them, had vanished. The Subaqua Task Force could find no trace of them, but Mrs Dade was still convinced her children were dead. The investigation would call into question many of Chief Inspector Wexford’s assumptions about the way people behaved, including his own family. 401pp in paperback. £7.99 NOW £3.50


74928 A LESSON IN SECRETS: A Maisie Dobbs Novel


by Jacqueline Winspear In the summer of 1932, Maisie Dobbs’ career takes an exciting new turn when she accepts an undercover assignment directed by Scotland Yard’s Special Branch and the Secret Service. Posing as a junior lecturer, she is sent to a private college in Cambridge to


monitor any activities ‘not in the interests of His Majesty’s Government.’ When the college’s controversial pacifist founder and principal Greville Liddicote is murdered, Maisie is directed to stand back as others spearhead the investigation. She soon discovers however that the circumstances of the death appear inextricably linked to the suspicious comings and goings of faculty and students under her surveillance. Maisie must overcome a reluctant Secret Service, discover shameful hidden truths about Britain’s conduct during the Great War, and face off the rising powers of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, the Nazi Party, in Britain. 321pp. $25.99 NOW £5.50


74992 ABYSSINIAN PROOF by Jenny White May 1453 in Constantinople. In the dying days of the Byzantine Empire as the city prepares for a final onslaught by the Ottoman Turks, Isaak Metochites and his family are entrusted with a silver reliquary carved with the figure of a weeping angel and the inscription: ‘Behold the Proof of Chora, Container of the Uncontainable.’ 400 years later magistrate Kamil Pasha is plagued by thefts of antiquities from mosques and churches and a series of murders in which the bodies bare the same distinctive marks. He is led to a sect descended from Abyssinian slaves living in an abandoned cistern in Istanbul’s gritty underworld. The re-emergence of the forgotten reliquary sets off a brutal race between those sworn to protect it and those who will stop at nothing to gain its explosive secret. 456pp in paperback. £6.99 NOW £3.75


75025 THE TWELFTH ENCHANTMENT by David Liss


Lucy Derrick is a young woman of good breeding and poor finances. Just as she is on the cusp of accepting a life of misery, events take a stunning turn when a handsome stranger, the poet and notorious rake Lord Byron, arrives at her house, stricken by what seems to be a curse, and with a cryptic message for Lucy. England is undergoing an industrial transformation and on the verge of revolution and Lucy is drawn into a dangerous conspiracy. The key to victory may be connected to a cryptic volume whose powers of enchantment are unbounded. Lucy must harness newfound mystical skills and, enthralled with two exceptional men with designs on her heart, she must master her own desires to claim the destiny she deserves. 400 pages with roughcut edges, small remainder mark. $26 NOW £5.50


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