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Price: R124.00

ISBN: 9780857382986, Small Paperback, Quercus

Japan, 1857. For centuries Japan has been on its own; isolated by choice from the rest of the world. But the Western powers are now at its shores demanding to be let in, the government is crumbling and revolution is building. The age of the samurai is ending and in its place a new Japan will be born. A young woman is readying herself for marriage in this, the most tumultuous period of her nation’s history. The daughter of a doctor, Tsuru has been working alongside him and learning the ways of medicine all her life. When her father allows her to marry the man she loves – a fellow doctor – she believes her life will be all she’s dreamed it could be. Happily married, working amongst men as an equal. But Japanese society does not work this way. The men of the times – boys she’s known since childhood – are determined to expel the foreigners, using violence and whatever else they need to make their message heard. The women are expected to be hidden at home, or behind the paper walls of the tea houses. Tsuru is far too able to accept this and she is drawn into a shadowy world of subversion, political intrigue and a dangerous love. In time, she is working on the battlefields, alongside men, to care for the wounded. Blossoms and Shadows is a compelling tale of love and war, women and men, and the rise of modern Japan. It shines a brilliant light on a time in history that few have known about until now, though the change it brought continues to ripple around the world.

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Price: R105.00

ISBN: 9781849831451, Small Paperback, Simon & Schuster, Publication due May 2012

Lucky Santangelo is back with a vengeance – in a novel full of power, passion, revenge, and the raging family dynamics of the Santangelo clan – and, as always, Lucky comes out on top! In Goddess of Vengeance Lucky Santangelo rules with her high profile casino and hotel complex – The Keys in Vegas. Lennie, her ex-movie star husband is still writing and directing successful independent movies, while Max, her wild and gorgeous teenage daughter is about to celebrate her 18th birthday, and her son, Bobby, owns a string of hot clubs. Lucky has everything. Family. Love. Life. And everything is exactly what billionaire businessman Armand Jordan is determined to take from her one way or the other. Born a Prince in the small but affluent Middle Eastern country of Akramshar, Armand comes to America with his American mother at an early age, and rises to become a real estate business titan. Armand regards women as nothing more than breeding mares or sexual playthings, so when his people inform him that the one property he covets more than anything, The Keys, is not for sale, he is shocked. That a mere woman would turn down his offer to buy The Keys is unthinkable, and Armand vows to force Lucky’s hand whatever it takes. And so the battle for power begins…Meanwhile Bobby and Max are getting into their own trouble. Bobby inadvertently becomes involved in his ex-best friend, Frankie Romano’s, drug problems, causing friction between him and his girlfriend, L.A. Deputy D.A., Denver Jones. And young Max is getting restless. Not interested in college, she fights with Lucky, and embarks on a series of adventures that could turn out to have deadly consequences. But Max is like a little Lucky, and eventually she proves her strength in more ways than one.

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Price: R195.00

ISBN: 9780624053620, Sagteband, Human & Rousseau

In ‘n donker agterplaas rol die polisieman tot teen ‘n vibracrete-muur. Twee figure spring oor die oorkantste heining; die silhoeet van ‘n AK47 ‘n oomblik lank duidelik herkenbaar. Naby hom hoor hy iemand histeries oor die radio hulp ontbied. Pangas. Klippe. Brandende buitebande. Hy tas na daardie laaste blink patroon in sy hempsak – sy enigste hoop. Hy is een van duisende polisiebeamptes wat in Casspirs die brandende townships binnegery is. Hy het vol afwagting deur die koeelvaste glas die township-duister ingestaar. Hy het ‘n man geword in die polisie. Dit is waar hy die vyand en vroue leer ken het. Net so verbete soos wat hy strate gepatrolleer het, het hy na die ideale vrou gesoek. En toe die openbare geweld in die townships ontplof, bars in hom ‘n intieme geweld los, ‘n sagte vernieling so oud soos die mensdom self. So lig soos klip is ‘n uiters verontrustende roman. Nog selde is die vermenging van godsdiens, seks en geweld in die vorming van die manlike psige so indringend in ‘n debuut verken.

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Price: R130.00

ISBN: 9780241950005, Paperback, Penguin Group, Publication due May 2012

On the eve of America’s Civil War a New York midwife makes a fateful decision …Mary Sutter, a brilliant young midwife, dreams of proving herself as capable as any man. But medical schools refuse to teach women. So when her heart is broken, she heads to Washington DC to tend the Civil War wounded. Assisted and encouraged by two surgeons, who both fall for her, and ignoring requests to return home to help her twin sister give birth, Mary pursues her dream of becoming a surgeon and saving lives – no matter the cost to herself or those she loves and no matter the harrowing conditions she has yet to face. A brilliant portrait of an unforgettable heroine and a powerful evocation of trauma in the aftermath of battle, “My Name is Mary Sutter” is an utterly original story of one woman proving she is a match for any man.

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Price: R194.00

ISBN: 9780857382757, Trade paperback, Quercus

They were originally five. Elliot. Brian. Tallis. Cameron. And Dylan: the mediator, the man each one went to in a time of crisis. Five close friends, bonded in college and close ever since, still coming together for a once-yearly trip to Las Vegas. This time round, their twelfth annual get-together, they are not just bound by a common tradition, but by a common loss: that of Dylan, tragically taken in a road accident the previous year. However, what is intended as a joyous celebration of Dylan’s life soon turns sour. Upon arrival in Vegas, the four remaining friends each receive an envelope; one that contains evidence of their guiltiest secrets: A fraud. A cover up. An affair. An assault. Secrets that haunt their owners individually, yet were only known collectively by one person – Dylan. This man had another, hidden side – one that is now haunting them from beyond the grave. Why would Dylan want these secrets unearthed? And who is digging them up for him? And, more importantly, what is it going to take for them to be reburied?

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Price: R170.00

ISBN: 9780143530138, Paperback, Penguin Group, Publication due May 2012

Chloe Cartwright is an eccentric yet brilliant prize-winning writer, who has always been more focused on political causes than cooking a wholesome meal for her family. Her daughter, Hannah, has never been much good at anything — other than shoplifting, that is. Hannah lacks direction and scrambles through life, before falling, almost by chance, into a successful career as partner to one of Cape Town’s leading chefs. Life is looking good — until Chloe’s behaviour becomes even more irrational than usual…Is Hannah imagining it? Or is something terribly wrong? Both delightfully readable and powerfully moving, Below Luck Level is the story of a daughter’s relationship with her mother and the unexpected challenges of caring for a parent with Alzheimers.

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Price: R124.00

ISBN: 9780857380357, Small Paperback, Quercus

Biology graduate Anna Bella Nor is just two weeks away from defending her thesis on the origin of birds when her supervisor Lars Helland is found dead in his office, his severed tongue lying on his bloodied shirtfront, a copy of her thesis in his lap. Police Superintendent Soren Marhauge is assigned to unravel what appears to be a multitude of intrigues in the Biology Department of Copenhagen University. Helland had been deliberately infected with a rare parasite that only an expert in the field would have access to. But when Anna Bella’s fellow graduate and close friend is also killed, the murders seem to be linked not only to the university but also to Anna herself. As Marhauge investigates he comes up against the vicious competition for academic success, dark secrets from the past – all against the fabulous backdrop of palaeontology’s age-old mysteries. Suspenseful, compelling, richly detailed and stunningly researched, The Dinosaur Feather unveils a sparkling mosaic of related destinies as well as a sinister web of lies.

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Price: R170.00

ISBN: 9780143530169, Paperback, Penguin Group, Publication due May 2012

On a winter’s morning in 1949, in an empty field north of the city of Johannesburg, the lifeless body of a beautiful young girl was found by a passer by. She was identified as Bubbles Schroeder, 18, and she appeared to have been strangled. This is her story. Born in the poorer part of the small town of Lichtenburg, Bubbles grows up with a bitter mother who takes in laundry to make ends meet and a dull-witted aunt. She has never known her father. Bubbles dreams of a better life for herself and she constructs an alluring fantasy world, a world of furs and jewels and Chanel No 5, where handsome men whirl her around a dance floor and send her roses. At 16 she moves to Vereeniging to work in a coal agency and is befriended by the sophisticated Winifred Walker. Winnie teaches Bubbles some social graces, giving her a veneer of sophistication, and, most importantly, she introduces her to erotic love. Bubbles soon moves on to Johannesburg where she is taken under the wing of a tawdry, middle-aged bookie, Barry, who continues her education, though not in the direction Winnie would have imagined. Barry teaches her tricks to beguile a man. He also introduces her to a social set of wealthy young men who find her captivating and. introduce her to their friends. Bubbles sees her fantasy world within her reach. She is convinced that the perfect beau is about to swoop in and ‘carry her away’ to a grand home and a life of fun and luxury. ‘Don’t go thinking you’re one of them’, Barry warns her, but it is too late. Out of her depth and completely misreading how high society works, Bubbles finds herself in a situation she can’t control. The world to which she aspires turns menacing and, ultimately, fatal.

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Price: R209.00

ISBN: 9780571279982, Trade Paperback, Faber & Faber

An automaton, a man and a woman who can never meet, a secret love story, and the fate of the warming world are all brought to incandescent life in this hauntingly moving novel from one of the finest writers of our time. London 2011, Catherine Gehrig, conservator at the Swinburne museum, learns of the unexpected death of her colleague and lover of thirteen years. As the mistress of a married man she has to grieve in private. One other person knows their secret, the director of the museum, who arranges for Catherine to be given a special project away from prying eyes. Mad with grief, the usually controlled and rational Catherine discovers a series of handwritten notebooks telling the story of the man who originally commissioned the extraordinary and eerie automata she has been asked to bring back to life. With a precocious new assistant, Amanda, at her side, she starts to piece together both the clockwork puzzle and the story of the mechanical creature which was commissioned in 19th century Germany by an English man, Henry Brandling, as a ‘magical amusement’ for his consumptive son. Having been asked to leave his home by his wife, Henry turns his hurtful departure into an adventure that he records for his young child. But it is Catherine Gehrig, in a strangely stormy and overheated London nearly two hundred years later, who will find comfort and wonder in reading Henry’s story. And it is the automata, in its beautiful, uncanny imitation of life that will link two strangers confronted with the mysteries of life and death, the miracle and catastrophe of human invention and the body’s astonishing chemistry of love and feeling.

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Price: R190.00

ISBN: 9780143530107, Paperback, Penguin Group, Publication due May 2012

In 2007 Terry Crawford-Browne published the explosive Eye On The Money. It was primarily an account of the international banking sanctions campaign against apartheid during the 1980s, but also dealt with the early stages of the now well-documented South African arms deal scandal. Eye on the diamonds is a sequel to the earlier book and provides updated information on the uncovering of the scandal. Its purpose is to keep the arms deal saga and the venality of the war business in public focus. In 2008 Crawford-Browne was asked to lead a public interest application to the South African Constitutional Court after huge volumes of evidence confirmed how BAE and other arms companies paid massive bribes to politically well-connected members of the African National Congress – the so-called ‘black diamonds’ – to secure their contracts. His application forced President Jacob Zuma’s reluctant appointment in October 2011 of a judicial commission of inquiry to investigate the scandal. Eye on the diamonds’ focus on diamonds links the colonial and apartheid histories of South Africa with the close histories of Israel and Palestine. It demonstrates how De Beers, the South African originated company which dominated the diamond cartel for more than a century is fast losing control to far more ruthless Israeli players. Crawford-Browne suggests that the diamond trade, which is critical to the twenty-first century war business, makes every diamond a ‘blood diamond’. Blood diamonds provide the ultimate money laundering opportunity for organised crime, while the Israeli war business thwarts efforts at peaceful resolution of conflict. Israel itself has become a ‘promised land’ for organised crime where assassinations, money laundering and other criminal activities are justified in the ‘national interest’. Crawford-Browne shows in this well-researched and hard-hitting book that the international war business and the corruption it unleashes is completely out of control.