Books of the Month – May 2017

General Fiction: Rowan Hisayo Buchanan– Harmless Like You

A debut novel which explores the complexities of identity and art, and portrays a narrative of a fractured family over decades and through cities.

» Visit Rowan Hisayo Buchanan’s website

Classic: Virginia Woolf – Orlando

As his tale begins, Orlando is a passionate young nobleman whose days are spent in rowdy revelry, filled with the colourful delights of Queen Elizabeth's court. By the close, he will have transformed into a modern, 36-year-old woman and three centuries will have passed.

British Crime: Kate Ellis - A High Mortality of Doves

1919. The Derbyshire village of Wenfield is still reeling from four terrible years of war, and now, just when the village is coming to terms with the loss of so many of its sons, the brutal murder of a young girl shatters its hard-won tranquillity. Myrtle Bligh is found stabbed and left in woodland, her mouth slit to accommodate a dead dove, a bird of peace. With rumours of a ghostly soldier with a painted face being spotted near the scene of the murders, the village is thrown into a state of panic - and with the killer still on the loose, who will be the next to die at the hands of this vicious angel of death?

» Visit Kate’s website

Tough Crime: Christopher Charles – The Exiled

Can we ever truly run from our past? Fifteen years ago, Detective Wes Raney was a New York City Narcotics Detective with a growing drug habit of his own. While working undercover, he made decisions that ultimately cost him not only his career, but also his family. Disgraced, Raney fled New York - but his past is finally catching up with him.

» Visit Christopher’s website

Fantasy: Renée Ahdieh – The Wrath and the Dawn

Every dawn brings horror to a different family in a land ruled by a killer. Khalid, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, takes a new bride each night only to have her executed at sunrise. So it is a terrible surprise when sixteen-year-old Shahrzad volunteers to marry Khalid. But she does so with a clever plan to stay alive and exact revenge on the Caliph for the murder of her best friend and countless other girls. Shazi's wit and will get her through to the dawn that no others have seen, but with a catch . . . she may be falling in love with a murderer.

» Visit Renée’s website

Science Fiction: Kameron Hurley – The Stars are Legion

Somewhere on the outer rim of the universe, a mass of decaying world-ships known as the Legion is travelling in the seams between the stars. For generations, a war for control of the Legion has been waged, with no clear resolution. As worlds continue to die, a desperate plan is put into motion.

A profoundly moving tale of self-discovery and self-construction in a world as wondrously layered as its unforgettable protagonist.

» Visit Kameron’s website

Paranormal/Urban Fantasy: Tim Powers – Medusa’s Web

Blending big, dark themes with searing family issues, Powers weaves a web of sinister intrigue and personal redemption. A phantasmagoric, thrilling, mind-bending tale of speculative fiction in which one man must uncover occult secrets of 1920s Hollywood to save his family.

» Visit the website theworksoftimpowers.com

Teen/Young Adult: Angie Thomas – The Hate U Give

Sixteen-year-old Starr lives in two worlds: the poor neighbourhood where she was born and raised and her posh high school in the suburbs. The uneasy balance between them is shattered when Starr is the only witness to the fatal shooting of her unarmed best friend, Khalil, by a police officer. Now what Starr says could destroy her community. It could also get her killed. Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, this is a powerful and gripping YA novel about one girl’s struggle for justice.

» Visit Angie’s website

Non-Fiction: Hisham Matar – The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land In Between

The Return is at once a universal and an intensely personal tale. It is an exquisite meditation on how history and politics can bear down on an individual life. And yet Hisham Matar's memoir isn't just about the burden of the past, but the consolation of love, literature and art. It is the story of what it is to be human.

Hisham Matar was nineteen when his father was kidnapped and taken to prison in Libya. He would never see him again. Twenty-two years later, the fall of Gaddafi meant he was finally able to return to his homeland. In this moving memoir, the author takes us on an illuminating journey, both physical and psychological; a journey to find his father and rediscover his country.

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE IN BIOGRAPHY

Short Story Collection:  Rebecca Schiff – The Bed Moved

A razor-sharp, devastatingly witty debut collection of stories on adolescence, sex, death, being Jewish-ish, and finding one’s way as a young woman in the world.

» Visit Rebeccs’s blog