Book picks similar to
The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Fama


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tween-years-before-15
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The Genesis Inquiry


Olly Jarvis - 2021
    The Inquiry quickly becomes the greatest challenge of her life – solving the mystery of Genesis.Facing danger at every turn, can Ella find the answers to the riddles and clues left by the missing genius?Reunited with her estranged daughter, the Inquiry sends them on a quest across the world and through ancient texts.What is the secret that binds us all?Who is behind the dark forces that will stop at nothing to prevent the world from knowing the truth?

Sour Tales For Sweethearts


Patricia Highsmith - 2015
    Taken from Little Tales of Misogyny, Highsmith's satirical, cultish short-story collection, these dark and often funny sketches reveal how your lover may not always have your best interests at heart...

The Broken Places


Susan Perabo - 2001
    Subtly heartbreaking and wise, The Broken Places is a masterful exploration of the precarious intersection of honor, duty, and family.

Things Without a Name


Joanne Fedler - 2008
    The trouble is, while she aches to see the good in the world, Faith is constantly confronted by the bad. After having heard one too many love-gone-wrong stories and being left feeling helpless in the aftermath of yet another woman fleeing yet another violent man, Faith, a legal counsellor in a women's crisis centre, has just about given up. Not just on the big ideas like hope, love and trust, but even on the chance of getting a decent haircut or meeting an ordinary, non-psychotic bloke.One night, though, a random act of fate finds Faith wringing out years of unshed tears in a suburban veterinary clinic. It is a night that will slowly change the way Faith sees herself. A night when she will finally begin to understand what she has always needed to know: that before you can save others you have to save yourself.

What Will People Say?


Rehana Rossouw - 2015
    Hanover Park. The heart of the Cape Flats. It is 1986. Michael Jackson and Brenda Fassie rule every hi-fi. Princess Di and George Michael hairstyles are all the rage. There are plans to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the 1976 student uprising.Neville and Magda Fourie live in Magnolia Court with their three children. They are trying to ‘raise them decent’ in a township festering with gang wars and barricaded with burning tyres. Suzette, the eldest, is beautiful and determined to escape her family’s poverty. Nicky, the sensitive middle child, has ambitions to use her intellect as a way out. Anthony, the only son, attracted by power and wealth, is lured away from his family by a gangster. In What Will People Say? a rich variety of township characters – the preachers, the teachers, the gangsters and the defeated – come to life in vivid language as they eke out their lives in the shadows of grey concrete blocks of flats.Which members of the Fourie family will thrive, which ones will not survive?Generously spiced with Cape Flats slang; lots of vivid and gritty description that give an authentic feel to the story; plenty of plot – the writer draws us in and makes us curious about what will happen next; and very human characters we come to care about.

Satan's Garden


Kit Lyman - 2014
    It chronicles their experiences in parallel over the course of six years, unfolding the independent challenges they face while struggling to survive worlds apart from each other. This book club pick inspires readers to see that love, friendship, and faith can survive in spite of the most terrible circumstances.Dani and Keely imagined that life was more magical than others believed. If they had to be summed up, their one plus one would equal three. Together, they became something greater. It was twin sisters against the world. But the world had different plans. The man followed them to their secret tree house that unusually warm day in September. He only came for one, there and gone in the blink of an eye. Satan’s Garden takes you on the six-year journey of two sisters who learn what it means to survive. It’s a story of resiliency, hope, and above all, a bond that cannot be taken away. It teaches us how quickly life can change and yet how much of it we can change ourselves.

As the Snow Falls - Vol. 1


M.D. James - 2011
    Enjoy the best selling, and first book in the mesmerizing Muse Series. If you love V.C. Andrews style books that mix Gothic Horror with the Family Saga genre, then you will love this book. It's packed with lies and betrayals and twists.Jimmy's world collapses as he sees his mother being arrested. Before he knows what is happening, he's taken to live with strangers that he's told are his biological family.His Grandfather rules the family with an iron first. While Jimmy tried desperately to reconnect to his Mom and Sister, he must adapt to the abuse of his new wealthy family, a new school, his new job with the family business, and all of the lies and secrets that are uncovered.

Dandelion Soup


Babs Horton - 2004
    The attached tag bears his own name and address. Who is she? And why would a complete stranger send her to him? As Solly attempts to find the answers, other Ballygurry inhabitants are drawn into the mystery. Their inquiries lead to the secluded monastery of Santa Eulalia on the medieval trail to Santiago de Compostela. As the Ballygurry pilgrims begin to thaw in the Spanish sunshine, a number of interwoven mysteries from the past gradually unfurl to rekindle old hatreds--"and restore old passions.

The Sett


Ranulph Fiennes - 1997
    How would you react to the murder of your family? Alex Goodman took it personally. And now he has a fight on his hands. A fight that starts when Alex wakes up in a Lancashire hospital severely battered and with no memory of the brutal attack that put him there. A year's struggle reveals his identity. But Alex is driven to spend a further nine years delving into a global criminal underworld, seeking revenge on his family's killers and becoming dangerously entangled with both the Mafia and the CIA, and with some of the most savage and powerful men in the world.

The Promise Remains


Travis Thrasher - 2000
    A contemporary setting with great character development. The first novel from a promising new author.

The Secret Lives of Dresses


Erin McKean - 2011
    All a far cry from her vivid, eccentric childhood, growing up with her beloved grandmother Mimi.However, when disaster strikes, Dora knows she has no choice but to return to her childhood home and take over running Mimi’s vintage clothing shop. And there she makes a surprising discovery – Mimi’s been writing stories to accompany every dress she sells. Romantic, heartbreaking tales about each one’s secret life before it got to her shop...Dora starts to matchmake these lonely frocks with new owners, but will the stories help her as well? Trading her boring high street clothes for vintage glamour is one thing. What she needs to know is whether she can trade her safe old life – and love – for something better too?A captivating and enchanting novel for every girl who knows that the right dress can change your life. By the author of the popular blog www.dressaday.com.

The Earth Hums in B Flat


Mari Strachan - 2009
    She leaves the bed she shares with her sister and soars into the night sky, listening to the nighttime sounds of her small Welsh village below. Irrepressible Gwenni -- a dreamer full of unanswerable questions and unbounded curiosity -- is childlike yet touchingly adult. Reluctantly facing a modern world, she prefers her nightly flights to school and her chores. Blessed with the uncommon insight of a young girl, Gwenni's view of the world is unparalleled.Quaint, odd, touched, funny in the head: Gwenni is all too familiar with the taunts of her peers and fields them with equanimity beyond her years. She knows she can no more change her nature than stop the sun from rising. And when a neighbour goes missing, Gwenni turns amateur sleuth, determined to solve the mystery of his disappearance. Little does she realize that the trail she's pursuing will bring her uncomfortably close to home, and a dark secret.

Waving Not Drowning


Rosie Rushton - 2003
    One is reliving the abandonment of his mother and the death of his little sister. The next has a grandmother suffering from Alzheimer's. The third is the daughter of constantly warring parents. Their worlds collide at the annual fair.

Thirteen Hours


Narinder Dhami - 2014
    Your home was the one place you felt safe.Now it’s your prison.You were invisible.Now your every move is monitored by masked strangers.You looked after your mum, your best friend.Now you barely know her.Everything can change in thirteen hours.

Lust and Found


Julie Fison - 2013
    It will make you weak at the knees.Cambodia is the last place in the world Sienna wants to visit. She likes fivestar hotels and exercising her credit card in air-conditioned malls – not flearidden hostels and trekking through the jungle. But when her brother Eddie starts sending strange messages from Cambodia, Sienna’s mum convinces her to go check on him. Thankfully, her boyfriend agrees to go along. When they arrive, they discover that Eddie has disappeared. Sienna just wants to find him and get the hell out of there. Everything in Cambodia is getting to her – the language barrier, the unrelenting humidity, the mosquitos. But mostly it’s Eddie’s maddeningly hot French friend, Guillaume, who couldn’t be more unhelpful if he tried…