The Weight of Water / Resistance


Anita Shreve - 2011
    

Maharaja in Denims


Khushwant Singh - 2014
     Chandigarh based Khushwant Singh, itinerant writer, columnist and TV show host, pays tribute to the City Beautiful by setting his latest book–a work of fiction–amidst its broad, tree-lined boulevards. And its trappings: snazzy SUVs, glitzy homes and fast-paced lifestyles. Maharaja In Denims, a tale of love, intrigue and passion rallies around a teenaged protagonist, Hari Singh Sandhu, present-day resident of one of Chandigarh’s tony sectors, and Suzanne his girlfriend.Very early into their relationship Hari begins to get flashes of a past life that includes Maharaja Ranjit Singh, founder of the Sikh Empire. Clearly suggesting to a much-surprised teenager the very real possibility of him being Ranjit Singh’s incarnate! Alarmed at these happenings in his hitherto unencumbered and happily aimless existence, he needs little persuasion when Suzanne requests him to undergo a past life regression. Coughing up an incredible number of surprises, not least that of other, more horrific past lives.The author deftly interweaves the youthful love story with vignettes of Ranjit Singh’s life, loves, valour and conquests. With past life after past life unravelling before them, Hari and Suzanne, stumble upon people and incidents that link the present-day to the turbulent and disturbing history of Punjab. The story continues to England and then on to Mumbai before ending in an astonishing twist set in the future. Maharaja In Denims is indeed a modern tale told in a bold, moving and racy narrative.The author’s earlier works include Sikhs Unlimited, a well-received chronicle of the Sikh Diaspora in both the UK and USA, and Turbaned Tornado–an inspiring biography of the iconic 100 year-old Fauja Singh, marathon runner.

Mercury Retrograde: A Novel


Emily Segal - 2020
    Emily Segal, artist and trend forecaster in her 20s, tries to tell the future by reading the present. Literature finds commercial form in the shape of eXe, a mysterious and well-funded Internet start-up that offers her a job. A conceptual take-over is deployed; gendered power play ensues; queerness incubates; memes converge. Set in New York City, post-Occupy and pre-Trump. First person / mixed media / pulp. Not actually about astrology.

Flashman At The Charge ;Flashman In The Great Game


George MacDonald Fraser - 1983
    

The Girl on the Train


Rachel Wagstaff - 2018
    Her only escape is the perfect couple she watches through the train window every day, happy and in love. Or so it appears. When Rachel learns that the woman she's been secretly watching has suddenly disappeared, she finds herself as a witness and even a suspect in a thrilling mystery in which she will face bigger revelations than she could ever have anticipated.Adapted from Paula Hawkins' novel - an international phenomenon selling over twenty million copies worldwide - this gripping new play will keep you guessing until the final moment.

A Prodigal Return (An Irish Family Saga, #5)


Jean Reinhardt - 2016
    The couple who survived the Great Hunger have had to watch more than half their family leave the parish. The responsibility to care for one another extends beyond blood or marriage ties for the McGrother family in New York, when a young Irishman goes missing in America. Back in Ireland, at a time when James and Mary least expect it, a family member returns - but not everyone is pleased with the reunion.

Mystery Ranch


Arthur Chapman - 1921
    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Disputed Land


Tim Pears - 2011
    As the gathered family settle in to their first Christmas together for some years, the grown siblings - Rodney, Johnny and Gwen - are surprised when they are invited to each put stickers on the furniture and items they wish to inherit from their parents.Disputed Land is narrated by Leonard and Rosemary's thirteen-year-old grandson, Theo, who observes how from these innocent beginnings age-old fissures open up in the relationships of those around him. Looking back at this Christmas gathering from his own middle-age - a narrator at once nostalgic and naïve - Theo Cannon remembers his imperious grandmother Rosemary, alpha-male uncle Johnny, abominable twin cousins Xan and Baz; he recalls his love for his grandfather Leonard and the burgeoning feelings for his cousin Holly. And he asks himself the question: if a single family cannot solve the problem of what it bequeaths to future generations, then what chance does a whole society have of leaving the world intact?

Boswell: A Modern Comedy


Stanley Elkin - 1964
    James Boswell--strong man, professional wrestler (his most heroic match is with the Angel of Death)-- is a con man, a gate crasher, and a moocher of epic talent. He is also the hero of one of the most original novel in years ( Oakland Tribune)--a man on the make for all the great men of his time--his logic being that if you can't be a lion, know a pride of them. Can he cheat his way out of mortality?

Hardcastle


John Yount - 1980
    For eleven cents—all the money in his pocket—he buys a soda bottle’s worth of moonshine. Farther down the road, he takes two turnips and a handful of string beans from a kitchen garden and beds down for the night in a haystack. It is still dark out when he wakes up to a dog licking his forehead and a man pointing a pistol in his face. Despite the awkward introduction, Music and Regus Bone are soon friends. Bone is a guard at Hardcastle Coal Co., whose owner will do anything to keep his employees from unionizing. For the irresistible wage of three dollars a day, Music—outfitted with an ancient, misfiring revolver and a holster made from a feed sack—hires on as a watchman despite his queasy feelings about the job. His attraction to the young widow of a miner killed by a former guard only deepens his discomfort, and when he and Bone catch a pair of union organizers, they make a decision that will change their lives and Switch County forever. Inspired by real events, Hardcastle is a stirring tribute to the power of friendship and family in a time and place in which the price of integrity is more than a man on his own can bear.

Val McDermid 3-Book Thriller Collection: The Mermaids Singing, The Wire in the Blood, The Last Temptation (Tony Hill and Carol Jordan)


Val McDermid - 2016
    1 bestselling crime series featuring clinical psychologist Dr Tony Hill, hero of TV’s much loved WIRE IN THE BLOOD.THE MERMAIDS SINGINGUp till now, the only serial killers Tony Hill had encountered were safely behind bars. This one’s different – this one’s on the loose.Four men have been found mutilated and tortured. As fear grips the city, the police turn to clinical psychologist Tony Hill for a profile of the killer. But soon Tony becomes the unsuspecting target in a battle of wits and wills where he has to use every ounce of his professional nerve to survive.THE WIRE IN THE BLOODYoung girls are disappearing around the country, and there is nothing to connect them to one another, let alone the killer whose charming manner hides a warped and sick mind.Dr Tony Hill, head of the new National Profiling Task Force, sets his team an exercise: they are given the details of missing teenagers and asked to discover any possible links between the cases. Only one officer comes up with a theory – a theory that is ridiculed by the group … until one of their number is murdered and mutilated.For Tony Hill, the murder becomes a matter for personal revenge and, joined by colleague Carol Jordan, he embarks on a campaign of psychological terrorism – a game where hunter and hunted can all too easily be reversed.THE LAST TEMPTATIONA twisted killer targeting psychologists has left a grisly trail across Europe.Dr Tony Hill, expert at mapping the minds of murderers, is reluctant to get involved. But then the next victim is much closer to home…Meanwhile, his former partner DCI Carol Jordan is working undercover in Berlin, on a dangerous operation to trap a millionaire trafficker. When the game turns nasty, Tony is the only person she can call on for help.Confronting a cruelty that has its roots in Nazi atrocities, Tony and Carol are thrown together in a world of violence and corruption, where they have no one to trust but each other.

Cold Comfort Farm (Oxford Bookworms Library: 2500 Headwords)


Clare West - 2007
    Here live the Starkadders - Aunt Ada Doom, Judith, Amos, Seth, Reuben, Elfine...They lead messy, untidy lives, full of dark thoughts, moody silences, and sudden noisy quarrels. That is, until their attractive young cousin arrives from London. Neat, sensible, efficient, Flora Poste cannot bear messes (they are so uncivilized). She begins to tidy up the Starkadders' lives at once ...

Ramona


Helen Hunt Jackson - 1884
    Set in Old California, this powerful narrative richly depicts the life of the fading Spanish order, the oppression of tribal American communities and inevitably, the brutal intrusion of white settlers. Ramona, an illegitimate orphan, grows up as the ward of the overbearing Senora Moreno. But her desire for Alessandro, a Native American, makes her an outcast and fugitive...

The Pride


Judith Saxton - 1981
    However, the consequences of their love affair are terrible for Tina as she is shamed by the father she adores, and Edward is sent away. Against all the odds, Tina and Edward find each other again, and despite great hardship and tragedy, together they build a dynasty strong enough to withstand some of the worst catastrophes Britain has ever known. The Pride is a magnificent start to a stunning family saga.

The Natural


Bernard Malamud - 1952
    In it Malamud, usually appreciated for his unerring portrayals of postwar Jewish life, took on very different material—the story of a superbly gifted "natural" at play in the fields of the old daylight baseball era—and invested it with the hardscrabble poetry, at once grand and altogether believable, that runs through all his best work. Four decades later, Alfred Kazin's comment still holds true: "Malamud has done something which—now that he has done it!—looks as if we have been waiting for it all our lives. He has really raised the whole passion and craziness and fanaticism of baseball as a popular spectacle to its ordained place in mythology."