Book picks similar to
The long grass whispers: a book of African stories by Geraldine Elliot
20th-century
africa
bookworm-days
from-grandma
The Girl Who Came Home
Hazel Gaynor - 2012
. . .Ireland, 1912 . . .Fourteen members of a small village set sail on RMS Titanic, hoping to find a better life in America. For seventeen-year-old Maggie Murphy, the journey is bittersweet. Though her future lies in an unknown new place, her heart remains in Ireland with Séamus, the sweetheart she left behind. When disaster strikes, Maggie is one of the few passengers in steerage to survive. Waking up alone in a New York hospital, she vows never to speak of the terror and panic of that fateful night again.Chicago, 1982 . . .Adrift after the death of her father, Grace Butler struggles to decide what comes next. When her great-grandmother Maggie shares the painful secret about the Titanic that she's harbored for almost a lifetime, the revelation gives Grace new direction—and leads both her and Maggie to unexpected reunions with those they thought lost long ago.Inspired by true events, The Girl Who Came Home poignantly blends fact and fiction to explore the Titanic tragedy's impact and its lasting repercussions on survivors and their descendants.
Second Survivor
Leah Moyes - 2020
At 18, she had everything—fine luxuries, a prominent family, and an extravagant estate in Marseille. The one thing she didn’t have was her freedom. As the sole heir to the Fontaine fortune, her future was forged with a betrothal to a stranger from a foreign country, but when her family perishes at sea, Isabel sees this as a chance to hide her identity and change her fate.Taken in by poor, elderly farmers on the Spanish island of Menorca, Isabel is torn between the growing affection for a neighbor and the guilt of living a lie. The simplicity and genuine goodness of this life takes her on a journey she never believed was possible, yet, as time passes and the threat of her untruths face exposure, Isabel must make an agonizing choice.When that choice is taken from her prematurely and danger cultivates from an implausible guise, will Isabel accept the outcome, or fight to save those she loves?A historical fiction novel set in both Algiers, Algeria during French occupation and Menorca, Spain. Told in the perspective of four characters, Second Survivor is a twist on the tragic shipwreck . . . the General Chanzy in the Mediterranean Sea. 156 people aboard the barge lost their lives on the morning of 10 February 1910. There was only one survivor. This story shares the fate of a Second Survivor.
The Room on Rue Amelie
Kristin Harmel - 2018
But war is looming on the horizon, and as France falls to the Nazis, her marriage begins to splinter, too.Charlotte Dacher is eleven when the Germans roll into the French capital, their sinister swastika flags snapping in the breeze. After the Jewish restrictions take effect and Jews are ordered to wear the yellow star, Charlotte can’t imagine things getting much worse. But then the mass deportations begin, and her life is ripped forever apart.Thomas Clarke joins the British Royal Air Force to protect his country, but when his beloved mother dies in a German bombing during the waning days of the Blitz, he wonders if he’s really making a difference. Then he finds himself in Paris, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, and he discovers a new reason to keep fighting—and an unexpected road home.When fate brings them together, Ruby, Charlotte, and Thomas must summon the courage to defy the Nazis—and to open their own broken hearts—as they fight to survive. Rich with historical drama and emotional depth, this is an unforgettable story that will stay with you long after the final page is turned.
Somewhere Out There
Mike Lunnon-Wood - 2019
His skills sharpened in the midst of a brutal African civil war, he was at once a policeman, soldier and detective – a tracker of men. He thought he’d left that life behind him, but then he learns that his particular expertise is required again.
Two teenage girls have been abducted and are being held to ransom, hidden deep within the Zimbabwean bush that was once his hunting ground. The mother of one of the girls begs him to help and, unable to walk away, Max returns to Africa with a handpicked team of former comrades-in-arms. But it soon becomes clear that nothing is quite what it seems and that if he is able to find the girls, it might only open the door to something far more sinister… SOMEWHERE OUT THERE is perfect for fans of books like A Time To Die, The Leopard Hunts in The Darkness and The Dogs of War, or of movies like The Wild Geese, The Dirty Dozen or The Expendables. *** SOMEWHERE OUT THERE is the first book Mike Lunnon-Wood wrote but has never previously been published. Mike passed away in 2008 and the manuscript was only discovered by his son Piers some years later along with two other unpublished thrillers which will be published shortly. Mike is the author of six other outstanding thrillers available from Silvertail Books: Let Not The Deep, King’s Shilling, Congo Blue, Long Reach, Dark Rose and Angel Seven. ***
The Baby Diaries
Sam Binnie - 2013
An extremely serious noticeable absence of something, it turns out, Kiki now realises she was pretty glad about. One pregnancy test later, Kiki's breaking the "good news" (Thom: Wow. We're so… Edwardian.) and rewriting all the plans she'd made before.With an ever-expanding waistline, her nightmare childhood "friend" Annie pregnant too, all the problem authors at Polka Dot Books she could (not) wish for and an army of NW London's Smug Mothers to deal with, these nine months might not be the nine months of blooming relaxation she'd been promised…
Light of the Moon
Elizabeth Buchan - 1992
Set in resistance France, this is a grand and passionate story of forbidden love between an English Special Operations Executive and a German Abwehr officer.
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?
Resistance
Mara Timon - 2021
One mission. Enemies everywhere.May 1944. When spy Elisabeth de Mornay, code name Cécile, notices a coded transmission from an agent in the field does not bear his usual signature, she suspects his cover has been blown– something that is happening with increasing frequency. With the situation in Occupied France worsening and growing fears that the Resistance has been compromised, Cécile is ordered behind enemy lines.Having rendezvoused with her fellow agents, Léonie and Dominique, together they have one mission: help the Resistance destabilise German operations to pave the way for the Normandy landings.But the life of a spy is never straightforward, and the in-fighting within the Resistance makes knowing who to trust ever more difficult. With their lives on the line, all three women will have to make decisions that could cost them everything - for not all their enemies are German.
Far from the East End
Iris Jones Simantel - 2012
But the hardships of poverty and the dreaded Blitz could not match the pain she felt from her parents' indifference. She prayed that just once her mother would hold her when the bombs rained down. But her loneliness only intensified when she was evacuated.Funny, moving and heart-warming, little Iris 's tale is the story of a lonely girl's long journey in search of a place to call home.
Pearly Gates
Owen Marshall - 2019
He has a reputation as a former Otago rugby player and believes he would have been an All Black but for sporting injuries. He runs a successful real-estate agency in a provincial South Island town, of which he is the second-term mayor. Popular, happily married, well established, he cuts an impressive figure, especially in his own eyes.But will his pride and complacency come before a fall?
No Hearts of Gold
Jackie French - 2021
Indulged and wealthy Kat Fitzhubert is sold in an arranged marriage to a colony across the world. Lady Viola Montefiore is the dark-skinned changeling of a ducal family, kept hidden and then shipped away. Titania Boot is as broad as a carthorse, and as useful.On the long sea voyage from their homeland of England, these three women are fast bonded in an unlikely friendship. In the turmoil of 1850s Australia - which has reinvented itself from convict colony to a land of gold rushes and illusive riches - one woman forges a business empire, while another turns to illegal brewery, working alongside a bushranger as the valleys around her are destroyed. The third vanishes on her wedding day, in a scandal that will intrigue and mystify Sydney's polite society and beyond.In this magnificent and broad-sweeping saga, award-winning author Jackie French defies the myth of colonial women as merely wives, servants, petty thieves or whores. Instead, in this masterful storyteller's hands, these three women will be arbiters of a destiny far richer than the bewitching glitter and lure of gold.
The Sign for Drowning
Rachel Stolzman - 2008
In the life she constructs as a barrier against the emotional wreckage of her family tragedy, Anna settles comfortably into a career as a teacher of deaf children. But a challenge arrives—in the form of a young girl. Adrea’s disarming vulnerability and obvious need for love offer Anna the possibility of reconnecting with the world around her—if she has the courage to open her heart. In this debut novel, Rachel Stolzman has crafted a moving and poetic witness to love’s power to transcend grief, pain, and the constraints of human language. The Sign for Drowning is a poignant story of loss and the unexpected occasions of grace that enable us to heal from it and grow beyond it.
Death in Zanzibar
M.M. Kaye - 1959
M. Kaye, Death in Zanzibar is a wonderfully evocative mystery ...Dany Ashton is invited to vacation at her stepfather's house in Zanzibar, but even before her airplane takes off there is a stolen passport, a midnight intruder--and murder. In Zanzibar, the family house is Kivulimi, the mysterious "House of Shade", where Dany and the rest of the guests learn that one of them is a desperate killer. The air of freedom and nonchalance that opened the house party fades into growing terror, as the threat of further violence flowers in the scented air of Zanzibar. Richly evocative, Death in Zanzibar will charm long-time fans and introduce new ones to this celebrated writer.
The Trees Have Eyes: Horror Stories From The Forest
Tobias WadeKelly Childress - 2018
The silence is so heavy that you can hear your blood thundering through your veins. The stir of dry leaves in the darkness could be your friend finding his way back, but it sounds more like a primordial monster stalking its prey. And the lights between the trees? And the haunting songs which lure you ever deeper?
It's time to admit that you aren't afraid of being alone in the woods. You're afraid of not being alone.
Journey through the minds of 22 horror authors who have teamed up to reveal the most terrifying aspects of the forest. Over 400 pages of original supernatural and psychological horror stories include: ghosts, demons, serial-killers, true stories and unsolved mysteries, unique monsters, classic myths and legends, and above all else, a profound respect for the terror hidden within the mysterious trees. About Haunted House Publishing: We're passionate about publishing horror stories for adults, scary books for teens, and all sorts of dark fiction. We've got new horror kindle books every month, specializing in supernatural stories, supernatural book collections, and paranormal books for adults. We've got zombie books, demonic horror, ghosts and specters, angels and demons, gothic novels, and haunted houses and ghosts novels. We promise some of the top horror books 2018.