Book picks similar to
Once Were Warriors by Alan Duff
new-zealand
fiction
around-the-world
nick
Resistance
Anita Shreve - 1995
Now available in mass market paperback for the first time, this novel by the #1 New York Times bestselling author takes readers on an unforgettable journey into a harrowing world where forbidden passions have catastrophic consequences.
Till We Meet Again
Judith Krantz - 1988
. . Eve, with passion that overruled her total innocence, ran away from home to live in unrepentant sin; won stardom singing on the stage of the Parisian music halls before Worlds War I; married into the world of international diplomacy; and become the greatest lady Champagne. Eve's younger daughter, Freddy, inherited all of her mother's recklessness. Growing up in California, she became a pilot by sixteen; throughout World War II she ferried war planes in Britain--a glorious redhead who captured men with one humorous, challenging glance. Eve's elder daughter, Delphine, exquisite, gifted, and wild, romped through the nightlife of Hollywood of the thirties. On a whim, she made a screen test in Paris and soon found herself a great star of French films. She chose to risk her life in occupied France because of a love that transformed her frivolity into courage.
My Husband's Wife
Jane Corry - 2016
But then she takes on her first murder case and meets Joe, a convicted murderer to whom Lily is strangely drawn—and for whom she will soon be willing to risk almost anything.But Lily is not the only one with secrets. Her next-door neighbor Carla may be only nine, but she has already learned that secrets are powerful things. That they can get her whatever she wants.When Lily finds Carla on her doorstep twelve years later, a chain of events is set in motion that can end only one way.
The Painted Bridge
Wendy Wallace - 2012
In the winter of 1859, Anna Palmer becomes its newest patient. To Anna’s dismay, her new husband has declared her in need of treatment and brought her to this shabby asylum. Confused and angry, Anna is determined to prove her sanity, but with her husband and doctors unwilling to listen, her freedom will notbe easily won. As the weeks pass, she finds other allies: a visiting physician who believes the new medium of photography may reveal the state of a patient’s mind; a longtime patient named Talitha Batt, who seems, to Anna’s surprise, to be as sane as she is; and the proprietor’s bookish daughter, who also yearns to escape. Yet the longer Anna remains at Lake House, the more she realizes that—like the ethereal bridge over the asylum’s lake—nothing and no one is quite as it appears. Not her fellow patients, her husband, her family—not even herself. Locked alone in her room, driven by the treatments of the time into the recesses of her own mind, she may discover the answers and the freedom she seeks . . . or how thin the line between madness and sanity truly is. Wendy Wallace’s taut, elegantly crafted first novel, The Painted Bridge is a story of family betrayals and illicit power; it is also a compelling portrait of the startling history of the psychiatric field and the treatment of women— in society and in these institutions. Wallace sets these ideas and her characters on the page beautifully, telling a riveting story that is surprising and deeply moving.
Wild Justice
Phillip Margolin - 2000
After five subsequent New York Times bestsellers, Margolin now returns to the haunting terrain of Gone, but Not Forgotten with a mesmerizing tour de force of psychological suspense, an electrifying tale of revenge and retribution that shows a master storyteller at the very peak of his craft.Thursday: Subject is still combative after four days of applied pain, sleep deprivation and minimal food.Vice squad detective Bobby Vasquez, for months on the trail of a slippery underworld figure, receives an anonymous tip that directs him to a mountain cabin. He races through the idyllic Oregon woods, expecting to close the book on a long-standing vendetta. What he finds instead opens a Pandora's box of horror that will haunt him to his dying day.8:10: Subject bound and gaffed and placed in upstairs closet at end of hall. Turned out lights in house, drove off, then parked and doubled back. Watched from woods.Within hours, Vincent Cordoni -- a brilliant surgeon with a history of violence and drug abuse -- is arrested for a heinous crime. Facing a seemingly insurmountable wall of evidence, he turns to Portland's top criminal defense attorney, Frank Jaffe-who, along with his ambitious daughter, Amanda, must put on an inspired defense. Amanda's first taste of criminal defense work is as intoxicating as it is chilling, but it raises moral questions she's loath to address. Is she defending an innocent man? Or is she using her considerable skills to set a monster free? Then Cardoni disappears under bizarre circumstances. Four years later, a second set of murders has begun ....8:55: Subject exits house, naked and barefoot, armed with kitchen knife. Remarkable strength of character. Breaking her will be a challenge.Has Cardoni resurfaced to ply his deadly trade anew? Is there a copycat killer? Or has the real killer been someone else all along? The police will do everything they can to stop Cardoni -- but they have to find him first.Following a twisting trail of clues, including a harrowing diary that clinically records the killer's horrible deeds, Amanda Jaffe and Bobby Vasquez join the hunt-and themselves become targets of the twenty-first century's first genuinely monstrous psychopath.:
Saving Max
Antoinette van Heugten - 2010
Until he's accused of murder.Attorney Danielle Parkman knows her teenage son Max's behavior has been getting worse—using drugs and lashing out. But she can't accept the diagnosis she receives at a top-notch adolescent psychiatric facility that her son is deeply disturbed. Dangerous.Until she finds Max, unconscious and bloodied, beside a patient who has been brutally stabbed to death.Trapped in a world of doubt and fear, barred from contacting Max, Danielle clings to the belief that her son is innocent. But has she, too, lost touch with reality? Is her son really a killer?With the justice system bearing down on them, Danielle steels herself to discover the truth, no matter what it is. She'll do whatever it takes to find the killer and to save her son from being destroyed by a system that's all too eager to convict him.
The Lonesome Gods
Louis L'Amour - 1983
Johannes Verne was soon to be rescued by outlaws, but no one could save him from the lasting memory of his grandfather’s eyes, full of impenetrable hatred. Raised in part by Indians, then befriended by a mysterious woman, Johannes grew up to become a rugged adventurer and an educated man. But even now, strengthened by the love of a golden-haired girl and well on his way to making a fortune in bustling early-day Los Angeles, the past may rise up to threaten his future once more. And this time only the ancient gods of the desert can save him.
Lost and Found in Prague
Kelly Jones - 2015
There, she and her best friend were swept up in the excitement of the Velvet Revolution. Twenty years later, Dana returns to the city of her youthful rebellion to reconnect with her old confidant, who never left the city. But the visit that was reserved for healing intimacies and giddy reminiscences is marred by a strange death in one of Prague’s most famous Catholic churches—and an even more peculiar mystery surrounding it… In a city where the past is never far from the present, Dana must work with a conflicted Italian priest and a world-weary Czech investigator to unlock dark secrets hidden in Prague’s twisted streets. But the key to solving the puzzle may lie in memories of Dana’s long-ago visit, even as she is forced to face the reality of a more recent loss…*Publisher Weekly
An Inspector Calls
J.B. Priestley - 1945
An inspector calls to interrogate the family, and during the course of his questioning, all members of the group are implicated lightly or deeply in the girl's undoing. The family, closely knit and friendly at the beginning of the evening, is shown up as selfish, self-centered or cowardly, its good humor turning to acid, and good fellowship to dislike, before the evening is over. The surprising revelation, however, is in the inspector...
Snow in April
Rosamunde Pilcher - 1972
A world that lovingly captures the ties that bind us to one another-the joys and sorrows, heartbreaks and misunderstandings, and glad, perfect moments when we are in true harmony. A world filled with evocative, engrossing, and above all, enjoyable portraits of people's lives and loves, tenderly laid open for us...Caroline travels to Scotland, hoping to make contact with a brother she hasn't seen for years, and return in time for her wedding to the man her strong-willed stepmother thought so suitable. Then a sudden snow strands her in an isolated house with a young man recovering from tragedy. Both are on the brink of terrible mistakes, but perhaps they can save each other.
Transgression
James W. Nichol - 2007
A spark between them becomes a fire—and a dangerous love affair blooms across enemy lines, dooming Adele to a grim postwar existence as a despised outcast, one of the infamous "horizontal collaborators." Ostracized, tortured, tormented, she chooses a desperate escape, accompanying a war-damaged yet optimistic Allied soldier across an ocean to a new land. But there is no refuge from the past, as Adele's broken heart and shameful secret drive her deeper into despair...and toward a shocking outcome.Part mystery and part love story—an unforgettable and beautifully written novel of secrets, passions, and consequences—Transgression is an exceptional work of power and strange beauty.
Wish You Well
David Baldacci - 2000
Then tragedy strikes -- and Lou and her younger brother, Oz, must go with their invalid mother to live on their great-grandmother's farm in the Virginia mountains. Suddenly Lou finds herself coming of age in a new landscape, making her first true friend, and experiencing adventures tragic, comic, and audacious. But the forces of greed and justice are about to clash over her new home...and as their struggle is played out in a crowded Virginia courtroom, it will determine the future of two children, an entire town, and the mountains they love.
The Two Dead Girls
Stephen King - 1996
No one understood their brutal deaths, not even the man who killed them. But John Coffey is about to gain a new insight, about his life in prison, and about the one man who will walk him down that green mile . . . toward destiny.Prepare yourself for Stephen King's boldest exercise in nerve-twisting suspense. A multi-part serial novel that begins on death row and goes on from there to realms of revelation that make death seem sweet. This is Stephen King's most irresistible journey ever. To be continued . . . --back cover
July, July
Tim O'Brien - 2002
At the thirtieth anniversary of Minnesota's Darton Hall College class of 1969, ten old friends reassemble for a July weekend of dancing, drinking, flirting, reminiscing, and regretting. The three decades since their graduation have seen marriage and divorce, children and careers, dreams deferred and disappointed-many memories and many ghosts. Together their individual stories create a portrait of a generation launched into adulthood at the moment when their country, too, lost its innocence. Imbued with his signature themes of passion, memory, and yearning, "July, July" is Tim O'Brien's most fully realized work.