Book picks similar to
Eyes of a Goddess by Ukamaka Olisakwe


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great-african-reads

Shepherds & Butchers


Chris Marnewick - 2008
    At nineteen, he is a Death Row warder at Maximum Security Prison in Pretoria, South Africa: a shepherd who cares for the condemned - and a butcher who escorts them to the gallows. In the summer of 1987, after thirty-two men were hanged in two weeks (all real cases), Leon loses control, with tragic results. And now he's the one facing the death penalty. Only the most precarious line of legal argument stands between Leon and the gallows. Chasing a defense, his advocate trawls the deepest recesses of life in the Pot - the twilight world of Death Row - in order to determine the effect of multiple executions on his young client. In 1987, 164 people were executed at Maximum Security. Two years later, the last man went to the gallows, after more than four thousand hangings in Pretoria in that century. Shepherds & Butchers portrays legal execution in unprecedented detail, revealing its devastating impact on all those involved. At the same time, it exposes the callous violence on the other side of the noose, where murderers reign. Chris Marnewick's first novel is a gripping courtroom drama steeped in the factual.

A Family Affair: A Novel


Sue Nyathi - 2020
    As leaders of their church, The Kingdom of God, Pastor Abraham and his wife Phumla are guiding the community of Bulawayo in faith, while trying to keep the different branches of their family intact.Independent and feisty Xoliswa returns home, after a hiatus abroad, hoping for a fresh start and a chance to steer the family business; rebellious Yandisa has met the love of her life and is finally getting her act together; while dutiful newlywed Zandile is slowly becoming disillusioned with her happily ever after.The Mafus always present a united front, but as their personal lives unravel, devastating secrets are revealed that threaten to tear the family apart. For how long will they be able to hide behind the façade of a picture-perfect family?

חוכמת הבייגלה


Ilan Heitner - 1998
    At 30, he sees no point in getting a job, finding a wife or stopping the endless round of parties. Golan had always considered life to be about marrying well and attaining money, but after a blind date with his best friend's quirky sister, he begins to question such beliefs. Golan then begins a personal journey that has him challenge everything he has ever believed, about himself, about love and about the nature of life in contemporary Israel.

A Hard Man is Good to Find


James W. Lewis - 2011
    Despite the exceptional qualities and his obvious interest in her, things are moving too slow between them. Unlike most men who can’t wait to get in her pants, this particular man refuses to take things to the next level.DARYL JACKSON has grown tired of the nightclub scene and wants to settle down, but he has a secret that always seems to interrupt any potential love connection once he reveals it. He believes Michelle is the ideal woman, but can she handle the truth?After six weeks of dating, and still no attempt from him to get her “horizontal,” Michelle grows sex-starved. She is driving herself crazy trying to figure out Daryl’s problem! During a weekend getaway in Palm Springs, Michelle finally puts an end to the what’s-wrong-with-Daryl guessing game and demands to know what’s up. Not only does Daryl answer all her questions, Michelle learns first hand that you really need to be careful with what you wish for!

Mad Libs on the Road: World's Greatest Word Game


Roger Price - 1999
    Pack your bags and get ready to hit the road with this latest installment of family fun! You can help create car songs, spot some historical sights, even stop at a roadside diner--with a Mad Libs? twist, of course!Many have tried to imitate the world's most popular word game, but they just can't ___VERB___ the mustard! With Mad Libs? on the Road, traveling has never been so wacky!Book Details: Format: Paperback Publication Date: 6/7/1999 Pages: 48 Reading Level: Age 8 and Up

Nomaswazi


Busisekile Khumalo - 2019
    Forsaking the riches of her former life, she manages to build herself up from bartending to the respectable offices of a reputable law firm. Her tranquility is shattered when the same arrogant devil who almost drove her to suicide through his rejection, comes back into her life, claiming and marking her as his wife. Nomaswazi is forced to come back home a prodigal daughter when her father's health takes a turn for the worst. Her father had always cocooned her from the harsh truths of her birth but even he couldn't protect her from the revelations which await her in the rustic hills of Maphalaleni.

The Kennedy Rifle


J.K. Brandon - 2012
    His claim triggers years of research by his son. As a court-certified expert on firearms and ballistics, Michael Cole writes a book about a second Dallas assassin and the weapon likely used. Cole is ridiculed, his reputation nearly destroyed. Finally, with the death of his father and the passing of five decades, Cole abandons his search for the truth. Meanwhile, his book attracts some unwanted attention from those originally involved.One day a woman comes to his office with killer looks and an unbelievable story. Kate Marlowe says she has proof of a JFK assassination conspiracy, that her uncle was bodyguard and driver for the assassin on the Grassy Knoll. After JFK's murder in 1963, he drove to Arizona to lay low and hide the sniper rifle. Now near death, he confesses his crime and the rifle's location to her. Go get the rifle, he tells her. Show the world what really happened. Kate travels to Arizona to enlist the help of Michael Cole and locate the true assassin's rifle.Before they can find it, rumors surface of the Kennedy Rifle and a mysterious auction on the fiftieth anniversary. Billionaire collectors, criminal arms-dealers, and coup d'etat participants join the hunt. Some want the truth, some want the truth buried, but all want the rifle...and Kate and Cole dead. Thanks to the miracle of Kindle publishing, this is a modified version with additional new material and a different ending from the original release.

True Murder


Yaba Badoe - 2009
    Haunted by the circumstances of her mother's breakdown and the ghosts of the life she left behind in Ghana, she falls under the spell of new girl Polly Venus and her chaotic, glamorous family.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Parody


Wade Parker
    Along for the ride is Lisbeth Salamander, famed computer hacker and Pippi Longstocking look-alike. This 40 page parody takes on the Stieg Larssonn phenomenon, mystery-thrillers, and "the girl":"Tell me more about her, Gustaf. I want to know what makes her tick.""She weighs about 62 pounds or 28.1227269 kilograms as we say here in Sweden, although we wouldn't really say it in English unless this was a story written primarily for English readers.""Go on.""Very skinny, smallish breasts, bony legs, knocked knees, flaming orange hair when she doesn't have it dyed. Many body piercings and tattoos. Never smiles. Bad teeth. Underarm hair, also orange. Sometimes has some pretty bad gas. It's the whole package that fits together well. Most men find her attractive."-----Blöhärdt and the girl solve some old mysteries along the way including what happened to Jimmy Hoffa, and who is really buried in Elvis's grave at Graceland.

'Lena Rivers


Mary Jane Holmes - 2012
     Excerpt: John, who was ambitious, met her advances more than half way, and finally, encouraged by her father, offered her his heart and hand. Under other circumstances, Matilda would undoubtedly have spurned him with contempt; but having heard that her recreant lover was about taking to himself a bride, she felt a desire, as she expressed it, "to let him know she could marry too." Accordingly, John was accepted, on condition that he changed the name of Nichols, which Miss Richards particularly disliked, to that of Livingstone. This was easily done, and the next letter which went to Oakland carried the news of John's marriage with the proud Matilda. A few months later and Mr. Richards died, leaving his entire property to his daughter and her husband. John was now richer far than even in his wildest dreams he had ever hoped to be, and yet like many others, he found that riches alone could not insure happiness

Gabriel Allon CD Collection 2: Moscow Rules / The Defector


Daniel Silva - 2010
    He’s playing by Moscow rules now.It’s not the grim Moscow of Soviet times but a new Moscow, where power resides once more behind the walls of the Kremlin and critics are ruthlessly silenced. A Moscow where new Stalinists are plotting to reclaim an empire lost and challenge the dominance of its U.S. enemy.Ivan Kharkov, a former KGB colonel, is an arms dealer—and he is about to deliver Russia’s most sophisticated weapons to al-Qaeda. Unless Allon can learn the time and place of the delivery, the world will see the deadliest terror attacks since 9/11. The Defector Six months after Moscow Rules, Allon has resumed his honeymoon with wife, Chiara. But his world is again thrown into turmoil with news from London. Former Russian intelligence officer Grigori Bulganov, who saved Allon’s life in Moscow, has vanished. British intelligence thinks was a double agent all along, but Allon knows better. He also knows he made a promise.In the days to come, Allon and his team of operatives find themselves in a deadly duel with the ruthless Ivan Kharkov. It will take Allon from a quiet mews in London to the snowbound forests of Russia. Faced with losing the one thing he holds most dear, Allon will be tested in ways he never imagined possible. And his life will never be the same.

Razorbacks


George S. Mahaffey Jr. - 2014
    A massive dust-storm cutting off communications and obscuring visibility. A father, his estranged son, and a small band of survivors marooned, waiting for help, unaware of the things that are out in the dust, waiting, watching, drawn by the scent of blood.

Eightysixed: Life Lessons Learned


Emily Belden - 2014
    But if “figuring it all out” and “wanting it all” were Olympic sports, Emily would have been a gold medalist in both categories. Never one to admit defeat in the face of the enemy, Emily gets back in the dating ring again and again. But, the more she tries to make her therapist proud, the deeper down the rabbit hole she goes. While recovering the pieces of her broken heart, straight-A Emily’s dating world morphs into a mad soirée of drug addicts, embezzlers, perverts, and pimps. Just as she begins to believe that a bottle of wine might be her only shot at happiness, a chance encounter with a man she should never should have met resets Emily’s buttons. What she experience next satiates her heart, her soul, and her stomach, as she frees herself from the perils of her mid-twenties and becomes exactly who she is supposed to be.

The Peenemunde Deceptions


Jim McDermott - 2011
    Otto Fischer, a severely wounded Luftwaffe officer and former criminal investigator, is summoned to solve a seemingly incomprehensible case: the murder of a leading rocket engineer during a devastating air raid. With only days until the SS assume control of the production of a remarkable new weapon, Fischer must find a motive and perpetrator from among several thousand scientists, technicians, soldiers and forced laborers. As he struggles to get the measure of a secretive, brilliant world in which imagination moves far beyond the limits of technology, what at first appears to be a solitary crime draws him into a labyrinth of conspiracy, betrayal and treason.McDermott brings skills previously honed whilst producing well-researched history books to the discipline of writing fiction, creating work that is historically accurate and evocative as well as stylish in a literary sense.

Raised By Raptors (Raised By Raptors, #1)


Oliver Sykes - 2013
    Consumed by loneliness, guilt and spiraling sense of complete abandonment, K'abel is disconnected, and truly lost in the darkness. But when forced to choose between life and death, she realises that even in our darkest moments, a fire still burns within. And the darker it's gets, the brighter the flame. Raised by Raptors is the epic journey of a girl who has lost everything she knew and loved. But what if everything she thought she knew, she never knew at all? The first installment of a brand new graphic novel written by Oliver Sykes & illustrated by Ben-Ashton Bell.