Other books that might interest you

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  The Chalky Sea

  Clare Flynn

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  Two troubled people in a turbulent world. 
  In July 1940, Gwen Collingwood drops her husband at the railway station, knowing she may never see him again. Two days later her humdrum world is torn apart when her sleepy English seaside town is subjected to the first of many heavy bombing attacks. 
  In Ontario, Canada, Jim Armstrong is uncertain whether to volunteer for the army. When he uncovers the secret his fiance has been keeping from him his decision is clear. A few weeks later he is on a ship bound for England. 
  Gwen is forced to confront the truth about her past and her own feelings for her husband. Jim battles with a bewildering and hostile world far removed from the cozy life of his Canadian farm. War brings horror and loss to each of them—can it also bring change and salvation?

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  The Day I Fell Off My Island

  Yvonne Bailey-Smith

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  'Striking…an unforgettable cast of characters you'd expect to find in the grandest work of fiction.'—Candice Carty-Williams'Juggling laughter and tears with every page, this remarkable journey of discovery tells of one young woman's captivating search for self in a new and challenging environment.'—Margaret Busby'Brims with the pleasure of a story well-told, and with the command of a writer who is comfortable moving between the many registers of Jamaican English.'—Kwame Dawes'Beautiful, evocative and powerfully engaging. I loved this book.'—Francesca MartinezIt's 1969 and Erna Mullings has just arrived in London from Jamaica.Finding herself in a strange country, with a mother she barely recognises and a stepfather she despises, Erna is homesick, lost and lonely. But her life is about to change irrevocably.A story of reluctant immigration and the relationship between children and the people who parent them, The Day I Fell Off My Island is engrossing, courageous and psychologically insightful. Yvonne Bailey-Smith writes with great warmth and humanity as she explores estrangement, transition and, ultimately, the triumph of resilience and hope.

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  The Ragged Lion - A Novel

  Allan Massie

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  From the author of Caesar and The Sins of the Father, a fictional memoir of the celebrated Scottish Romantic writer and historical novelist. Allan Massie recreates the life and times of Sir Walter Scott, one of Scotland’s greatest writers, convincingly capturing Scott’s humor, stoicism and eccentricity. Combining imaginative plausibility with his own deep knowledge of and love for Scott’s work, Massie reveals the intimate thoughts of a man at odds with his popular image: good and courageous, but also an enigma to those around him. By turns a ghost story and an examination of the Scottish character, The Ragged Lion is utterly enthralling.Praise for The Ragged Lion“Massie captures Scott’s humor, and his tragic qualities and stoicism.” —The Evening Standard (UK)“Profoundly human . . . Massie is a novelist for grown-ups.” —The Spectator (UK)

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  Emmeline

  Judith Rossner

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  From the New York Times bestselling author of Looking for Mr. Goodbar—a haunting tale of forbidden love set against the backdrop of the American industrial revolution.This is the story of Emmeline Mosher, who, before her fourteenth birthday, was sent from her home on a farm in Maine to support her family by working in a cotton mill in Massachusetts.So begins the sixth novel by the author of Looking for Mr. Goodbar. But nothing Judith Rossner has written can prepare the reader for this haunting love story of a young girl thrust into one of America’s early industrial towns, then drawn into a love affair for which she is far from ready.In Emmeline, Rossner brings us the intensity, grasp of character, and storytelling ability that have distinguished her novels of modern women.

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  The Somme - Also Including The...

  A. D. Gristwood

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  Two World War I classics: The story of a British soldier enduring the battle in France and a novella starring a man who takes drastic steps to escape the Great War.The million British dead have left no books behind. What they felt as they died hour by hour in the mud, or were choked horribly with gas, or relinquished their reluctant lives on stretchers, no witness tells. But here is a book that almost tells it. . . . Mr. Gristwood has had the relentless simplicity to recall things as they were; he was as nearly dead as he could be without dying, and he has smelt the stench of his own corruption. This is the story of millions of men—of millions.” —H. G. Wells In The Somme and its companion The Coward, first published in 1927, the heroics of war and noble self-sacrifice are completely absent, replaced by the gritty realism of life for the ordinary soldier in World War I and an unflinching portrayal of the horrors of war. Written under the guidance of master storyteller H. G. Wells, they are classics of the genre. Based on A. D. Gristwood’s own wartime experiences, The Somme revolves around a futile attack during the 1916 Somme campaign. On the battlefront, Tom Everitt is wounded and must be moved back through a series of dressing stations to the General Hospital at Rouen. Few other accounts of the war give such an accurate picture of trench life, and The Spectator praised Gristwood’s “very effective writing,” calling The Somme “a book which anyone who was not in the War should read.”The Coward concerns a man who shoots himself in the hand to escape the chaos during the March 1918 retreat—an offense punishable by death—and is haunted by fear of discovery and self-loathing. Together, these works offer a vivid, immersive view of the First World War and the suffering it inflicted on the men who fought it.

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  Yvain or the Knight with the Lion

  Chrétien de Troyes

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  Yvain, the Knight of the Lion is a romance by Chrétien de Troyes. It was probably written in the 1170s simultaneously with Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, and includes several references to the action in that poem. In the poem, Yvain seeks to avenge his cousin Calogrenant who had been defeated by an otherworldly knight beside a magical storm-making fountain in the forest of Broceliande. (Summary from Wikipedia)

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