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  Last Friends

  Jane Gardam

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  “The satisfying conclusion to Gardam’s Old Filth trilogy offers exquisite prose, wry humor, and keen insights into aging and death” (The New Yorker). 
   
  While Old Filth introduced readers to Sir Edward Feathers, his dreadful childhood, and his decades-long marriage, The Man in the Wooden Hat was his wife Betty’s story. Last Friends is Terence Veneering’s turn. His beginnings were not those of the usual establishment grandee. Filth’s hated rival in court and in love is the son of a Russian acrobat marooned in the English midlands and a local girl. He escapes the war and later emerges in the Far East as a man of panache and fame. The Bar treats his success with suspicion: Where did this handsome, brilliant Slav come from? This exquisite story of Veneering, Filth, and their circle tells a bittersweet tale of friendship and grace and of the disappointments and consolations of age. They are all, finally, each other’s last friend as this magnificent series ends with the deep and abiding satisfaction that only great literature provides. 
   
  “[Gardam’s] prose sparkles with wit, compassion and humor. She keeps us entertained, and she keeps us guessing. Be thankful for her books. Be thankful for this trilogy, which is ultimately an elegy, created with deep affection.” —The Washington Post 
   
  “Restores us to an era rich in spectacle and bristling with insinuation and intrigue. Vivid, spacious, superbly witty, and refreshingly brisk . . . the story (and the author) will endure.” —The Boston Globe 
   
  “All three Gardam books are beautifully written but it’s a pleasure to note that Last Friends is the most enjoyable, the funniest and the most touching.” —National Post

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  Perfect Ice

  Nicholas Mizet

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  Erik Thorvald was drafted into the army ten days after graduating from college. He went in with an open mind to learn and get along with a cross section of American young men who were mentally and physically acceptable yet represented a wide variety of intelligence and personalities. He found the experience to be interesting and oftentimes very funny. Of course most draftees knew they were heading to the Nam after 8 weeks of basic training followed by a like number of weeks in Advanced Infantry Training (AIT). In short, Erik was destined to be a grunt with the MOS of 11B20--light weapons infantry. 
  Arriving in Vietnam in January of 1969, friendships were helpful in surviving as he went up-country near the Parrot's Beak not far from the Cambodian border. The reality of war sets in and he is soon enough exposed to the crap shoot of fatalism and the playing for keeps in brutal conflict. He reflects on how he ever ended up in such an existential fix and relives his life growing up in the Midwest in flashbacks to make any sense of life up to now. 
  Erik resolves to "get out of himself" and meet head-on whatever is thrown at him. In a chance meeting at a book store in a Central Highlands city, he meets a beautiful Vietnamese woman and falls in love. Although very difficult to maintain such a relationship, where there's a will there's a way and eventually Erik returns to Vietnam for its resolution accompanied by capture and postwar re-education camps where Erik's resourcefulness is called upon once again. 
  Unlike many novels of this genre, Perfect Ice depicts changes in Vietnam when the Americans left up to the present day. It is based on extensive travel throughout this enigmatic country during four different trips.

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  One Illicit Night

  Sophia James

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  Sophia James pens historical romances that crackle with passion and intrigue. The third Wellingham brothers novel, One Illicit Night tells the tale of Lord Cristo Wellingham, whose world is forever altered after a salacious evening with the normally chaste Lady Eleanor Bracewell-Lowen. Cristo longs for a return engagement, even as Eleanor swears off such reckless behavior to preserve her image in London’s high society. Yet she’s all too aware that a powerful man such as Cristo could ruin her reputation if she doesn’t yield to his desires.

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  Eric Brighteyes

  H. Rider Haggard

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  The Saga of Eric Brighteyes is the title of an epic viking novel by H. Rider Haggard, and concerns the adventures of its eponymous principal character in 10th century Iceland. Eric Thorgrimursson (nicknamed 'Brighteyes' for his most notable trait), strives to win the hand of his beloved, Gudruda the Fair. Her father Asmund, a priest of the old Norse gods, opposes the match, thinking Eric a man without prospects. But deadlier by far are the intrigues of Swanhild, Gudruda's half-sister and a sorceress who desires Eric for herself. She persuades the chieftain Ospakar Blacktooth to woo Gudrida, making the two men enemies. Battles, intrigues, and treachery follow. (Introduction by Wikipedia)

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  Discerning Grace

  Emma Lombard

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  If Bridgerton and Pirates of the Caribbean had a love child. 
  As the first full-length novel in The White Sails Series, DISCERNING GRACE captures the spirit of an independent woman whose feminine lens blows the ordered patriarchal decks of a 19th century tall ship to smithereens. 
  Wilful Grace Baxter, will not marry old Lord Silverton with his salivary incontinence and dead-mouse stink. Discovering she is a pawn in an arrangement between slobbery Silverton and her calculating father, Grace is devastated when Silverton reveals his true callous nature. 
  Refusing this fate, Grace resolves to stow away. Heading to the docks, disguised as a lad to ease her escape, she encounters smooth-talking naval recruiter, Gilly, who lures her aboard HMS Discerning with promises of freedom and exploration in South America. 
  When Grace's big mouth lands her bare-bottomed over a cannon for insubordination, her identity is exposed. The captain wants her back in London but his orders, to chart the icy archipelago of Tierra del Fuego, forbid it. Lieutenant Seamus Fitzwilliam gallantly offers to take Grace off the fretting captain's hands by placing her under his protection. 
  Grace must now win over the crew she betrayed with her secret, while managing her feelings towards her taciturn protector, whose obstinate chivalry stifles her new-found independence. But when Grace disregards Lieutenant Fitzwilliam's warnings about the dangers of the unexplored archipelago, it costs a friend his life and she realises she is not as free as she believes.

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  The Unpicking

  Donna Moore

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  Stirling, 1877. Lillias Gilfillan, a recently orphaned girl of sixteen, falls in love and elopes with a man who sees her as wealthy and naïve: 'a little boat without its oars'. In a sea of rising debt and deception, Lillias must learn quickly, or drown.
  Glasgow, 1894. Clementina knows little mercy living in a home for 'wayward girls'. With the 'Jingling Devil' always lurking in the shadows and a child growing inside her, can she outrun him and save her best friend in the process?
  Glasgow, 1919. Mabel is one of the first policewomen in Glasgow, on a mission to find a murderer. In doing so, she finds a web of corruption and now the 'Jingling Devil' wants her dead.
  'The Unpicking' spans three generations of 'hysterical women' who take on systemic corruption and injustice, despite all odds.

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