So your friends and family fancy some new fiction for Christmas. But what are you going to choose? Here are some big names and new novels available at special festive prices.
A Time For Mercy – John Grisham
Was R359, Now R289. Save R70!
The king of the legal thriller is back, as is Jake Brigance – the heroic defense attorney who first appeared in Grisham’s very first novel, A Time to Kill.
A Time for Mercy has at its heart a deliciously complex premise. Incorporating domestic violence, the standing of the police in society and a whole bevy of impossible decisions, it pits Brigance against an incredibly difficult case… one in which perpetrator and victim are blurred.
Deputy Stuart Kofer gets drunk, flies into rages and frequently visits violence upon his girlfriend, Josie, and her children. But the police and their internal cultures keep him shielded from justice.
One night, Kofer goes too far and leaves Josie dying on the floor after delivering a savage beating and passing out drunk. Josie’s sixteen-year-old son, Drew, is sure this might be his only chance to save his family. He grabs a gun and does what needs doing. The people of Clanton, Mississippi hate no-one more than a cop killer – even when that killer is just a child, even when the crime was this easy to understand. Jake Brigance may be the only one who can save Drew from Death Row.
This is Grisham at his best: he asks relevant questions, delivers legal thrills by the bucketful and builds a brilliant story around a legitimately emotive core.
The Book of Two Ways – Jodi Picoult
Was R339, Now R249. Save R90!
With her newest novel, The Book of Two Ways, Picoult really homes in on the idea that every life can take multiple paths – and that those paths can be easily split, Sliding Doors style, by something that does, or something that does not, happen. Taking on life and death and opportunities taken and missed, this new adventure is Picoult at her judgment-free and graceful best.
Sometimes things become clearest when the worst happens. Dawn Edelstein is forced to take rapid stock of her life when she and her fellow passengers are told to brace for a crash landing. To her surprise, her thoughts immediately go to a man she used to know, Wyatt Armstrong, instead of her husband. Though she has not seen him in fifteen years, he is the last thing she sees in her mind.
But Dawn, amazingly, survives. Her husband, her daughter and the patients that rely on her wait back in Boston, and yet that single terrifying crisis has shifted something within her. As the survivors are treated, the airline offers to get them to wherever they want to go. She should go back to her family, but Dawn immediately thinks of Egypt – where archaeologist Wyatt will be, and where she might conclude her research on The Book of Two Ways, the first known map of the afterlife.
With this one decision, Dawn’s life splits in two and a pair of parallel futures unfolds at the same time, prompting her to deeply ponder the bigger questions of life: what does it mean to live well? What is the real nature of choice?… and what happens at the end?
Employing an intelligent blend of ethical dilemma, philosophy, personal drama and even a dash of Egyptology, The Book of Two Ways tugs at all the right heartstrings.
Private Moscow – James Patterson and Adam Hamdy
Was R279, Now R249. Save R30!
Another tightly plotted, full-throttle action thriller from the genre’s foremost master, Private Moscow brings us the 15th instalment in the bestselling Private series.
On a cold January morning, Jack Morgan stands inside the New York Stock Exchange with his former US Marine comrade whose company is being launched onto the market, eagerly awaiting the opening bell. But before the bell rings, a bullet rips through the air and finds its mark.
In the aftermath of the murder, the victim’s wife hires Jack to find the killer. As the head of Private, Jack has at his disposal the world’s largest investigation agency. What he discovers shakes him to his core.
Jack identifies another murder in Moscow that appears to be linked. So he heads to Russia, and begins to uncover a conspiracy that could have global consequences.
With powerful forces plotting against him, will Jack Morgan make it out alive?
Daylight (Atlee Pine #3) – David Baldacci
Was R339, Now R299. Save R40!
FBI Agent Atlee Pine’s relentless search for the truth continues in her third fiery, brain-teasing outing.
Atlee Pine’s career has been defined by the worst thing that ever happened to her. Her sister Mercy was abducted when she was just six years old. Ever since, Pine has positioned herself as a hunter of all evil and her hunt for her sister and the man who took her has been all encompassing.
At last Pine receives a promising lead: nothing less than the identity of her sister’s kidnapper. But this lead happens to coincide with a high-stakes military investigation – an investigation that draws her into a dangerous global conspiracy.
Pine doesn’t know that she’ll be able to get out of this investigation in one piece, much less whether she’ll be able to track down kidnapper Ito Vincenzo at the same time. Could it be that Vincenzo and this global conspiracy have something in common? Gathering her allies, Pine descends into a morass of deceit that threatens democracy itself.
The Evening and The Morning – Ken Follett
Was R369, Now R319. Save R50!
Ending just as The Pillars of the Earth begins, The Evening and The Morning introduces us to an England on the verge of a new age. But the final years of The Dark Ages pass with tyranny, conflict and brutality. England faces constant threats from both East and West, and in this turmoil those with power wield it without conscience. With no real ruler, the land descends into anarchy and the only laws that matter are might, blood and chaos.
As the country struggles to repair its gaping wounds, three characters, each with ambitions both humble and grand, emerge in a way that will echo through the ages. A determined monk dreams of a future in which his humble abbey might become a towering beacon of European learning and enlightenment ; a boatwright whose life is torn apart by a devastating Viking raid looks to forge a new future for himself and the one he loves from the bones and ashes of constant strife; a Norman noblewoman finds herself in a new and inconceivable life when she crosses the sea with her beloved husband. The loving and committed hopes of these three individuals will bring each of them into conflict with a powerful new bishop, who will stop at nothing to spread his influence and achieve a stranglehold on the ensuing days.
As masterful as anything that Follett has yet crafted, The Evening and The Morning is an immense page-turner… an examination of the heights to which both good and evil can climb, swathed in viciousness and savagery just as surely as hope and nobility.
Love Your Life – Sophie Kinsella
Was R319, Now R289. Save R30!
Here’s a giddily fabulous, fast-paced and hilarious new stand-alone from beloved author, Sophie Kinsella.
Sometimes love comes along at completely the wrong time, you know, like when your life is an absolute shambles… as Ava is about to realise.
She’s had it with online dating. Who’s supposed to trust those algorithms anyway? They always get it wrong. Ava reckons it’s time for a change of scene, and when she decides that an anonymous writing retreat in Italy might be just the thing to pull her from her funk, love is the last of her concerns.
And then she meets an alluring stranger. A handsome, kind man who’s funny and has a certain aptitude for… night time pursuits. Ava is smitten. The two are in love. They don’t know each other’s names. But they are in love and they decide to take the next step. And that’s exactly when reality kicks in. His family is utterly awful and not nearly fond enough of clothes. Her dog is an absolute menace. His weird quirks drive her nuts. Her strange habits never seem to let up.
They have found love together, but can they now forge a life together in spite of all that unappealing real-world nonsense?
The Kingdom – Jo Nesbo
Was R319, Now R279. Save R40!
As complex and devastating as anything that Nordic-noir crown-prince Jo Nesbo has ever delivered, The Kingdom is deeply atmospheric in its treatment of brotherly rivalry and dark secrets.
Sixteen-year-old Roy is left to take care of his younger, unmanageable brother, Carl, when their parents die suddenly. Eschewing that protection, Carl opts to travel the world in search of his fortune instead. Roy, happy with his life as a mechanic in a sleepy village, elects to stay behind.
Years later, Carl returns to their village with a grand plan to transform his erstwhile hometown, along with his charming new wife, Shannon. The plan is to bring massive new prosperity to the brothers and to the village via a brand new hotel and spa.
Carl’s return is not jubilantly received, however, and neither is his new development scheme, and soon Carl’s presence begins to threaten everything that Roy holds dear. In fact, his return quickly begins to unearth secrets that would better remain buried.
The Return – Nicholas Sparks
Was R339, Now R289. Save R50!
A moving, heartening new addition to Sparks’s oeuvre, The Return introduces an injured army doctor to two women whose complexities and secrets will completely reroute his life.
Trevor Benson is an orthopaedic surgeon working in a hospital in Afghanistan… until a nearby mortar blast devastates his work place and forces him to return home to North Carolina riddled with serious wounds. He looks to regroup and recover in a cabin he inherited from his grandfather.
He spends his time tending bee hives and preparing to return to med school. But all that changes when he falls in love with a local woman, Deputy Sheriff Natalie Masterson, who quickly returns his affections while also remaining frustratingly distant and secretive.
While he’s navigating this new relationship, Trevor also meets a teenaged girl, Callie, who claims to have been a friend of his grandfather. Hoping that she can reveal to him the truth of his grandfather’s death, Trevor befriends her too… without knowing just how much Callie really had to do with his grandfather’s demise.
A love-letter to the nature of love, forgiveness and moving on, The Return combines past, present and future to create a full-bodied romantic escape.
The Last Survivor – Tony Park
Was R319, Now R269. Save R50!
Though South Africa has the most rare Cycads of any African country, they are critically endangered to a degree that makes their population more precarious than that of the Rhino.
When a rare and priceless Cycad is discovered, and stolen, it initially finds itself in the care of the quite particularly-named Pretoria Cycad and Firearms Appreciation Society. Then it disappears. Cycad and firearm appreciator Joanna Flack is the primary suspect. Around the time of the plant’s disappearance, Joanna arrives in London, where she manages to single-handedly prevent a potentially devastating terror attack.
The investigative efforts of Sonja Kurtz, CIA contractor, links the Cycad to a larger terrorist scheme, believing that if the plant can be found, a tragedy to rival the 9-11 attacks might be foiled.
Along with US Department of Fisheries and Wildlife agent Rod Cavanagh, Sonja enlists the help of a group of South African gardening enthusiasts whose two primary interests make them uniquely helpful. Who better than a group of guns-and-gardening nuts to track down the missing Cycad? No prized garden accessory has ever before controlled so many lives and invited so much treachery.
Happy Festive Reading (And Also Shopping)!