Recreation

New Titles Fiction November 2015 (arrived in October 2015)

Adventure

Patriot, Ted Bell.
In corrupt Russia, an erratic Vladimir Putin is determined to forge his country into a formidable superpower once again. He intends to redraw the map of Europe, and will go to impossible extremes to realize his fantasies.
Warriors of the storm, Bernard Cornwell.
Ninth book of the Last Kingdoms series.
The killing kind, Chris Holm.
Debut action tale in which a hitman who only kills other hitmen winds up as a target himself.
Minute zero, Todd Moss.
Judd Ryker, a State Department crisis manager, becomes embroiled in an emergency in Zimbabwe, where a challenge to the presidency has resulted in roving armed gangs, military crackdowns, shady financing, and reports of enriched uranium being available for purchase.
Golden lion, Wilbur Smith with Giles Kristian.
Follows Hal Courtney's adventures after the Christians have routed the Muslim invaders in Ethiopia in the mid-seventeenth century. And though conflicts still rage, Hal will face a much more personal enemy bent on revenge.
Tyger, Julian Stockwin.
The greatest naval trial in the Georgian period is underway at Portsmouth with the court martial of Sir Home Popham, Captain Sir Thomas Kydd's commanding officer in the doomed occupation of Buenos Aires.

American Fiction

Saving Sophie, Ronald H. Balson.
Powerful tale of the lengths a father goes to protect his daughter.
A manual for cleaning women : selected stories, Lucia Berlin
Stories in this book make for one of the most remarkable unsung collections in twentieth-century American fiction.
Rowing to Eden : collected stories, Amy Bloom.
25 stories from over two decades are collected together for the first time.
Beginners : the original version of What we talk about when we talk about love, Raymond Carver
The unedited version of 'What we talk about when we talk about Love" before it would be cut by Carver's editor and mentor.
The imposter, Suzanne Woods Fisher.
Faith based novel in the Stoney Ridge series.
City on fire, Garth Risk Hallberg.
New York 1976 and it's New Year's Eve when a blizzard and a murder link the two sides of the city.
Come rain or come shine, Jan Karon.
Sequel to "Somewhere safe with somebody good" in which the story of Episcopal priest Father Timothy continues.
The photograph, Beverly Lewis.
With the passing of their widowed mother, Eva's older brother Menno plans to move his growing family into the Eden Valley farmhouse. Surely, Menno reasons, at least one of his three sisters will marry this coming wedding season.
Finale : a novel of the Reagan years, Thomas Mallon.
Captures the crusading ideologies, blunders, and glamour of the still-hotly-debated Reagan years, taking readers to the political gridiron of Washington, the wealthiest enclaves of Southern California, and the volcanic landscape of Iceland, where the president engages in two almost apocalyptic days of negotiation with Mikhail Gorbachev.
You don't have to live like this, Benjamin Markovits.
Man leaves a job he doesn't much like and moves to Detroit, Michigan in 2009, where an old friend has a big idea about real estate and the revitalization of a once great American city. Once there, he gets involved in a fist-fight between two of his friends, a racially charged trial, an act of vigilante justice, a love affair with a local high school teacher, and a game of three-on-three basketball with the President.
Golden age, Jane Smiley.
Third book in her "Last hundred years" family saga.
See me, Nicholas Sparks.
Colin Hancock is giving his second chance his best shot. At 28, he's focused only on walking a straight line - getting his teaching degree, working out at the gym religiously, and avoiding all the places and people that proved so destructive in his earlier life.
Dietland, Sarai Walker.
Walker's novel, Dietland, has been called part Fight Club, part Bridget Jones's Diary. Thought provoking take on the truths and myths around obesity.
Eve : a novel, Wm. Paul Young.
When a shipping container washes ashore on an island between our world and the next, John the Collector finds a young woman inside broken, frozen, and barely alive. With the aid of Healers and Scholars, John oversees her recovery and soon discovers her genetic code connects her to every known human race. From the author of "The shack."

Australian fiction

Last day in the dynamite factory, Annah Faulkner.
A middle-aged architect named Chris discovers that the uncle who adopted him as a baby is in fact his biological father. The revelation that his beloved Uncle Ben had many years before fallen in love with his sister-in-law has the effect of a stick of gelignite placed at the base of Chris's family tree.
The landing, Susan Johnson.
Jonathan Lott, recently divorced, is about to find how much love really matters in a funny and likeable novel that lays out the human condition looking for love in all of its many forms with secrets, polite lies, desperation, compromise and joy.
Swimming home, Mary-Rose MacColl.
Tells the story of the extraordinary women who pioneered women's swimming in the 1920s in Australia, England and the United States.

British Fiction

The blue guitar, John Banville.
Oliver Otway Orme, a semi-famous artist and petty thief, despairing of limits in his talents, flees when his latest theft is discovered and sequesters himself in his childhood home, where he struggles to understand how he reached his current state.
Sweet caress : the many lives of Amory Clay, William Boyd.
When Amory Clay was born, in the decade before the Great War, her disappointed father gave her an androgynous name and announced the birth of a son. But this daughter was not one to let others define her; Amory became a woman who accepted no limits to what that could mean, and, from the time she picked up her first camera, one who would record her own version of events.
High dive, Jonathan Lee.
A look at the events leading up to the attempted assassination of Margaret Thatcher in Brighton told from the perspective of the bomber and the hotel
Pompidou posse, Sarah Lotz.
Described as "Down and out in Paris and London" for the internet era.
Children of the master, Andrew Marr.
Mix of political satire and black comedy as two contrasting candidates to lead the Labour Party in Britain behave badly on their way to the top. The author has been a poltical editor and commentator.
Grief is the thing with feathers, Max Porter.
When a Ted Hughes scholar with two sons is suddenly widowed a crow comes to them to offer advice. The Bookseller loved this novel and caleed it "a tiny slice of wise beauty."

Fantasy

Battle mage, Stephen Aryan.
First in trilogy featuring magicians fighting to bring peace to a people that hate them.
Diamond conspiracy, Pip Ballantine & Tee Morris.
After escaping the electrifying machinations of Thomas Edison, Books and Braun return home to London only to discover that The Ministry has been disavowed and the Department of Imperial Inconveniences is retiring their agents--permanently.
The aeronaut's windlass, Jim Butcher.
Since time immemorial, the Spires have sheltered humanity, towering for miles over the mist-shrouded surface of the world. Within their halls, aristocratic houses have ruled for generations, developing scientific marvels, fostering trade alliances, and building fleets of airships to keep the peace.
Sorcerer to the crown, Zen Cho.
In Regency London, Zacharias Wythe is England's first African Sorcerer Royal. And that's only the first of his problems. He must juggle the conflicting demands of a wayward Royal Society of Unnatural Philosophers, where a faction schemes to remove him from his position by fair means or foul.
Undermajordomo Minor, Patrick deWitt.
Author was Booker shortlisted for his take on the western, "The Sisters Brothers." This one is a clever mix of adventure/love story/fable/black comedy set in a small town castle in the Alps.
The traitor, Seth Dickinson.
Baru uses her savant skills against the Empire of Masks, which has invaded her island home.
Foreign devils, John Hornor Jacobs.
The honourable mercenaries Fisk and Shoe return in a sequel to "The incorruptibles."
Shadows of self, Brandon Sanderson.
Fifth in the Mistborn series.
The red prince, A.J. Smith.
Third in the Long War series.
Menagerie, Rachel Vincent.
When Delilah Marlow visits a famous traveling carnival, Metzger's Menagerie, she discovers a fierce, sharp-clawed creature lurking just beneath her human veneer. First in a new series.
The sword of the south, David Weber.
Kenhodan, a swordsman with no memory of his past, becomes a pawn in a millennium-long war before confronting the dark wizard Wencit of Rm, who is determined to protect his world and a frightened eleven-year-old girl. New series.

Fiction from the rest of the World

The end of days, Jenny Erpenbeck
A story of the 20th century, told through the various lives of one woman. German author.
The occupation trilogy, Patrick Modiano
Born at the close of World War II, 2014 Nobel Prize winner Patrick Modiano was a young man in his twenties when he burst onto the Parisian literary scene with these three brilliant, angry novels about the wartime Occupation of Paris.
A strangeness in my mind, Orhan Pamuk
Since his boyhood in a poor village in Central Anatolia, Mevlut Karata's has fantasized about what his life would become. Not getting as far in school as he'd hoped, at the age of twelve he comes to Istanbul 'the center of the world' and is immediately enthralled both by the city being demolished and the new one that is fast being built.
Post mortem, Peter Terrin
Much praised Estonian novel, the story of a writer with a great idea and a worry about his future and what happens when his daughter falls asleep and is unable to be woken. Belgian/Flemish novelist.

Graphic Novel

Tokyo ghoul. 2, Sui Ishida
John Constantine, Hellblazer. 11, Last man standing, Paul Jenkins
Bloodshot reborn. [Vol. 1], Colorado, Jeff Lemire
iZombie. [2], uVampire, Chris Roberson
iZombie. [3], Six feet under and rising, Chris Roberson
iZombie. [4], Repossession, Chris Roberson
Saga. [Volume five], Fiona Staples,
Judge Dredd : the mega collection. Origins, John Wagner, writer

Historical

On this foundation, Lynn Austin.
Inspired by the biblical account of Nehemiah, Jewish cupbearer to the King of Persia, this story tells of the many dangers in his return to Jerusalem and the great opposition his people faced in their efforts to rebuild the city wall.
House of thieves, Charles Belfoure.
Author of "The Paris architect" returns with a story set in 1886 New York where a respectable architect gets mixed up with a notorious criminal
The secret chord, Geraldine Brooks.
Traces the arc of King David's journey from obscurity to fame, from shepherd to soldier, from hero to traitor, from beloved king to murderous despot and into his remorseful and diminished dotage.
The last midwife, Sandra Dallas.
Sequel to "A quilt for Christmas" is about a midwife in a Colorado mining town in the 1880s.
The night in question, Laurie Graham.
Dot Allbones had no beauty, and few prospects, but luckily she has one lucrative talent she can make people laugh. Now the queen of London's music hall stage, Dot feels she's not done badly. She has her audience, her independence, and enough money for champagne: a good life.
Dictator, Robert Harris.
Third book in the Cicero series.
The great swindle, Pierre Lemaitre
The year is 1918, the war on the Western Front all but over. An ambitious officer, Lieutenant Henry D'Aulnay-Pradelle, sends two soldiers over the top and then surreptitiously shoots them in the back to incite his men to attack the German lines.
Succession, Livi Michael.
Henry VI, married by proxy to Margaret of Anjou and the story of the fall of the House of Lancaster and the two women who gave birth to the Tudor dynasty.
Master of shadows, Neil Oliver.
The presenter of TV's "Coast" and "The history of Scotland" takes us to Rome and Constantinople in the 15th century.
Love everlasting, Tracie Peterson.
After the great fire that destroyed much of Seattle in 1889, Abrianna Cunningham recognizes that her longtime friendship with Wade Ackerman is changing, but she finds herself overwhelmed by her conflicting feelings and the pursuit of another relentless suitor.
The secret language of women, Nina Romano.
Set in China in the late 1800s, "The Secret Language of Women" tells the story of star-crossed lovers, Zhou Bin Lian, a Eurasian healer, and Giacomo Scimenti, an Italian sailor, driven apart by the Boxer Rebellion.
She who remembers, Linda Lay Shuler.
Story of a beautiful woman born in the American southwest long before Columbus whose blue eyes marked her as a witch and set her apart from the Indian tribe that raised her.

Horror

The house on Cold Hill, Peter James.
Moving from the heart of the city of Brighton and Hove to the Sussex countryside is a big undertaking for born townies, Ollie Harcourt, his wife, Caro, and their twelve-year-old daughter, Jade. But when they view Cold Hill House a huge, dilapidated, Georgian mansion they are filled with excitement. Things start to get creepy.

Mystery

Recipes for love and murder, Sally Andrew.
Cosy crime with a dark twist and a sleuth who uses cooking and baking to get people to talk. There's even recipes in this mystery fiction book.
London Underground, Chris Angus.
What happens beneath London's streets where World War I era bombs, government conspiracies and science gone wrong combine.
Inside the Black Horse, Ray Berard.
Pio Morgan is waiting outside a pub on a cold winter night. There is a debt he must pay and no options left. What he does next drags a group of strangers into a web of confusion that over the course of a few days changes their lives.
Driving heat, Richard Castle.
On the morning of her first day as the new captain of the Twentieth Precinct, Nikki Heat is rocked when her NYPD shrink washes up dead on the banks of the Hudson River. But the jarring murder of the man who knew her most intimate secrets is only the first of a series of blows.
Get even, Martina Cole.
Sharon Conway and Lenny Scott are childhood sweethearts. Everyone says they are too young, but nothing can keep them apart. Sharon doesn't question Lenny's business dealings and it isn't long before his reputation as a hard man destined for the top means they are living the good life with their sons.
The heat, Garry Disher.
Wyatt needs a job. A bank job would be nice. Or a security van. But these days armed robbery means working with cocky young idiots or strung-out meth-heads and Wyatt's not that desperate. Luckily, a broker in Queensland knows someone who wants a painting stolen. Tough Aussie crime.
Playing with fire, Tess Gerritsen.
Imagine if you were home alone and your daughter violently attacked you. Julia doesn't understand what is happening to her daughter, but she thinks she knows what's causing it.
Good money, J.M. Green.
Introduces Stella Hardy, a woman with a a thirst for drink, coffe and social justice. Intriguing tale set in Melbourne.
Shadow play, Iris Johansen.
Eve Duncan is the most sought-after artist in the field of forensic sculpting. Dedicated to her work ever since her daughter Bonnie was taken and killed at the age of seven, Eve feels a sense of duty to those whose lives were lost and whose bones are now in her hands.
The dead student, John Katzenbach.
Timothy Warner, a PhD student who goes by the nickname "Moth," wakes up on his ninety-ninth day of sobriety with an intense craving for drink. He asks his uncle Ed, a former alcoholic and now successful psychiatrist, to meet him at an AA meeting later that day.
Last ragged breath, Julia Keller.
4th novel in the Bell Elkins series.
Dangerous promises, Roberta Kray.
Latest crime tale from the woman who knew some of the legendary crime figures.
Post mortem, Kate London.
First in a new series from a former detective in the Met's murder squad.
Here we lie, Sophie McKenzie.
On holiday with family and her adoring fiancee, Jed, Emily couldn't be happier. But overnight, the idyllic trip turns into a waking nightmare when one of the group is found dead in what appears to be a terrible accident.
I know who did it, Steve Mosby.
On the day of his murdered son's birthday, a detective gets a card saying "I know who did it."
Midnight sun, Jo Nesbo
Jon is on the run. He has betrayed Oslo's biggest crime lord: The Fisherman. Fleeing to an isolated corner of Norway, to a mountain town so far north that the sun never sets, Jon hopes to find sanctuary amongst a local religious sect.
Edge, Nick Oldham.
When Charlie Wilder is released from prison he's desperate to resume his life of crime. But when he discovers he's been betrayed by his closest friends, Charlie's rage turns to cold-blooded murder.
Shanghai redemption, Qiu Xiaolong.
Inspector Chen deals with is most dangerous case yet.
The dark inside, Rod Reynolds.
A New York reporter travels to Texarkana to investigate a spate of killings. Loosely based on real events of 1946.
Blood mist, Mark Roberts.
First in a new series feturing Liverpool DCI Eve Clay, here on the trail of a satanic killer.
The stages, Thom Satterlee.
All his life, Daniel has hidden behind his reputation as one of the world's best translators of Soren Kierkegaard, but when his beloved ex-girlfriend and mentor dies under odd circumstances and a priceless Kierkegaard manuscript goes missing, Daniel turns out to be the last person to have seen her alive.
The judge's house, Georges Simenon
Exiled from Paris, Maigret discovers some disturbing secrets in a sleepy coastal town in this new translation, book twenty two in the new Penguin Maigret series.
Silent city, Carrie Smith.
Excellent debut in which a well liked NYC principal is murdered and Detective Claire Codella is assigned the case.
The detective's secret, Lesley Thomson.
Third in the "Detective's daughter" series set in 1987 Britain where a murder occurs during a severe storm.

New Zealand Fiction

The back of his head, Patrick Evans.
Raymond Thomas Lawrence was one of the great literary colossi to bestride the twentieth century. He turned his upbringing in conservative Canterbury and participation in the Algerian War of Independence into a series of novels that dazzled the world, and eventually won him the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Romance

French fling to forever, Karin Baine.
Maid for a magnate, Jules Bennett.
The doctor she'd never forget, Annie Claydon.
Vows of revenge, Dani Collins.
Traded to the desert sheikh, Caitlin Crews.
Newborn on her doorstep, Ellie Darkins.
Reunited by a baby secret, Michelle Douglas.
The Greek commands his mistress, Lynne Graham.
Her nine month confession, Kim Lawrence.
Reunited in Paris!, Sue MacKay.
Daredevil, doctor husband?, Alison Roberts.
One night in New York, Amy Ruttan.
Falling at the surgeon's feet, Lucy Ryder.
When love returns, Kim Vogel Sawyer.
A bride worth millions, Chantelle Shaw.
From one night to wife, Rachael Thomas.
Beauty & her billionaire boss, Barbara Wallace.
A pawn in the playboy's game, Cathy Williams.
A wedding for the Greek tycoon, Rebecca Winters.
Claimed, Tracy Wolff.
Willow Brook Road, Sherryl Woods.
Bound to the warrior king, Maisey Yates.

Saga

Like father, like son, Diane Allen.
From birth, Polly Harper seems destined for tragedy. Raised by her loving grandparents on Paradise Farm she is unknowingly tangled in a web of secrecy regarding her parentage. When she falls in love with Tobias, the wealthy son of a local landowner of disrepute, her anxious grandparents send her to work in a dairy.
The colours of love, Rita Bradshaw.
England is at war, but nothing can dim land girl Esther Wynford's happiness at marrying the love of her life fighter pilot Monty Grant. Their short honeymoon results in a baby, but on the birth of her daughter, Joy, Esther's world falls apart.
Pretending to dance, Diane Chamberlain.
Molly Arnette is good at keeping secrets. As she and her husband try to adopt a baby, she worries that the truth she's kept hidden about her North Carolina childhood will rise to the surface and destroy not only her chance at adoption, but her marriage as well.
A time for renewal, Anna Jacobs.
In the wake of World War Two, the whole country is desperate for houses, with very little money available to rebuild. In the town of Rivenshaw in Lancashire, Mayne Esher has no choice but to turn Esherwood, the war-damaged stately home which has been in his family for generations, into flats.
Between sisters, Cathy Kelly.
Cassie has spent her married life doing everything right making sure her children have the perfect life, being a devoted wife and a dutiful daughter-in-law. Although it's left her so exhausted that 'wine o'clock' comes a little earlier each afternoon.
The food of love. Book 1, Laura's story, Prue Leith.
A proud family. Snubbed by aristocratic neighbour Lord Frampton at a coming-of-age ball, Donald Oliver dreams of the day he'll have his vengeance. A wild daughter. Laura Oliver, beautiful and tempestuous, falls in love with Giovanni, an Italian ex-prisoner-of-war, now a humble cook.
The lake house, Kate Morton.
June 1933, and the Edevane family's country house, Loeanneth, is polished and gleaming, ready for the much-anticipated Midsummer Eve party. Alice Edevane, sixteen years old and a budding writer, is especially excited.
Coolibah Creek, Kelsey Neilson.
Rebecca is a capable, resilient woman wildly in love with her rugged husband Andy who owns Coolibah Creek Station in outback Australia. A savage drought brings the couple to their knees, with stock dying of hunger-induced weakness and the outlook for rain bleak.
Spirits of the Ghan, Judy Nunn.
A century-old dream is about to be realised in the Red Centre of Australia: the completion of the mighty Ghan railway, a long-lived vision to create the 'backbone of the continent', a line that will finally link Adelaide with the Top End.

Science Fiction

Xeelee : endurance, Stephen Baxter.
Collection of stories, some not previously published, about adventurous trips to the stars now and years into the future.
1920 : America's great war, Robert Conroy.
Consider another 1920: Imperial Germany has become the most powerful nation in the world. In 1914 she had crushed England, France, and Russia in a war that was short but entirely devastating.
Himmler's war, Robert Conroy.
With the specter of a German super-weapon moving closer to completion and the German generals finally allowed to fight the kind of war at which they are masters, the Allies are pushed toward a course of accommodation or even defeat.
Liberty 1784, Robert Conroy.
Alternate history novel by the breakout author of World War Two era alternate history Himmler's War and Rising Sun.
Luna : new moon, Ian McDonald.
Gripping tale about five corporate families caught in a battle for the moon and its mineral wealth.
Arcadia, Iain Pears.
Three interlocking worlds. Four people looking for answers. But who controls the future or the past? In the basement of a professor's house in 1960s Oxford, fifteen-year-old Rosie goes in search of a missing cat and instead finds herself in a different world.
Saturn run, John Sandford and Ctein.
The year is 2066. A Caltech intern inadvertently notices an anomaly from a space telescope something is approaching Saturn, and decelerating. Space objects don't decelerate. Spaceships do.
A call to arms : a novel of the Honorverse, David Weber & Timothy Zahn with Thomas Pope.
Lieutenant Travis Long of the Royal Manticoran Navy is one of those rare people who likes rules but has a talent for thinking outside of them when everything starts coming apart. That is why he is now a mustang and also why he has enemies.