This historical novel relates the stirring adventures, conspiracies, and feasts prev-alent during the last years of Charles IX's reign in the latter part of the 16th century. The marriage of Marguerite de Valois, sister of King Charles IX, to Henri de Bourbon, King of Navarre, triggers the mostly riotous events of this story. She was Catholic, he was Protestant, and their weddeing took place during the religious wars in France between the Catholics and the Huguenots.
Teddy Roosevelt once exclaimed, “When I am in California, I am not in the West. I am west of the West,” and in this book, Mark Arax spends four years travelling up and down the Golden State to explore its singular place in the world. This is California beyond the clichés. This is California as only a native son, deep in the dust, could draw it.
A Night in the Lonesome October is narrated from the present-tense point-of-view of Snuff, the dog who is Jack the Ripper's companion. The bulk of the story takes place in London and its environs, though at one point the story detours through the dream-world described by Lovecraft in The Dream Quest of Unkonown Kadath. Though never explicitly stated, various contextual clues within the story (the most obvious of which being the appearance of Sherlock Holmes (or "The Great Detective") imply that it takes place during the late Victorian period.
Robert Barnard returns to contemporary Leeds for the memorably downscale story of The Centre, a temporary hostel for homeless young people. Ben Marchant, who opened The Centre after winning the lottery, allows his charges to remain only a fortnight, all except for Alan Coughlan and Katy Bourne, two fellow-students who'd barely heard of each other till they ran away together, and who are now ensconced in The Centre indefinitely. But Alan and Katy's unusual status doesn't bother black copper Charlie Peace as much as the possibility that The Centre may be no refuge from the indolence of the streets.
Added by: susan6th | Karma: 3133.45 | Fiction literature | 21 October 2010
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What Mother Never Told Me
From page one the reader is drawn into the life of Parris McKay as she goes in search of the mother she had been told was dead for 30 years. The story slowly and surely allows the reader to see and feel how and why the deception took place. The story is so well-told that at times.
