This month, in the ORION READING ROOM, you can read an extract from Joseph Boyden's award-winning and astonishingly powerful novel of contemporary aboriginal life, THROUGH BLACK SPRUCE. Here you will also find READING GUIDES and exclusive AUTHOR INTERVIEWS.
Fifteen years after the death of their patriarch, the Bird Clan finds itself struggling to survive on the reservation they call home. On Christmas Day, the youngest of the clan, Suzanne, leaves with her boyfriend Gus Netmaker, against both families' wishes, hoping to find purpose and a better life in Toronto. When word from Suzanne and Gus suddenly ceases, the Netmakers and Birds fear the worst and tensions between the two families escalate to violent levels…
Joseph Boyden won Canada’s most prestigious English-language fiction prize, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, for Through Black Spruce, which is his second novel.
Brodie Logan decides to leave her husband and share her big house with its enchanting garden with the other women who have come to live there. First, there is twenty-five year old Diana, who suddenly finds there is no place for her in the only home she has ever known. Then there is Vanessa, once a successful career woman, now miserable and overweight. And finally, Rachel, barely fifteen, with her baby daughter, Poppy, who some people seem determined to take away from her.
As they while away the brilliant summer under the trees in the lovely garden of the big house, friendships form that will last a lifetime. But it isn't all a bed of roses; bad things happen too - after all, nothing lasts forever
Your school days are supposed to be the best days of your life – and Tracey Mortimer has no argument with that. Sixteen years ago she was the most popular girl in school, ruled her own gang, and dated the cutest boy in her year. Now it's all rather different: she's 33, stuck in a dull marriage that's only tolerable because her husband is rarely at home.
Then Tracey spots an advert from a TV company wanting to make a reality-style show on a perfect school reunion – giving Tracey the chance to re-live the good old days. But not all her old school classmates remember their school days quite as Tracey does…
Beside the River Needle is a willow, meeting place for generations of Needlewick girls. Suzanna is the elder daughter of the village doctor. In the summer of 1909, Suzanna's daughter, Sophia, is sent from London to stay with her cousin Helen and soon Sophia and Helen are inseparable.
Years later, after the War, Sophia is engaged to be married. Over the years she has lost a great deal – but not her ambition for a rich and secure future. Then one morning she learns of a strange legacy. To receive her bequest, she must return to Needlewick. There she seeks out the people and hidden places of her childhood – and following her there are others for whom Needlewick is a place of devastating significance.
A Way Through the Woods is a tale of a quest. It is also the story of a family: their passions, and their ability to destroy and heal, waste and love.
After twenty years of comfortable marriage, and with the kids finally off her hands, Sarah Lewis realises she has filled the washing machine once too often. Surely there must be more to life than this? What she wants is an adventure – a wild, unpredictable adventure – but her husband, good old reliable David, is very happy with the status quo. Besides, he's got his old car to tinker with, when he eventually gets round to it.
What Sarah needs is a gap year for grown-ups – and she wants to do it alone. Confident the grass must be greener elsewhere, she heads for France, leaving behind a devastated and resentful David, faced with an empty house and a freezer full of meals-for-one. But is life really better on the other side of the fence?
Jennet Mallow is born in Yorkshire in the 1920s but her interest in art and creativity alienates her from her family. When Jennet moves to London in search of a more exciting life, she finds it in her new environment and in the handsome and enigmatic figure of the painter David Heaton. When Jennet falls pregnant, her parents force the pair to marry and in the postwar austerity of the 1940s, the young couple struggles to make ends meet. Aware that David is becoming increasingly reliant on drink and tired of the dank and drab bedsit in which they live, Jennet suggests they move to Spain.
There the bright blue skies and sunlit beaches give the couple and their children a new lease of life. As Jennet's career begins to take off, her relationship with David sours and the two enter a destructive spiral with tragic consequences. Winner of the 2009 Orange Award for New Writers, An Equal Stillness is written in the form of a biography and is an outstanding debut.
Chris is 25. He has a job in advertising he despises – despite being naturally brilliant at creating shamelessly successful campaigns - an 'artistic' girlfriend and his two best mates from university, who spend a lot of time playing pool, drinking Grolsch and quoting lines from Robocop at each other.
But Chris's life is about to change. The eighties are coming to an end and he must take decisive action if he is to fulfill what he suspects is his true potential. So, after pre-emptively celebrating the fact he is about to hand in his resignation, Chris goes to bed drunk in 1988 but very unexpectedly wakes up in 2006, with an unbelievable hangover, a long-suffering (and worryingly 'old'-looking) stranger for a wife, a life that hasn't turned out the way he had hoped for at all, and an unnerving amount of new body hair.
For any one who has ever felt like a 25-year-old stuck in a middle-aged body this is a brilliantly funny and moving novel about love and experience, choices made and consequences lived with, and how although we may get hopelessly lost in life, the most unexpected people can help us find our way home.
The Italian Wedding is a feast of food and love. It's about discovering who your parents really are. And who you really want to be.
Pieta Martinelli's sister is getting married. Since she is a bridal designer it falls to her to make the wedding gown. But Pieta is distracted by a series of unanswered questions. Why is her father feuding with another Italian in the neighbourhood? Why is her mother so faded and sad? And could the man she's always held a torch for really be getting married to someone else?
Before consigning her mother, Joan, to a nursing home in Wandsworth, hedge fund trader Eloise takes her to visit their family home, now a shopping mall, in Bloemfontein. Called back to London when an investment goes awry, Eloise leaves Joan to investigate her family’s experience of the war. Joan discovers her grandmother’s diary recording her time in a concentration camp which, when she returns to London, triggers the entanglement of hallucination that consumes her until death.
Hidden in the heart of the old city of Barcelona is the Cemetery of Lost Books, a labyrinthine library of obscure and forgotten titles that have long gone out of print. To this library, a man brings his 10-year-old son Daniel one cold morning in 1945. Daniel is allowed to choose one book from the shelves and pulls out The Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax.
But as he grows up, several people seem inordinately interested in his find. Then, one night, as he is wandering the old streets once more, Daniel is approached by a figure who reminds him of a character from The Shadow of the Wind, a character who turns out to be the devil. This man is tracking down every last copy of Carax's work in order to burn them. What begins as a case of literary curiosity turns into a race to find out the truth behind the life and death of Julian Carax and to save those he left behind.
“In this globe-scattered Sri Lankan family, we speak only of two kinds of marriage. The first is the Arranged Marriage. The second is the Love Marriage. In reality, there is a whole spectrum in between, but most of us spend years running away from the first towards the second.”
Yalini, the daughter of Sri Lankan immigrants who left their collapsing country and married in America, finds herself caught between the history of her ancestors and her own modern world. But when she is summoned to Toronto to help care for her dying uncle, Kumaran, a former member of the militant Tamil Tigers, she is forced to see that violence is not a relic of the Sri Lankan past, but very much a part of her Western present.
Bernhard Schlink stunned the reading public with his brilliant novel The Reader, and once again with Homecoming he proves he is one of our most important authors today.
As a child raised by his mother in post-war Germany, Peter Debauer becomes fascinated by a story he discovers in the proof pages of a novel edited by his grandparents. It is the tale of a German prisoner of war who escapes from a Russian camp and braves countless dangers to return home to a wife who believes him to be dead. This is a mesmerising tale of discovery, of the search for identity and of the need for understanding and forgiveness.
A sweeping historical love story – from the author of East of the Sun.
Catherine Carreg is consumed by a longing to escape the monotony of Welsh village life and, with the help of a local boy, runs away to London. Alone in the unfamiliar bustle of the city, Catherine finds a position in a rest home for sick governesses in Harley Street, run by Miss Florence Nightingale. Then, as the nation is gripped by reports of the war in the Crimea, Catherine volunteers as a nurse – and her life changes beyond all recognition.
Forced to grow up quickly and painfully, she learns the hardest lessons of love and war.
In the steamy heat of Haiti, seventeen year old Laure St Lazâre imagines a life beyond the strict rules of her grandmother. Hers is a family of secrets – old and new.
Améline has heard the whispers about the family she serves, but doesn't care - it's her job to look after Laure, who is more of a sister than an employer.
On the other side of the world, Melanie is indulged or ignored by her famous father, her mother and her step-father, eventually provoking a crisis that will have her banished from her home.
Bitter Chocolate is a spellbinding novel of secrets and lies, journeys and homecomings. Lose yourself in a world of drama and passion – and the story of three unforgettable women.
It’s the start of the 1960s, and the world is changing. But for one woman, it seems things have changed too much already. From the bright-eyed girl growing up in a small Irish village, to the confident young woman running a fine English hotel, Tara’s life seems to have changed beyond recognition.
But some things remain, and despite her tumultuous life, Tara still carries with her the spark and determination that has brought her this far. With a spirit as fiery as her striking Titian curls, Tara knows she must face the future with a bold heart, wherever it may lead.
Tara's Destiny is the captivating final part in Tara’s story. Filled with the warmth and charm that have won her so many fans, Geraldine O’Neill delivers a stunning saga, full of passion and drama.
Novelist and former war correspondent Arturo Pérez-Reverte has produced a taut thriller that, in the words of the author, is “the nearest I’ve got to a personal memoir”.
Andres Faulques, an award-winning war photographer, is holed up in a stone tower on the Spanish coast, purging his wartime memories by painting a battle-scene mural. He is unsuccessfully trying to banish the memory of his lover, also a war photographer, who was killed as he looked on. One day a strange visitor - the subject of one of Faulques's most famous photos – arrives with an evil agenda: he plans to kill Faulques. But first he wants to tell him how the photo altered the course of his life....
The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce is the story of how a man who dislikes wine becomes not just a wine lover, but an alcoholic on the brink of destruction. This is a tragic socio-psychological thriller about someone failing to strike a balance between passion and livelihood and is an amazing read for anyone who enjoys probing into the depths of the human psyche.
More than just a murder mystery, Jennifer McMahon's extraordinary debut novel, Promise Not to Tell, is a story of friendship and family, devotion and betrayal. Tautly written, deeply insightful, beautifully evocative, and utterly unforgettable, you won't be able to put it down.
Toby and Salome are a young, modern couple living in New York, but their backgrounds are worlds apart. He is a middle-class all-American boy from a family of academics; she is a Croatian refugee raised in New Orleans.
When Salome unexpectedly becomes pregnant, they decide to spend their lives together and hastily marry. But finding a way to reconcile their families and pasts proves a difficult task...
Moving and heartfelt, fraught with desperation and rage, this is an intensely moving book, perfect for book groups. Take a look at the extract, reading guide and interviews below to find out more.
A small nomadic settlement is thrown into turmoil by the theft of a book....
Masha Hamilton’s captivating new novel follows Fiona Sweeney, a 36-year-old librarian, from New York to Kenya on her sincere but naïve quest to make a difference in the world by running a mobile library. On her travels through the bush she meets many people and learns much about herself.
Perfect for your book group, this novel sweeps you away from everyday life and makes you realize the power of books to change lives. Take a look at …
“I’m delighted Sepulchre is in the Reading Room for May, not least because it’s one of my favourite parts of the Orion website, the perfect place to find out about old favourites and new discoveries. As for Sepulchre, it is partly an old-fashioned ghost story, partly a 19th century tale of revenge and the occult, partly the adventures of a young and impressionable girl who disappears one Halloween more than a hundred years ago. Try the Reading Room Discussion Points, listen to the audio (CD, MP3 or download), then please get in touch to tell me what you think! After all, without readers, none of us would be in business!”
Do you have ambitions to write fiction? Who better to offer advice on how to proceed than bestselling novelist Maeve Binchy?
Most importantly WRITE! If you want to be a writer, you have to write. So you must find the time. Whether that entails getting up an hour earlier, going to bed an hour later or forgoing a couple of nights TV, set yourself a goal each week and stick to it. Whether its ten pages a week or 200 words a day, stick to it.
READ MAEVE'S TEN TOP TIPS FOR BUDDING WRITERS (this article originally appeared in newBooks Magazine Issue 45)
Take a walk on the noirish side of the City of Angels, with best-selling crime writer Robert Crais as your guide.
READ ARTICLE (this article originally appeared in the Scotsman Magazine: Travel and Outdoors section)
Former midwife Jennifer Worth recalls her days working in the East End of London.
Worth is indeed a natural storyteller... gripping, moving and convincing from beginning to end a powerful evocation of a long-gone world Literary Review
READ ARTICLE (this article originally appeared in newBooks Magazine Issue 44)
Anthony Keates, Marketing and Publicity Director at Orion Paperbacks, examines the steps taken to turn a bestselling hardback novel into a bestselling paperback. READ ARTICLE (this article originally appeared in newBooks Magazine Issue 42)
VIEW all Reading Guides
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Books that generate discussion, debate and some arguments! All of these paperback editions are published with extensive reading group notes. FIND OUT MORE
The Tin Roof Blowdown is a gripping thriller and also a vivid evocation of the horror that engulfed New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina smashed into the Big Easy. "My emotions about what happened are irrelevant; simply stating what occurred leaves one numbed and disbelieving." James Lee Burke interview
"I am interested in strong women and putting women out there who are not just looking for a husband or are victims. I love crime writing, but I find it distressing how many women are victims in crime fiction, and even the strong women in crime are strong but at enormous personal cost." Kate Mosse interview
"I was talking with friends and found myself saying that I would love to read Mr Darcys diary and everybody laughed and thought nothing of it. But it stayed at the back of my mind and just bubbled away." Maya Slater interview
"I have been interested for a long time in that rift between one's ideals and one's actions." Orange Prize winner Valerie Martin talks with Danuta Kean about the links between the personal and the political. Valerie Martin interview
"Until you sort out your feelings about death, you can't get on with anything else. Fiction is a safe place to come across these things when you are young. When you are seven or eight you start to learn about death, but it is when you are eleven or twelve that you start to ponder it seriously." Marcus Sedgwick interview
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