General

Book One of The Guardians Trilogy by Nora Roberts (Piatkus) ISBN: 9780349407807 Sasha is a successful young artist, solitary, contented in her North Carolina mountain cottage. She begins dreaming night and day about five young people whom she feels she knows yet doesn’t. They urge her to travel to a place where she will gather them around her. As a team […]

by Penrose Halson (Pan) ISBN: 9781447282617 Penrose Halson’s role in this book is far greater than just its author. It contains the stories of thousands of men and women who sought professional assistance in finding a spouse in London between 1939 and 1949. Halson recounts the true stories of the men and women that Marriage

From Nazi Germany to South Africa by Steven Robins (Penguin) ISBN: 9781776090242 Robins, a professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at the University of Stellenbosch, writes about his quest to uncover the fate of family members in Berlin during the Second World War. This book provides a remembrance for his family, who perished in

by Zola Nene (Struik Lifestyle) ISBN: 9781432304874 This cookbook by Zola Nene, the resident chef of SABC3’s Expresso Morning Show is a real treat. The food is easy to prepare, with influences of traditional and contemporary African cuisine. It is soul food. Each recipe comes with a beautiful, appetizing picture. Nene shows how to blend different ethnic ingredients

by Bear Grylls (Orion) ISBN: 9781409156826 Bear Grylls is a world-renowned adventurer and survival expert. He has capitalised on his lifelong passion by producing an array of television shows and publications focusing on the outdoors, survival and exploration. I was therefore somewhat surprised to see a fictional novel by this well-known celebrity. But Grylls has not

by Susan Buchanan (Penguin Books) ISBN: 9781770227552 Burchell, after whom the zebra, the coucal and many more species were named, was a well-known naturalist and explorer, but the 19th century adventurer was also a brilliant artist, writer and cartographer. His masterpiece Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa (1824) is still of historical, anthropological and

by Lisa Owens (Picador) ISBN: 9781509806546   With a wealth of experience in publishing and an MA in Creative Writing, this is Lisa Owens’ first novel. Claire has quit her job in a non-descript London agency to really think about what her true vocation shouldbe.  While her brain surgeon boyfriend seems to be cosying up to

by Eva Ibbotson (Pan Macmillan) ISBN: 9781447265672 Eva Ibbotson is the award-winning author of young adult books like Journey to the River Sea and The Abominables. The Haunting of Hiram tells the spooky tale of twelve-year-old Alex MacBuff who cannot afford to keep the castle that has belonged to his family for six hundred years. A

by Jeffrey Archer (MacMillan) ISBN:  9781466867505 Jeffrey Archer has written another page-turner of note. Famous for his inter-generational sagas, this is the sixth in a series of seven. Cometh The Hour continues the story of the Cliftons and the Barringtons, starting with the end of a court case between Mrs Emma Clifton (who should have a

The Accident Season by Moïra Fowley-Doyle (Corgi) ISBN: 9780552571302 Every October, Cara’s life is turned upside down by the accident season. Her family, including her mother, her sister, Alice, and her step-brother, Sam are plagued by accidents. Towards the end of the month, they are haunted by memories of relatives who have died at this