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The Twelve Days to Christmas

The Twelve Days to Christmas
  • Author(s): Michele Gorman
  • Location(s): Hong Kong
  • Genre(s): Novella

Hannah’s in a bit of a pickle. In twelve days she flies from Hong Kong to the US with Sam, where he’s finally going to meet her parents… and ask to marry her. Since overcoming a rather rocky patch...

The Twisted Vine

The Twisted Vine
  • Author(s): Alex Martin
  • Location(s): Provence
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): Modern

Every journey is an adventure, especially one into the unknown. The shocking discovery of her lover with someone else, propels Roxanne into escaping to France, and seeking work as a grape-picker. She’s never been abroad before or travelled alone....

The Two Roberts

The Two Roberts
  • Author(s): Damian Barr
  • Location(s): Glasgow, Ayrshire, England, London
  • Genre(s): Historical, Fiction
  • Era(s): 1930s onwards

Scotland, 1933. Bobby MacBryde is on his way. After years grafting at Lees Boot Factory, he’s off to the Glasgow School of Art, to his future. On his first day he will meet another Robert, a quiet man with...

The Unbearable Lightness of Scones (# 44 Scotland Street)

The Unbearable Lightness of Scones (# 44 Scotland Street)
  • Author(s): Alexander McCall Smith
  • Location(s): Edinburgh
  • Genre(s): Fiction, Humour
  • Era(s): Modern

To the casual observer, the great enlightened city of Edinburgh, home of no-nonsense philosophers and cream teas, might appear immune to the rollercoaster of strong emotions. But at 44 Scotland Street, as Matthew and Elspeth embark on the risky...

The Uncoupling

The Uncoupling
  • Author(s): Cauvery Madhavan
  • Location(s): Europe
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): Early 21st Century

A traditional couple from southern India, Balu and Janaki Shankar are in their late fifties and have been married for 26 years in reasonable harmony. They go to visit their son, their first trip to Great Britain, but he...

The Undertaking

The Undertaking
  • Author(s): Audrey Magee
  • Location(s): Berlin, Volgograd (Stalingrad)
  • Genre(s): Fiction, Historical
  • Era(s): WW2, mid 20th century

Desperate to escape the Eastern Front, Peter Faber, an ordinary German soldier, marries Katharina Spinell, a woman he has never met; it is a marriage of convenience that promises ‘honeymoon’ leave for him and a pension for her should...

The Undesirables

The Undesirables
  • Author(s): Dave Boling
  • Location(s): South Africa
  • Genre(s): Fiction, Historical
  • Era(s): Turn of the 20th Century

While the vastly outnumbered Boer commandos fight in the field, half a million British soldiers torch a flaming path across the South African veld. As they go, the British imprison thousands of displaced Boer families, including Aletta Venter’s, and...

The Unfortunate Englishman

The Unfortunate Englishman
  • Author(s): John Lawton
  • Location(s): Berlin
  • Genre(s): Mystery
  • Era(s): 1960s

Having shot someone in what he believed was self-defense in the chaos of 1963 Berlin, Wilderness finds himself locked up with little chance of escape. But an official pardon through his father-in-law Burne-Jones, a senior agent at MI6, means...

The Unpassing

The Unpassing
  • Author(s): Chia-Chia Lin
  • Location(s): Alaska, Anchorage
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): 1980s

In Chia-Chia Lin’s debut novel, The Unpassing, we meet a Taiwanese immigrant family of six struggling to make ends meet on the outskirts of Anchorage, Alaska. The father, hardworking but beaten down, is employed as a plumber and repairman,...

The Unquiet Dead

The Unquiet Dead
  • Author(s): Ausma Zehanat Khan
  • Location(s): Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada
  • Genre(s): Crime, Mystery
  • Era(s): 1990s and modern

One man is dead. But thousands were his victims. Can a single murder avenge that of many? Scarborough Bluffs, Toronto: the body of Christopher Drayton is found at the foot of the cliffs. Muslim Detective Esa Khattak, head of...

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