Recommended Reads

Child of Twilight

Carmel Bird

What happens when prayers are answered? A dazzling novel of the miraculous from the author of the acclaimed Cape Grimm.

It is strange and fascinating to me to think of people — Avila in particular — praying me into existence.’ Sydney Peony Kent is nineteen years old. She was a longed-for IVF baby, ‘product of an unknown egg and unknown sperm’ implanted in her mother, Avila. Avila not only used the latest scientific techniques to conceive Sydney, but also prayed to the Bambinello, a small carved and jewelled statue of the infant Jesus housed in the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli in Rome and said to have miraculous properties.

Avila’s distant relative, Father Roland Bruccoli, was conceived in a more conventional manner, but his mother too prayed to the Bambinello before his birth -- and that of his twin sister Eleena. It is when the adult Roland is visiting the church of Santa Maria one evening that the Bambinello is stolen. Roland hopes that Father Cosimo, an archivist, poet and riddler said to speak in the ancient green language of the troubadours, can assist in discovering what has happened to the Bambinello. But when matters of belief are involved, nothing is straightforward, as Sydney discovers herself when she too becomes caught up in tracing the Bambinello’s fate.

Deftly weaving together religion, science, pregnancies wanted and unwanted, love, loss and belief, Carmel Bird has created a luminous novel that both questions and celebrates the miraculous.

Horns

Joe Hill

Ignatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke up the next morning with one hell of a hangover, a raging headache...and a pair of horns growing from his temples. Once, Ig lived the life of the blessed: born into privilege, the second son of a renowned American musician and the younger brother of a rising late-night TV star, Ig had security and wealth and a place in his community. Ignatius had it all and more - he had the love of Merrin Williams, a love founded on shared daydreams, mutual daring, and unlikely midsummer magic. Then beautiful, vivacious Merrin was gone - raped and murdered, under inexplicable circumstances - with Ig the only suspect. He was never tried for the crime, but in the court of public opinion, Ig was and always would be guilty. Now Ignatius is possessed with a terrible new power to go with his terrible new look and he means to use it to find the man who killed Merrin and destroyed his life. Being good and praying for the best got him nowhere. It's time for a little revenge; it's time the devil had his due.

Blackout

Connie Wills

World War II is wildly popular with Oxford's time-travelling history students - there are currently three of them in England alone, studying different aspects of the conflict. Eileen is a maid researching the evacuation of city children to the countryside, Mike is masquerading as an American reporter observing the military preparations for D-day and Polly is smack in the middle of the Blitz.

When one of the pick-up sites is destroyed in an air-raid, Polly tries to report the problem, but discovers that something has happened in the twenty-first century which has shut down their ability to transport. The three find themselves facing a future as dark and uncertain as the English in 1940: all alone, cut off from help and time running out ...

Connie Willis' eagerly awaited new novel is a rip-roaring tale of suspense, intrigue and romance. Meticulously researched, it offers fascinating historical insights and a wonderful cast of characters who capture the mix of humour and courage, desperation and common sense that typified Londoners under siege.

Black Hills

Connie Willis

A richly imaginative tale of foreign cultures set on collision course Paha Sapa, ‘Black Hills’, is a Red Indian shaman who as a young boy at the Battle of Little Bighorn takes the ghost of the dying General Custer into his own body. Sixty years later as an old man working as a dynamiter on Mount Rushmore, he plots to blow it up.

Meanwhile, Custer finds himself trapped in a strange, dark place and begins to write sensuous, heartbreaking missives to his beloved wife. Thus begins an intricate narrative that sweeps across decades of American history, building up a portrait of one country’s relentless expansion and what was lost and destroyed in its path.

Black Hills is historical fiction with Dan Simmons’ trademark twist. He weaves in real places, events and people with his own uniquely weird take on reality to create a portrait of a world that is hilarious and tragic, spiritual and disturbing.

This page last updated 12/3/2010