Jane Fraser0.0 1904: Ellen has returned to her Gower village from the hustle and bustle of Hoboken, New Jersey. News of her father’s increasing frailty has brought her reluctantly home. Her younger twin brothers are hoping that she can talk some sense into the increasingly drink sodden subsistence farmer. As the weeks and months pass Ellen’s own history and the issues that led to her departure for the USA are revealed. She is a modern woman making her way in the new 20th century and isn’t prepared to sacrifice herself to the expectations of duty and tradition.
Advent is Ellen’s story and the story of a generation of young women who finally began to take hold of the reins of their own lives, not bowing down to their menfolk and staying tied to home and hearth in spite of their own desires and ambitions.
A classically-constructed novel about the complex and ultimately self-destructive relationship between a young academic researcher and a distinguished art historian in 1980s Florence.
John Fletcher0.0 Wuhan, 1937. China is at war, invaded by the Japanese Army, who sweep through the country killing indiscriminately. As the capital city falls, Wuhan takes its place and will become pivotal in China's future.
1937. China is at war. Japanese soldiers sweep through the country, killing and displacing the millions who stand in their way. Nanjing has fallen, and Wuhan promoted in its place. While the rest of the world looks the other way, Wuhan stands alone against a whirlwind of violence which forced unprecedented cultural and political change. This will be a moment that shapes China's future.
Weaving together a multitude of narratives, Wuhan is a historical fiction epic that pulls no punches: the heart-in-mouth story of a peasant family forced onto a thousand-mile refugee death-march; the story of Lao She – the influential Chinese novelist – who leaves his family in a war-zone to assist with the propaganda effort in Wuhan; the hellish battlefields of the Sino-Japanese war; the incipient global conflict seen through a host of colourful characters – from Chiang Kai-Shek, China's nationalist leader, to Peter Fleming, British journalist based in Wuhan and a prototype for his younger brother Ian Fleming's James Bond.
Anthony English0.0 In 1943 on Bougainville Island, New Guinea, a Japanese officer beheads Hugh Rand, an Australian spy — a coast watcher. The spectators include villagers he terrorised as his mind frayed under the stress of pursuit by soldiers and their hounds. Rand’s influence transcends his death. For decades he plagues characters who strive to cope with him and one another in New Guinea, the Gilbert Islands, Australia and Japan. Who misperceives? Lies? Self-destructs? Suffers? Loves? The layers unfold as the author entices us through cultural, historical and intellectual curtains, deep into minds and relationships disturbed by the Pacific war and Rand’s legacy.
Yvonne Bailey-Smith0.0 The Day I Fell Off My Island tells the story of Erna Mullings, a teenage Jamaican girl uprooted from her island following the sudden death of her beloved grandmother. When Erna is sent to England to be reunited with her siblings, she dreads leaving behind her elderly grandfather, and the only life she has ever known. A new future unfolds, in a strange country and with a mother she barely knows. The next decade will be a complex journey of estrangement and arrival, new beginnings, and the uncovering of long-buried secrets.
Второе место.