They say `live every day as if it`s your last`
- but you never actually think it`s going to be. At least I didn`t. The thing is,
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Memories define us. So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep? Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you love
- all forgotten overnight. & the one person you trust may only be telling you half the story. Welcome to Christine`s life.
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As I sleep, my mind will erase everything I did today. I will wake up tomorrow as I did this morning. Thinking I`m still a child. Thinking I have a whole lifetime of choice ahead of me.. .` Welcome to Christine`s life. Quite simply the best debut novel I`ve ever read.
- Tess Gerritsen. Brilliant in its pacing, profound in its central question, suspenseful on every page
- & satisfying in its thriller ending.
- Anita Shreve. A deft, perceptive exploration of a fascinating neurological condition, & a cracking good thriller. -Lionel Shriver. A terrific first novel
- well-written, genuinely unsettling & psychologically very plausible. Thrillers seldom come much better than this. Loved it, read it in one
- Joanne Harris. An exceptional thriller. It left my nerves jangling for hours after I finished the last page
- Dennis Lehane. So high-concept, so ambitious & so structurally brilliant. It`s so rare to read a thriller that`s perfect in every detail, but this one definitely qualifies!
- Sophie Hannah. A deeply unsettling debut that asks the most terrifying question
- what do you have left when you lose yourself?
- Val Mc Dermid. A truly amazing debut. The central character, Christine, is beautifully drawn. It`s hard to imagine a more compelling, believable & sympathetic portrayal of a damaged human being. I loved it from start to finish.
- Mo Hayder.









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Reinaldo Arenas was born to a poverty-stricken family in rural Cuba. By the time of his death in New York four decades later, he had become one of Cuba`s most important poets, an outspoken critic of Castro`s regime & one of the leading gay voices of the twentieth century. In Before Night Falls, Arenas tells of his odyssey from young rebel fighting for the Revolution, through his suppression as a writer, his disillusionment with Castro, his imprisonment & torture, to his eventual exile from Cuba to New York, where in 1987 he was diagnosed with AIDS. He committed suicide in 1990, ending a life of constant struggle against repression. In a farewell note, Arenas wrote: Due to my delicate state of health & to the terrible depression that causes me not to be able to continue writing & struggling for the freedom of Cuba, I am ending my life.. . I do not want to convey to you a message of defeat, but of continued struggle & hope. Cuba will be free. I already am. (signed) Reinaldo Arenas ...

The story of the land that became Scotland is one of dramatic geological events & impressive human endeavour. Alistair Moffats gripping narrative ranges from the great thaw at the end of the Ice Age which was instrumental in shaping Scotlands magnificent landscape through the megalith builders, the Celts & the Picts, to the ascension of King Constantine II. Moffat deploys his knowledge with wit & deftness, interweaving the story with numerous special features on topics as diverse as cave drawings of dancing girls, natural birth control, the myth of Atlantis & the Zoroastrian Towers of Silence all of them valuable, sometimes quirky, additions to the whole picture. Rounding out the account is a selection of carefully chosen colour photographs that give a strong sense of the Scottish landscape & monuments. Erudite & entertaining, ” Before Scotland”, newly available in paperback, transforms our understanding of a neglected period. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the land that became Scotl&. ...

Around 1900, the Salierno family, Italian peasant farmers, make a tough living in a village in a mountainous & volcanic region in the South. Their youngest daughter, Concetta, 15, is seriously injured in a devastating earthquake &, when she wakes up from a coma, suffers memory loss of everything leading up to the disaster. When she later discovers she is pregnant, her family marries her off hastily to neighbours who owe a debt of honour. Marriage arrangements according to traditional restrictions are also made for her sisters Nunzia & Immacolata, after their dangerous trip to the carnival at the neighbouring town of San Michele. Concetta, with the help of grieving signora Clara & her remaining son, Francesco, (Peppe having lost his life in the earthquake) tries to piece together the mysterious events that occurred before the earthquake. Continued doubt about the father of her child casts a shadow over her marriage & her family relationships, but her stoical determination leads through a personal journey of self-discovery, full of dramatic & revealing surprises. Concetta's future & past become gradually clearer through one long hot summer in a rocky landscape. The mystery of her memory loss is played out against a world of constant agricultural work, church, eel fishing in the river & the underground passages beneath the village. ...

Sunday Times top thriller read of the year 2016 The rich are different. But fate is blind. Down-on-his-luck artist Scott Burroughs would usually take the ferry back to New York from Martha`s Vineyard, but he is unexpectedly offered a spare seat on the Bateman family`s private jet. Then just minutes after take-off, the plane crashes into the ocean & of the eight passengers & three crew, only Scott & the Batemans` small son, JJ, are left alive. The extraordinary nature of their survival, combined with the fact that David Bateman was CEO of a populist TV news channel, means that Scott will not be returning to anonymity. Along with the orphaned boy, he is engulfed by a maelstrom of speculation, which soon overtakes the official investigation into the tragedy. Who else was on the plane? Was there a bomb, a missile? Who is Scott Burroughs? As the chapters drive towards their heart-stopping conclusion, weaving with ever-increasing suspense between the shocking aftermath of the crash & the intimate backstory of each of the passengers & crew members, Noah Hawley creates a searching, thrilling novel of love, fame, wealth, art, entertainment & power. ...

It`s the night before the feast in the village of Furstenfelde (population: an odd number). The village is asleep. Except for the ferryman
- he`s dead. & Mrs Kranz, the night-blind painter, who wants to depict her village for the first time at night. A bell-ringer & his apprentice want to ring the bells
- the only problem is that the bells have gone. A vixen is looking for eggs for her young, & Mr Schramm is discovering more reasons to quit life than smoking. Someone has opened the doors to the Village Archive, but what drives the sleepless out of their houses is not that which was stolen, but that which has escaped. Old stories, myths & fairy tales are wandering about the streets with the people. They come together in a novel about a long night, a mosaic of village life, in which the long-established & newcomers, the dead & the living, craftsmen, pensioners & noble robbers in football shirts bump into each other. They all want to bring something to a close, in this night before the feast.

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Winner of the Leipzig Book Fair Prize Longlisted for the German Book Prize It`s the evening before the feast in the village of Furstenfelde (population: declining), but not everyone is asleep. The local artist, wearing an evening dress & gum-boots, goes down to the lake under cover of darkness. The village archivist is kept awake by ancient tales that threaten to take on a life of their own. A retired lieutenant-colonel weighs his pistol, & his future, in his h&. & eighteen-year-old Anna, namesake of the Feast, prepares to take her place in tomorrow`s festival of drinking & dancing, eating & burning. On this night of misdeeds & mischief, they are joined by a dead ferryman, a hapless bellringer, two robbers in football shirts & a vixen on the hunt as the fantastic, the menacing, & the inexplicable collide in the most surprising ways. ...

Before the Heroes Came
- Antarctica in the 1890s is an appreciation of the pioneering ventures in the far south before the arrival
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