"A powerful, complex, and fascinating coming-of-age novel." -- Costa Book Award PanelA boy and a girl in the Philippine jungle must confront what coming of age will mean to their friendship made even more complicated when Americans invade their country. Samkad lives deep in the Philippine jungle, and has never encountered anyone from outside his own tribe before. He's about to become a man, and while he's desperate to grow up, he's worried that this will take him away from his best friend, Little Luki, who isn't ready for the traditions and ceremonies of being a girl in her tribe.But when a bad omen sends Samkad's life in another direction, he discovers the brother he never knew he had. A brother who tells him of a people called "Americans." A people who are bringing war and destruction right to their home...A coming-of-age story set at the end of the 19th century in a remote village in the Philippines, this is a story about growing up, discovering yourself, and the impact of colonialism on native peoples and their lives.
Hiding out in the French Quarter of New Orleans only made sense for someone like Skylar Livingston. Owning a voodoo shop was just an added touch for fun. It also helped with her cover, plus gave space to the multitude of ghosts in her family. And her shop was close to the cemeteries, … a very necessary part of her … hobby. Gage Hawkins was tracking his uncle’s last movements before his disappearance hunting a special set of tarot cards which led to Skylar’s shop, Talking Bones. After a bad head injury that brought weird sights into his view, Gage could see this Talking Bones place and Skylar were special. He could only hope she had answers because he had a lot of questions … Skylar preferred the dead to the living most times, but Gage had her reconsidering. Until she realizes something is wrong in his world, and it’s quickly overtaking hers. When Gage’s uncle turns up dead, more than the undead are in Skylar’s world. … A killer is too …
Published ten years after the genocide in Rwanda, The Bone Woman is a riveting, deeply personal account by a forensic anthropologist sent on seven missions by the UN War Crimes Tribunal. To prosecute charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, the UN needs proof that the bodies found are those of non-combatants. This means answering two questions: who the victims were, and how they were killed. The only people who can answer both these questions are forensic anthropologists. Before being sent to Rwanda in 1996, Clea Koff was a twenty-three-year-old graduate student studying prehistoric skeletons in the safe confines of Berkeley, California. Over the next four years, her gruelling investigation into events that shocked the world transformed her from a wide-eyed student into a soul-weary veteran — and a wise and deeply thoughtful woman. Her unflinching account of those years — what she saw, how it affected her, who went to trial based on evidence she collected — makes for an unforgettable read, alternately riveting, frightening and miraculously hopeful. Readers join Koff as she comes face to face with the human meaning of genocide: exhuming almost five hundred bodies from a single grave in Kibuye, Rwanda; uncovering the wire-bound wrists of Srebrenica massacre victims in Bosnia; disinterring the body of a young man in southwestern Kosovo as his grandfather looks on in silence. As she recounts the fascinating details of her work, the hellish working conditions, the bureaucracy of the UN, and the heartbreak of survivors, Koff imbues her story with an immense sense of hope, humanity and justice.
It was still light so I decided to venture out into the garden. I had never walked out of an argument before, and certainly not one at such an early stage. I think we were both quite pig headed, and my pride had taken an instant punch to the kidney. I didn't expect Rachel to follow me outside, and I certainly didn't want her to. I had slighted her suggestion, and she had taken it badly. I knew I should have stayed, talked it through and made her see my side of things. I should have told her that I would do this film, and if the future didn't work out as I hoped then I would consider her proposal. Hell, as an accountant she would set the business up for me and keep all the books. All I would have to do was do up shitty old houses. Most of it was all cosmetic anyway, a lick of paint here, a new carpet there, a few light fittings and stuff. All done on the cheap, supermarket goods made to look expensive. People would pay more for the houses giving me more profit. Once they moved in they could take all my crappy fittings out if they wanted to, it wouldn't bother me in the slightest. I had the skill for it, and that was one of the most important factors in her proposal. The one thing I didn't have just now was the will to do it, and that made one bitch of a difference. I walked down the path at the front of the house. I marvelled at my own work as I passed by, the grass was neatly cut, and was growing in neat strips, making it look like a professionally cut soccer pitch or tennis court. The gravel driveway was well laid and even. There were a couple of stone sculptures at either end of the drive. In fact they weren't stone at all, but a kind of outdoor material made to look like stone. They were weighted down with sand and looked pretty authentic. I figured that if my movie was a success and I got other roles soon I would invest in some real stone ones. I wandered right down to the end of the drive, where our land meets the main road. When I say main road, I don't mean a major carriageway, it was actually a B-road which led towards the M1. There wasn't a lot of traffic around at the best of times, although tonight was unusually silent. I couldn't even hear the usual dull and distant roar of the traffic from the motorway as a thousand souls passed in the near vicinity of my life. Tonight there seemed to be nobody about, not even in the distance. It was just the night for a perfect murder. Why that thought entered my head I was unsure, it just suddenly popped in there and refused to budge. It was disturbing that I should have such an idea so easy, but there it was. I could kill Rachel, and then there would be no reason why I couldn't do whatever I wanted. I could act forever, I could paint houses forever, whatever the fuck I wanted to do. With her out of the way there would be nothing to stop me except my own ambition. I couldn't quite believe I was having these thoughts. I know that everyone is prone to the occasional lapse in normal behaviour, but it usually passes in a moment or two. It also leads to intense remorse that the thought ever occurred. Not in this case though. The thought of digging a grave right here and now, and luring Rachel here, throwing her into the newly dug hole and covering it with earth. She would scream for a while, but there would be nobody to hear her. I would keep filling the hole with earth, and then the screaming would stop. She would be gone forever. I would report her missing, and she would never be found. I would be looked at with sympathy, and my career would skyrocket because of it. I would be the hero who came back from the brink to relaunch a successful acting career. I would marry a supermodel, but not before a string of torrid but highly sexually charged relationships had taken place. I had a peculiar sensation of déjà vu, as if this wasn't exactly a new thought, or indeed a new experience for me. I did
To save his tribe, Stopmouth must abandon it. Leaving the stone-age world of the surface behind, he makes his way to the Roof, the mysterious hi-tech world suspended above. But the Roof has its own problems. The nanotechnology that controls it is collapsing. And now a rebellion against the ruling Commission is about to erupt. Hunted by the Commission's nano-enhanced agents, Stopmouth must succeed in a desperate hunt of his own: to find the woman he loves. Only she knows how to save his tribe. But in this super-sophisticated world, all he has to fight with are his raw strength and fierce courage. A powerful, original and pulse-racing novel from the author of The Inferior.
Talking with Angel about Illness, Death and Survival is the moving story of a young girl battling leukaemia. She eventually realizes that she is going to die and receives hope and comfort through nightly conversations with her favourite doll, Angel, who helps her embrace a new perspective on dying and the possibility that consciousness may survive after death. Her fear of death is ultimately lifted by her new-found spiritual wisdom and by the account of a near-death experience told to her by a young companion, as well as by a deathbed vision she has of her deceased grand-mother.
Bred In The Bone By Leslie S. Talley In this sequel to Make Old Bones Otis, Clarice, and Miss Letty act as exchange innkeepers at Castle Keep in St. Augustine, Florida. Castle Keep, built of timbers from a shipwreck, has a disturbing history which carries over to the present. Recently a series of break-ins by a homeless man and the sound of chains dragging in the attic complicate matters. Miss Letty and Clarice visit the original plantation site where Clarice discovers a skeleton in the icehouse. In addition, they find the burned body of the homeless man in a dragon sculpture, causing them to make connections among disparate events separated by over a century. Add to the mix a psychic, an African-American journalism student, the Donner wedding party, Florida Gators, two snobbish Southerners, father and son mural painters, an obstreperous Cavalier King Charles spaniel named Charles Dickens, and an obnoxious, but, unwittingly, helpful twelve-year-old named Beddington.
The Ecsoli have taken Anaskar, raiding the city for bones of the Sea God and holding King Oseto captive in his own palace. Yet there he discovers an even greater threat in the form of his own Greatmask, who grows impatient for the Sacrifice. Hiding in the blackened streets, Flir must deal with her uncertainty regarding Kanis while gathering a resistance force, where she discovers even her vast strength seems useless before the blue-cloaked Ecsoli. Beyond the Wards, Ain heads home, ready to face the shame of failing at the Sea Shrine. Instead, he finds mysterious and deadly Darklings hunting his loved ones. In his desperation he makes a startling discovery about his Pathfinder heritage. Meanwhile, miles distant, Sofia and her father struggle for mastery of Argeon and Osani as they race toward the city. A battered Notch finds himself making a similar journey, just as unsure if he will return in time to help the city in its darkest hour, as enemies pour through its broken walls.
