Sixty-two days after the disappearance . . . A man is arrested after a road accident in the small town of Avechot. His shirt is covered in blood. Could this have anything to do with a missing girl called Anna Lou? Detective Vogel is on the case, but his unconventional means of investigation end up unsettling the locals. Also looming over Vogel is a case from his past that nearly destroyed his career. Determined not to lose again, he will do anything to solve the mystery surrounding Anna Lou's disappearance. Then, a media storm hits the quiet town and Vogel is sure that the suspect will be flushed out. Yet the clues are confusing, perhaps false, and following them may be a far cry from discovering the truth at the heart of a dark town. 'A gripping read . . . I defy anyone to guess the denouement' - Guardian on The Whisperer 'Gruesome and gripping . . . a taut psychological thriller' - The Times on The Whisperer
Weaving together narrative essay and bilingual poetry, Claudia D. Hernández’s lyrical debut follows her tumultuous adolescence as she crisscrosses the American continent: a book "both timely and aesthetically exciting in its hybridity" (The Millions). Seven-year-old Claudia wakes up one day to find her mother gone, having left for the United States to flee domestic abuse and pursue economic prosperity. Claudia and her two older sisters are taken in by their great aunt and their grandmother, their father no longer in the picture. Three years later, her mother returns for her daughters, and the family begins the month-long journey to El Norte. But in Los Angeles, Claudia has trouble assimilating: she doesn’t speak English, and her Spanish sticks out as “weird” in their primarily Mexican neighborhood. When her family returns to Guatemala years later, she is startled to find she no longer belongs there either. A harrowing story told with the candid innocence of childhood, Hernández’s memoir depicts a complex self-portrait of the struggle and resilience inherent to immigration today.
At the end of the world, or in the middle of nowhere, there is a small village called Bukojna. It is located in Gora, a province of Albania inhabited by an ethnic minority called the Gorani. They speak their own unique language, tell their own legends, follow their own rites and customs, and are believed to be of Bogomil origins. According to the legends, in Bukojna, the sun rises twice every day and the moon sets twice every dawn. The ancient settlement has also welcomed more inhabitants of various origins, from the good-looking Vlachs and the knowledgeable Jews to the brave and proud highlanders. It is a village where “men of turn grey when still children and see better at night than at daylight,” as Majka, a supposedly 300-year-old woman forgotten by death, says. It is precisely in this microcosm of the Albanian Gora - where the obligatory norms of a new life stipulated by the dictatorship of the proletariat try to enroot themselves with the ruthlessness and harshness that characterized the fifties – that the novel’s events are narrated through the scrutinizing and suspicious outlook of a child. The violent attempt to uproot a person’s memory, their identity, turns into savageness towards everything that is human, including the ownership of the land, the use of pastures in the border area, the celebration of St. George, wedding customs, Majka’s prayers, the song of the girls.
Young, overworked, overtired, overstressed medical intern Sarah James has no time for sleuthing. Her elderly neighbors, the spunky Fog Ladies, have nothing but time. When, one by one, old ladies die in their elegant apartment building in San Francisco, Sarah assumes it is the natural consequence of growing old. The Fog Ladies assume murder. Mrs. Bridge falls off a stool cleaning bugs out of her kitchen light. Mrs. Talwin hits her head in the bathtub and drowns. Suddenly, the Pacific Heights building is turning over tenants faster than the fog rolls in on a cool San Francisco evening. Sarah resists the Fog Ladies' perseverations. But when one of them falls down the stairs and tells Sarah she was pushed, even Sarah believes evil lurks in their building. Can they find the killer before they fall victim themselves?
Life changes in an instant. On a foggy beach. In the seconds when Abby Mason—photographer, fiancée soon-to-be-stepmother—looks into her camera and commits her greatest error. Heartbreaking, uplifting, and beautifully told, here is the riveting tale of a family torn apart, of the search for the truth behind a child’s disappearance, and of one woman’s unwavering faith in the redemptive power of love—all made startlingly fresh through Michelle Richmond’s incandescent sensitivity and extraordinary insight. Six-year-old Emma vanished into the thick San Francisco fog. Or into the heaving Pacific. Or somewhere just beyond: to a parking lot, a stranger’s van, or a road with traffic flashing by. Devastated by guilt, haunted by her fears about becoming a stepmother, Abby refuses to believe that Emma is dead. And so she searches for clues about what happened that morning—and cannot stop the flood of memories reaching from her own childhood to illuminate that irreversible moment on the beach. Now, as the days drag into weeks, as the police lose interest and fliers fade on telephone poles, Emma’s father finds solace in religion and scientific probability—but Abby can only wander the beaches and city streets, attempting to recover the past and the little girl she lost. With her life at a crossroads, she will leave San Francisco for a country thousands of miles away. And there, by the side of another sea, on a journey that has led her to another man and into a strange subculture of wanderers and surfers, Abby will make the most astounding discovery of all—as the truth of Emma’s disappearance unravels with stunning force. A profoundly original novel of family, loss, and hope—of the choices we make and the choices made for us—The Year of Fog beguiles with the mysteries of time and memory even as it lays bare the deep and wondrous workings of the human heart. The result is a mesmerizing tour de force that will touch anyone who knows what it means to love a child. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Michelle Richmond's Golden State.
Katie Firestone, champion kayaker and owner of a whale-watching tour boat, has invited George, along with Nancy, Ned, and Bess, to vacation north of San Francisco in Seabreak. But when Katie’s boat is vandalized, suspicion falls on fisherman Holt Scotto, who may be trying to run Katie out of business. The menace doesn’t stop there: a bike accident, a stalker, danger at an abandoned lighthouse, and a terrifying kayak trip lead Nancy to a hidden sea cave. Inside, Nancy discovers a dangerous secret. Soon her fearless instincts plunge her deeper into trouble—and it will take all her courage, daring, and wits to get herself and her friends out of it alive!
A Newbery Honor Book. Greta had always loved the fog—the soft gray mist that rolled in from the sea and drifted over the village. The fog seemed to have a secret to tell her. Then one day when Greta was walking in the woods and the mist was closing in, she saw the dark outline of a stone house against the spruce trees—a house where only an old cellar hole should have been. Then she saw a surrey come by, carrying a lady dressed in plum-colored silk. The woman beckoned for Greta to join her, and soon Greta found herself launched on an adventure that would take her back to a past that existed only through the magic of the fog.
A chilling story of madness and murder, The Fog is a classic horror novel from James Herbert, author of The Rats. Life in tranquil Wiltshire is shattered by an earth-splitting disaster. Yet the true danger is just beginning. A malevolent fog ascends from the abyss, spreading through the air, destined to devastate the lives of all those it encounters . . . 'James Herbert comes at us with both hands' – Stephen King A classic of horror and supernatural thrillers, The Fog is an exploration of the immense destruction chemical weapons can cause – a stark reminder of humanity's frailty in face of uncontrollable forces.
