Recent reviews
24 September 2009
The crimson rooms
Author: Katharine McMahon
Call No: F MAC
Evelyn is a young woman who has defied convention to become one of the country's pioneer female lawyers. Living at home with her mother, aunt, and grandmother, Evelyn is still haunted by the death of her younger brother James in the First World War. Therefore when the doorbell rings late one night and a woman appears, claiming to have mothered James's child, her world is turned upside down. Evelyn distrusts Meredith at first, but also finds that this new arrival challenges her work-obsessed lifestyle. So far her legal career has not set the world alight. But then two cases arise that make Evelyn realise perhaps she can make a difference. The first concerns a woman called Leah Marchant whose children have been taken away from her simply because she is poor. The second, Stephen Wheeler - a former acquaintance of Daniel Breen, her boss - has been charged with murdering his own wife. It is clear to Breen and Evelyn that Wheeler is innocent but he won't talk. After being humiliated in court, Evelyn is approached by a dashing lawyer called Nicholas Thorne. She is needled by his privileged background and old-fashioned attitudes, but despite being engaged, he cannot seem to resist sparring with this feisty young female. In the meantime, Meredith makes an earth-shattering accusation about James. With the Wheeler case coming to a head, and her heart in limbo, Evelyn takes matters into her own hands.
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24 September 2009
The seamstress: a novel
Author: Frances de Pontes Peebles
Call No: F PEE
Having mastered the clothing maker's art at an early age, orphaned siblings Emília and Luzia dos Santos harbour individual dreams for the future but find their lives playing out divergently as the wife of a wealthy doctor's son and a member of a rebel bandit gang.
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6 September 2009
Sword Song
Author: Bernard Cornwell
Call No: HIST COR
The year is 885 and England is at peace, divided between the Danish kindom to the north and the Saxon kingdom of Wessex in the south. Uhtred, the dispossessed son of a Northumbrian lord, warrior by instinct, Viking by nature, appears to have settled down. He has land, a wife, two children and a duty given to him by Alfred to hold the frontier on the Thames. But trouble stirs, a dead man has risen and new Vikings have arrived to occupy London. It is Uhtred, half Saxon, half Dane, whose uncertain loyalties must now decide England's whole future.
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6 September 2009
Troy: Fall of Kings
Author: David & Stella Gemmell
Call No: HIST GEM
On the killing fields outside the golden city of Troy, forces loyal to the Mykene king Agamemnon mass. Among them is Odysseus, fabled storyteller and reluctant ally to the Mykene. He knows that Agamemnon will stop at nothing to secure the treasure that lies within the city walls, and that he must soon face his former friends in deadly combat.
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