Lovereading Latest: Family Drama

The Legacy of Eden - Nelle Davy

The Legacy of Eden
Nelle Davy

Format: Paperback - Released: 03/02/2012
Lovereading Price: £5.99 - Saving £2.00 (25%)

February 2012 Debut of the Month. A ‘Piece of Passion’ from Nelle’s editor, Jenny Hutton:When we first read The Legacy of Eden we were left breathless. Nelle is a phenomenal talent, writing with emotion and drama while still capturing the stark reality of the life of a dark, dysfunctional family in the American Midwest. The Legacy of Eden is a magnificent, sweeping epic that charts the rise and fall of the infamous Hathaway dynasty, the reader is drawn back through history into a tangled web of ambition and power, destruction and freedom, love and betrayal. Long-buried family secrets and scandal unfurl with a quiet, mesmerising power and the characters, who stay with you long after you’ve put the book down, are a testament to Nelle’s skill as a writer and storyteller. This is a captivating debut."

Rescue - Anita Shreve

Rescue
Anita Shreve

Format: Paperback - Released: 02/02/2012
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February 2012 Book of the Month. A tale of love, banishment and renewal, Rescue is a perfectly paced novel, written with Shreve's skilful lightness of touch and perceptive characterisation. Alternating between the life-and-death scenarios Peter regularly encounters and the fraught family tension between father and daughter, the reader is gripped by the drama and emotion that Shreve so expertly builds. Shreve is the bestelling author of Testimony, A Change in Altitude and the Orange prize shotlisted The Weight of Water.

Care of Wooden Floors - Will Wiles

Care of Wooden Floors
Will Wiles

Format: Hardback - Released: 02/02/2012
Lovereading Price: £9.74 - Saving £3.25 (25%)

February 2012 Debut of the Month. Inhabiting the spaces in-between everyday events - a place where tiny oversights can have disastrous, farcical and even fatal consequences. This is a unique, bold and brilliant debut from a darkly funny new voice - which has a little bit of floor care in it as well.

The Book of Lies - Mary Horlock

The Book of Lies
Mary Horlock

Format: Paperback - Released: 16/02/2012
Lovereading Price: £5.99 - Saving £2.00 (25%)

February 2012 Debut of the Month. A well-written insight into the twisted mind of an unashamed murderer, as she admits in the second paragraph of this book (see link to the Opening Extract on this page). In fact, The Book of Lies is so easy and approachable, and makes you so familiar with the writer, it feels like you are reading a personal letter from her to you. Alongside the subtly-woven, insightful narrative, throughout this book there are interesting footnotes about the island of Guernsey which add an interesting historical perspective as well as underpin the credibility of the story. A compelling read.

The Soldier's Wife - Joanna Trollope

The Soldier's Wife
Joanna Trollope

Format: Hardback - Released: 02/02/2012
Lovereading Price: £14.24 - Saving £4.75 (25%)

Can a man trained to fight adjust again to family and domestic life? And how will the family cope if he can't? Through the well observed, astute yet sensitive eye of the author this novel takes a keen look at the home lives of the modern Army. What happens, these days, when love and a vocation collide, head on?

A Change in Altitude - Anita Shreve

A Change in Altitude
Anita Shreve

Format: Paperback - Released: 29/04/2010
Lovereading Price: £5.99 - Saving £2.00 (25%)

Anita Shreve always manages to throw a curve ball into events and change her characters lives irrevocably. A newly married couple find out how little they know about each other while on a Kenyan expedition. Get ready for powerful, emotional stuff.

Fighting Dirty - June Hampson

Fighting Dirty
June Hampson

Format: Paperback - Released: 16/02/2012
Lovereading Price: £5.99 - Saving £2.00 (25%)

The final, heart-pounding instalment in June Hampson's compelling gangland saga series. Our Editorial guru Sarah Broadhurst says of the series 'It’s evocative and gritty and it's got heart, violence, sex and an underground current which is very atmospheric.' See the links below to read the books in order. 1 Trust Nobody 2 Broken Bodies 3 Damaged Goods 4 Fatal Cut 5 Jail Bait 6 Fighting Dirty

The Copper Beech - Maeve Binchy

The Copper Beech
Maeve Binchy

Format: Paperback - Released: 20/02/2012
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A Special Edition of The Copper Beech by Maeve Binchy to celebrate Orion's 20th anniversary. Maeve Binchy's marvellous portrait of a small Irish town whose untroubled surface conceals the passions, rivalries, friendships, ambitions and jealousies beneath.

Testimony - Anita Shreve

Testimony
Anita Shreve

Format: Paperback - Released: 04/06/2009
Lovereading Price: £5.99 - Saving £2.00 (25%)

Featured on The Book Show on Sky Arts on 30 October 2008. A sex scandal rocks the sheltered world of a private Vermont school, affecting students, parents and teachers alike. The story moves quickly as Shreve switches the narrative from one character to the next allowing the reader to see how each person involved views the situation. As the events unfold it becomes clear that blame and guilt are equally split amongst these characters and how this affects all of them makes for a dramatic and moving novel. This previous Lovereading author of the month has delivered a great story yet again.

Daughters-in-law - Joanna Trollope

Daughters-in-law
Joanna Trollope

Format: Paperback - Released: 05/01/2012
Lovereading Price: £5.99 - Saving £2.00 (25%)

January 2012 Book of the Month. Shortlisted for the Galaxy Popular Fiction Book of the Year Award 2011. Rachel has always been at the centre of her family of three sons but now the youngest is getting married. She must learn to adjust to the changing dynamics within the various new relationships. This is the author at her absolute best, a first rate read. Featured on The Book Show on Sky Arts on 17 March 2011. The Lovereading view... Joanna Trollope cleverly weaves together an involving family drama in which the matriarchal mother finds herself suddenly bereft of her 3 sons as they marry and their wives try to create some distance between them and the mother-in-law. A power struggle develops and as it does people are going to get hurt. As with all of Joanna Trollope's novels they are packed with emotion and the characters incredibly well drawn.

The Other Family - Joanna Trollope

The Other Family
Joanna Trollope

Format: Paperback - Released: 09/12/2010
Lovereading Price: £5.99 - Saving £2.00 (25%)

Oh this is a tough one. Joanna certainly knows how to put her thumb on a bruise and continually push till it hurts. Why Richie never divorced his first wife to marry the mother of his three girls, his partner for twenty-three years, is beyond me. Now he’s dead and there is a Will to sort out … oh dear. This is Joanna writing at the top of her game, as astute and sensitive as ever. Comparison: Libby Purves, Lionel Shriver, Elizabeth Buchan. To view a Q & A with Joanna, click the link below: Q&A with Joanna about The Other Family.

The Beginning of Spring - Penelope Fitzgerald

The Beginning of Spring
Penelope Fitzgerald

Format: Paperback - Released: 01/09/2003
Lovereading Price: £5.99 - Saving £2.00 (25%)

One of Katharine McMahon's favourite books. Highly evocative of time and place this wonderful novel set in the early 20th century is funny, touching and curious. A real treasure of a novel. A "Piece of Passion" from the publisher... Perhaps Penelope Fitzgerald’s finest novel, The Beginning of Spring is the story of Frank Reid, an ex-pat Englishman struggling to run his printing firm and keep his family together in turn-of-the-century Moscow. Written in Fitzgerald’s beautifully light, careful and evocative style and packed with her perfectly observed portraits of human nature (particularly of Frank’s young, but precociously intelligent, children), it is a wonderfully touching novel, about the confusions that life can throw at any of us. April 2010 Guest Editor Katharine McMahon on Penelope Fitzgerald... I was introduced to this author just as I began to be published, and I love her wit, and her quirky approach to plot. The Beginning of Spring is a delicious novel, and it's as if the entire book is pitched towards the very last few lines. This reads like a small, perfectly formed, Russian novel, but amazingly is written by a very English author.

Body Surfing - Anita Shreve

Body Surfing
Anita Shreve

Format: Paperback - Released: 06/03/2008
Lovereading Price: £6.74 - Saving £2.25 (25%)

Another beautifully written book from this author, set against a New Hampshire seaside backdrop which she seems to love and indeed you want to be curled up on a veranda looking out to sea when reading this tale of a young woman torn between two brothers. Although not her best novel it certainly deserves a read and her characterisation and sense of mood are as strong as ever.

A Village Affair - Joanna Trollope

A Village Affair
Joanna Trollope

Format: Paperback - Released: 21/09/1990
Lovereading Price: £5.99 - Saving £2.00 (25%)

To all intents and purposes this was Joanna’s first novel and it was the start of a genre labelled ‘aga saga’ – upper-middleclass country families getting into all sorts of messes. Joanna is queen of this type of novel and has grown with each new one. She’s lovely. She actually started her writing career penning historical novels under the name of Caroline Harvey. A "Piece of Passion" from the publisher... ‘A funny, intelligent and wonderfully involving novel for anyone who’s ever thought of leaving the rat race for the peace of village life – or who’s wondered if their present existence really contains all that life has to offer.' Linda Evans, Senior Editorial Director at Transworld

A Wedding in December - Anita Shreve

A Wedding in December
Anita Shreve

Format: Paperback - Released: 01/06/2006
Lovereading Price: £5.99 - Saving £2.00 (25%)

Not quite as in depth as some of her other novels, probably just because there are a lot of characters to deal with. Seven old college friend reunite for a wedding and old wounds, secrets and unresolved tensions come to the fore. It’s a good read but not one of her best.