BookTalk
BookTalk
Book Talk
with Smiffs book & card store, Nerja
Homeland (p) by Fernando
Aramburu is a heartbreaking
story of two best friends
whose families are divided by
the conflicting loyalties of
terrorism. Miren and Bittori
have been best friends all
their lives, growing up in the
same small town in the north
of Spain. With limited
interest in politics, the
terrorist threat posed by ETA
doesn’t seem to affect them.
When Bittori’s husband starts
receiving threatening letters
from the violent group,
demanding money, accusing
him of being a police
informant - she turns to her
friend for help. But Miren’s loyalties are torn: her son Joxe
Mari has just been recruited by the group and to denounce
them would be to condemn her own flesh and blood.
was no accident. The young
man travels to Scotland to
grieve with his surviving
family and soon immerses
himself in the study of
photography and pioneers a
new invention, a self-timer.
When this technology
inadvertently solves a crime,
it is not long before the
device draws the attention of
local law enforcement, and he
is invited to Glasgow to assist
police hunt down a serial
killer. Figure in the
Photograph (l) is by Kevin
Sullivan.
The Twins - The Soe’s Brothers of Vengeance (l) by Peter
Jacobs. After having set up one of the first underground
organisations in France, being captured and escaping over the
Pyrenees into Spain, brothers Henry and Alfred Newton were
delivered the devastating
news that the mercy ship
carrying their entire families -
parents, wives, children - had
been torpedoed and sunk by a
Nazi U-boat with the loss of
all aboard. From that moment
on, the Newton brothers were
consumed with a passion for
revenge... For the first time in
over 60 years, Peter Jacobs
reveals the dramatic,
harrowing tale of two
brothers driven by courage
steeped in vengeance.
Homeland leads off this
month’s Soltalk Hotlist of
titles, some entirely new,
others moving into small
paperback format for the first
time or being reissued,
sometimes after years out of
print. All are due for
publication on dates in April,
with availability in print this
month or in early May. The
Hotlist helps readers to
budget for and plan book
ordering.
Part campus novel, part
gangster thriller, ‘I Don’t
Expect Anyone to Believe Me
and other stories’ (p) is Juan
Pablo Villalobos at his best,
exuberantly foul-mouthed and intellectually agile. This hugely
entertaining novel, the winner of Spain’s prestigious Herralde
Prize, makes light work of
difficult subjects
immigration, corruption,
family loyalty and love in a
story where the bad guys
aren’t as expected... and nor is
anyone else.
Museum of Broken Promises
(p) by Elizabeth Buchan, is set
in Paris, today. The Museum
of Broken Promises is a place
of wonder and sadness, hope and loss. Every object in the
museum has been donated - a cake tin, a wedding veil, a baby’s
shoe. And each represent a moment of grief or terrible
betrayal. The museum is a place where people come to speak
to the ghosts of the past and,
sometimes, to lay them to
rest. Laure, the owner and
curator, has also hidden
artefacts from her own
painful youth amongst the
objects on display... ‘The
Museum of Broken Promises’
is a beautiful, evocative love-
story and a heart-breaking
exploration of some of the
darkest moments in European
history.
1898. When Juan’s father is
killed while working as a
photographer in Cuba, he is
left with nothing but his
father’s last photos amid the
chaos as the war between
Spain and America escalates.
But the images reveal his
father’s last moments, and
Juan soon realises his death
Collins Very First Spanish
Dictionary (p) is for age 5+.
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