waiting...waiting...

Half Brother, Kenneth Oppel (David Fickling)

Ben Tomlin has been an only child for thirteen years. So when his research-scientist parents bring home a baby chimp to raise as a human child, Ben's life is turned upside-down. Teaching a baby chimp how to understand language is not his idea of fun, especially when he's trying to settle in at his new school. But it isn't long before Zan's infectious personality endears him to everyone and he becomes a real member of the family. But just what will happen when he grows up and the experiment comes to an end? Ben must take dramatic steps, and the repercussions ricochet through home and community with devastating results. This phenomenal novel is a thought-provoking story of relationships and family, first love and growing up, ethics and dilemmas.
4th January 2011

Angel Creek, Sally Rippin (Text)

In her new falling-down home, in her new street, in her new suburb, Jelly waits for high school to begin. She can only feel happy up in the branches of the old apricot tree and by the creek at the back of the house. One night, Jelly and her cousins spot something in the creek’s dark waters. At first they think it’s a bird, but it isn’t…it’s a baby angel with a broken wing. And they decide to keep it. But soon things start to go wrong, and Jelly discovers that you can’t just take something from where it belongs and expect that it won’t be missed. Sally Rippin’s Angel Creek is a book about growing up: being brave and selfish and tough and scared. It’s a book about an angel. But not the sweet variety. It’s a book about the things that change and the things that always stay the same.
28th February 2011

More than you can say, Paul Torday (W & N Fiction/Hachette)

The bestselling author of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen returns with a Buchan-esque thriller. A late-night gambling session ends in a bet for Richard Gaunt: can he walk to Oxford by lunchtime the next day? Gaunt sets off and as morning breaks and the dreaming spires near, his evening's winnings look set to double. But when men in a Jeep reverse into him, scooping him off the roadside, Gaunt's life takes a very strange turn. Taken to a country house, he is kept hostage by a man with impeccable manners, Mr Khan who makes him an unusual offer - ten thousand pounds in return for a 'green card' marriage to a woman called Adeena.Traumatised by a tour of duty in Iraq, Gaunt has a cavalier attitude to life and feels he has nothing to lose. His childhood sweetheart won't speak to him, he has lost every job he ever had and he needs cash urgently. He therefore decides to accept Khan's strange proposal - never imagining where this decision will take him. For with his new bride comes a whole lot of trouble...
1st February 2011