The Death House
Sarah Pinsborough (Orion)
***
Book monster
This gripping YA novel answers the question of what the world would be like if there was to be no more illness. In a dystopian future those who make it past 18 without being tested positive for the Defective gene get to live their lives pain free. Those who aren’t so lucky are sent to the Death House. Pinborough shows how these kids, deal with this new life and ultimately death. With the two main characters, and the other inhabitants of the house, she paints a beautiful, haunting picture of innocence and what happens when it is lost. Despite a few unanswered questions and minor gaps in the plot, the novel remains with the reader long after it has been put down.
- Helené Prinsloo @helenayp
Rogue Elephant: Harnessing the power of democracy in the New India
Simon Denyer (Bloomsbury)
****
Book buff
India may be a software super-hub and home to four of the world’s 10 richest billionaires but that doesn’t mean it is a rich nation, says Denyer: its phenomenal economic growth is undermined by social inequality, corruption and dynastic politics. Washington Post China bureau chief Denyer, formerly the India bureau chief, sketches what went wrong. Though he rigorously provides the facts, it’s the anecdotal content that is riveting: the everyman stories behind the crooked business deals and the protests that have brought change. The biggest weapon India has is its democracy – the rogue elephant of the title – “magical in the way it binds this vast and varied nation together, and offering its best help for salvation”.
- Yvonne Fontyn @YvonneFontyn
What She Left
TR Richmond (Penguin)
****
Book thrill
Be careful what you reveal online. Anyone could be watching. When we die we leave something of ourselves behind: Facebook profiles, Twitter feeds, diaries, photographs. When journalist Alice Salmon dies, university professor Jeremy Cooke endeavours to recreate her life through these fragments and what emerges is a portrait of a woman who was a beloved friend and daughter, a campaigner for women’s rights, a fearless journalist. But soon the obituaries and platitudes thin and a deeper, more sinister narrative emerges. What She Left is a taut thriller set in a digital world where our every moment is shared.
- Sally Partridge @sapartridge
Wake
Elizabeth Knox (Corsair)
****
Book fiend
This is not your average zombie/Under-The-Dome tale, it’s a chilling and thoughtful supernatural horror set in Tasman Bay in New Zealand. An indescribable force cuts of the little village of Kahukura and causes the residents to turn into a murderous rage. The gore and violence of people eating, beating and killing everyone around them is only in the beginning of the book. After that, it’s all about the 14 survivors and how they cope. Knox says in her blog: “I guess maybe I’m more interested in trying to talk about the evil people endure.” And boy the stuff they have to endure. The rotting stench of death pervades all of them as they try to live normal lives – cook, eat, clean, fall in love, have sex. But they find that it’s the everyday fears that eventually get to them.
- Jennifer Platt @Jenniferdplatt
Book details
- The Death House by Sarah Pinborough
EAN: 9780575096875
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- Rogue Elephant by Simon Denyer
EAN: 9781408849798
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- What She Left by TR Richmond
EAN: 9780718179373
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- Wake by Elizabeth Knox
EAN: 9781472117533
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