The Macdermots of Ballycloran (1866)

A place called Winter

Patrick Gale

2015 · 368 pages · 3 reviews

Others: Positive

"A privileged elder son, and stammeringly shy, Harry Cane has followed convention at every step. Even the beginnings of an illicit, dangerous affair do little to shake the foundations of his muted existence - until the shock of discovery and the threat of arrest cost him everything. Forced to abandon his wife and child, Harry signs up for emigration to the newly colonized Canadian prairies. Remote and unforgiving, his allotted homestead in a place called Winter is a world away from the golden suburbs of turn-of-the-century Edwardian England. And yet it is here, isolated in a seemingly harsh landscape, under the threat of war, madness and an evil man of undeniable magnetism that the fight for survival will reveal in Harry an inner strength and capacity for love beyond anything he has ever known before. In this exquisite journey of self-discovery, loosely based on a real life family mystery, Patrick Gale has created an epic, intimate human drama, both brutal and breathtaking. It is a novel of secrets, sexuality and, ultimately, of great love."--Page [4] of cover.

An unrestored woman

Shobha Rao

2016 · 244 pages · 1 review

Others: Positive

A collection of intense tales of turmoil and tragedy that explores the reverberations of Partition through generations, from a mapmaker's gamble to a grandfather who cannot speak of what he escaped as a young boy.

And the Mountains Echoed

Khaled Hosseini

2013 · 446 pages · 2 reviews

Others: Overwhelmingly positive

Presents a story inspired by human love, how people take care of one another, and how choices resonate through subsequent generations. Afghanistan, 1952. Abdullah and his sister Pari live with their father and step-mother in the small village of Shadbagh. Their father, Saboor, is constantly in search of work and they struggle together through poverty and brutal winters. To Adbullah, Pari, as beautiful and sweet-natured as the fairy for which she was named, is everything. What happens to them-and the large and small manners in which it echoes through the lives of so many other people-is proof of the moral complexity of life. This story begins in 1952 Afghanistan with two motherless siblings and moves through complex relationships and generations to the United States, Paris, and Greece, weaving a story of commitment, love, honor, and sacrifice. The plot contains violence.

Bellman & Black

Diane Setterfield

2013 · 320 pages · 2 reviews

Others: Positive

Killing a bird with his slingshot as a boy, William Bellman grows up a wealthy family man unaware of how his act of childhood cruelty will have terrible consequences until a wrenching tragedy compels him to enter into a macabre bargain with a stranger in black.

Days Without End

Sebastian Barry

2016 · 320 pages · 3 reviews

Others: Leaning positive

Winner of the 2016 Costa Book of the Year and longlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize. Sebastian Barry's sensational new novel set in mid-19th Century America. After signing up for the US army in the 1850s, aged barely seventeen, Thomas McNulty and his brother-in-arms, John Cole, fight in the Indian Wars and the Civil War.Having both fled terrible hardships, their days are now vivid and filled with wonder, despite the horrors they both see and are complicit in. Then when a young Indian girl crosses their path, the possibility of lasting happiness seems within reach, if only they can survive.

Death and Mr. Pickwick

Stephen Jarvis

2015 · 816 pages · 1 review

Others: Positive