Choices from Woodbine Books
For over a decade Stephen Purvis had been a pillar of Havana's expat community, one of many foreign businessmen investing in Cuba's crawl from Cold War communism towards modernity. But for reasons unknown to him he was also under State Security's microscope. One morning during the height of President Raúl Castro's purges in 2012, while his family slept the unmarked Ladas of State Security arrived at his home and he was taken away into the absurd and brutal world of Cuban justice. In this engrossing memoir, Purvis recounts his experience of the less sunny side of Cuba as Raúl Castro consolidates his grip on power.
In a triumphant return to his much-loved Courtney series, Wilbur Smith introduces us to the bravest new member of the famed family, Saffron Courtney. Saffron grows up on a sprawling Kenyan estate, under the watchful eye of her father, prominent businessman and distinguished war veteran Leon Courtney. Her childhood is idyllic, until a family tragedy forces her to grow up much faster than necessary. As she grows into a spirited teenager, her thirst for knowledge and adventure leads her to England, where she finds herself inevitably drawn into the heart of the gathering storm in the lead up to World War II. Gerhard von Meerbach is the privileged and idealistic younger brother of Konrad von Meerbach, heir to an industrial fortune, and vocal supporter of the Nazi Party. Gerhard struggles to stay true to his principles in an increasingly cruel world. His friendship with a Jewish man places him in danger, and forces him to take a stand against the forces of evil that have overtaken his country and his family. But, unknown to him, he is caught in a trap that could cost him everything he holds dear. As the Second World War looms over them all, Saffron and Gerhard’s worlds will collide – but will there be more to unite them than tear them apart?
Here lives an orphaned ward named Lyra Belacqua, whose carefree life among the scholars at Oxford's Jordan College is shattered by the arrival of two powerful visitors. First, her fearsome uncle, Lord Asriel, appears with evidence of mystery and danger in the far North, including photographs of a mysterious celestial phenomenon called Dust and the dim outline of a city suspended in the Aurora Borealis that he suspects is part of an alternate universe. He leaves Lyra in the care of Mrs. Coulter, an enigmatic scholar and explorer who offers to give Lyra the attention her uncle has long refused her. In this multilayered narrative, however, nothing is as it seems. Lyra sets out for the top of the world in search of her kidnapped playmate, Roger, bearing a rare truth-telling instrument, the alethiometer. All around her children are disappearing — victims of so-called "Gobblers" — and being used as subjects in terrible experiments that separate humans from their daemons, creatures that reflect each person's inner being. And somehow, both Lord Asriel and Mrs Coulter are involved.
Solitary photojournalist John Wallace struggles to consciousness to find he has been bound and blindfolded by a masked man who is preparing to hang him in his own living room. Forced onto a chair with a noose around his neck, Wallace briefly reconsiders his mostly lonely life before the chair is kicked out beneath him and his world fades to black. Then he gets lucky and manages to escape his apartment, just ahead of his assailant. Bloody, barefoot, and with at least one broken rib, he has no choice but to run for his life. With no idea who would want to kill him, he makes it to the hospital and files a police report, but it soon becomes clear that as far as the authorities are concerned the only threat to Wallace's life is himself, and he is placed under suicide watch. When his would-be killer strikes again, Wallace realizes he will have to figure out who is hunting him and stop him on his own. The pendulum of fate swung briefly in his favour, but it's only a matter of time before its momentum carries it to the other side . . .
