Fireside reading

It's the most wonderful time of the year....the fire is burning low and the kids are asleep. The Christmas tree wafts the soft scent of pine around the dimly lit lounge where, atop the card-strewn mantelpiece, the Christmas candles cast flickering shadows across the holly-decked hall. Sigh.... All you need now is a nip of Baileys, a dog snoring at your feet... and a good book to curl up with. OK, you've come to the right place. Here are, in no particular order, a few seriously excellent reads for the season:

A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

This has been called the novel of India. Brilliant characterisation, riveting plot, superbly drawn atmosphere. This novel stayed with me for years after I finished reading it. You can smell and taste the sounds and sights of India as if you were actually there. Honest! It's not a novel for the faint-hearted though, so be warned. Not everyone has a happy ending but I promise you a thoroughly entertaining and beautifully observed portrait of this great and troubled continent.

Also check out Rohinton's other novels: 'Family Matters' and 'Such a Long Journey'. These novels are also wonderful, heartwarming, if a little disturbing, reads.

Birdsong - Sebastian Faulkes


Harrowing, moving, edge-of-your-seat suspense, nail-biting tension, wrist- slashing forbidden romance - Birdsong has it all. The story begins in France on the very cusp of the Great War when the young Stephen Wraysford arrives as a guest in the grand but stifling household of a local textile magnate, M. Azaire. A hopeless, tragic love affair between Wraysford and Azaire's unhappy wife, Isabel, draws you into the story before Faulkes pulls out all the stops and drags you headlong into the trenches to follow Stephen Wraysford's desperate and shattering bid to survive the horrors of trench warfare.

Just superb.

The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje

An amazing book. Is it a poem, or a novel? Well, it's both. The prose is amongst the best I've ever read. The plot weaves between pre WW2 Africa, where we join a group of desert explorers led by the enigmatic Count Almasy, and Italy towards the end of the war where a group of shell-shocked survivors huddle together in a derelict, booby trapped villa, licking their wounds and recalling the horrific events of the past years.

It's a story of love and loss, the pain of warfare and separation, tempered with a real sense of history and the brooding, unmappable mysteries of the desert. Utterly spellbinding.


I can't complete this trio of recommendation without drawing your attention to a novel entitled

The Trespass - Scott Hunter

First they tried to kill him - then they took his daughter

Anthropologist Simon Dracup knows that his only hope of finding her alive lies within the pages of his grandfather's diary, the record of a near century old expedition to Mount Ararat, legendary resting place of the great Ark of Noah.

When the CIA pays him a visit Dracup learns that something was found on the Ark. Something priceless. Now its owners have taken it back, but they want revenge and Dracup is their prime target. . .

Dracup finds himself plunged into a desperate battle for survival as he hunts for evidence that will lead him to the sinister Korumak Tanri, but even he could not have predicted the shocking truth about the mysterious cult and the ancient secret they are sworn to protect. .

Check this novel out at www.scott-hunter.net and warm your toes by the fire...

www.scott-hunter.net/images/trespassJRfront.jpg

Press release

Reading, United Kingdom, August 03, 2009 --(PR.com)-- Mr. Hunter commented recently: “Without giving too much away the plot is based on an archaeological discovery made in the early part of the 20th century, in Turkey: the remains of a gigantic nautical vessel. Naturally there was a huge cover-up, but not until now has the extent of that cover up been made known. Yes, the novel is fictional, but its bedrock is set firmly upon a real event in world history. And yes, I’d be most interested in hearing what certain media-friendly, evolution-championing scientific minds have to say regarding the extraordinary contents of the vessel. No doubt they’ll try to explain it away, but the truth is the truth, whichever way you look at it.”

‘The Trespass’ is sure to add fuel to the already volcanic discussions regarding man’s origins and the creation of the world. But it has to be said that the novel is hugely entertaining. It has been described as a ‘tour de force’, ‘a classic page-turner’, and ‘essential holiday reading’.

Scott Hunter will be appearing at various book-signings over the holiday period. See local press and the author’s website for details.

The ‘Trespass’ is available via Myrtle Villa Publishing from Amazon.com, Waterstone’s, WH Smith, Blackwell’s and all good bookstores. ISBN-13: 978-0956151001

Scott Hunter is a sprightly 54 and lives in Berkshire with his wife, his two youngest children and a hyperactive Cocker Spaniel pup named Archie.



Merry reading!