THE DEVIL'S FEATHER by Minette Walters

FIC

WALTERS

International war correspondent Connie Burns suspects a British mercenary with many aliases of the rapes and vicious murders of several women in Sierra Leone. When Burns is transferred to Iraq, she is taken captive by this man (aka Keith MacKenzie, who is now training Iraqi security forces) tortured and then released after three days.

Trying to recover from this devastating experience, Burns returns to England and rents an isolated house in the Dorset countryside, with the certainty that MacKenzie will come looking for her.

This is an interesting psychological thriller which incorporates several contemporary issues.

THE HOUSE ON BOSTWICK SQUARE by Velda Johnson

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JOHNSON, V.

Laura met and married her British husband in America. In time, she learned that her husband's parents were sending him money to keep him in America and away from their home, supposedly since his uncontrollable gambling shamed them. He appears to have committed suicide, but Laura is certain he was murdered. Unable to make a living and care for her small child, she takes herself and her daughter to the home of her husband's family, and house on Bostwick Square. There the mystery of her husband's life and death deepens and begins to endanger Laura. Readers who enjoy traditional romantic suspense will want to follow Laura's story as she attempts to uncover the truth.

THE BOLEYN INHERITANCE by Phillippa Gregory

FIC

GREGORY

Three women - Katherine Howard, Anne of Cleves, and Jane Boleyn - tell their versions of two very dangerous years during the reign of Henry VIII. Of the three, Jane Boleyn is the least well-known (the other two being wives of the English king) and perhaps the most interesting.

She had given testimony which send Anne Boleyn and her own husband to the scaffold and again becomes involved in the secret machinations of the court.

HOW I LIVE NOW by Meg Rosoff

FIC

ROSOFF

This novel depicts a futuristic wartime. When fifteen year-old Daisy's father sends her to England to live with cousins, she is more than happy to escape her nasty stepmother. While Daisy finds real family with her cousins, she bonds almost mystically with cousin Edmond, with whom she also begins a sexual relationship. Then, when enemy forces take over the country, the house is commandeered, and the boy and girl cousins are sent to different homes.

Survival is difficult, and the horror of war touches them all, but Edmond's experience is devastating. Reunited with him well after the conflict, and greatly changed in character and spirit, Daisy describes how she lives now.

Teens are this book's intended audience. Though Daisy and Edmond's relationship might be considered incestuous and some adults might be alarmed that a 15 yer-old is having sex at all, teen girls seem likely to devour Daisy's story.

LAMB IN LOVE by Carrie Brown

FIC
BROWN,C.

Norris Lamb is the postmaster in a small English village. He dispenses stamps and takes charge of all mailings in and out of the village. Vida Stephens lives in a mansion in and out of the village.

Vida Stephens lives in a mansion in the village and is the loving caretaker for the past twenty years of Manfred Perry, an autistic "child." Manfred lost his mother at birth and his father doesn't know how to relate to his challenged, non-speaking son.

Now after all these many years, Norris becomes aware of his love for Vida, but is too shy to express it. He sends her unsigned love letters postmarked from various parts of the world. Vida of course is quite baffled by this.
This story is all the more tender because the lovers are no longer young, and the author understands that love is disconcerting at any age.