Books of the month for June

General Fiction: Kevin Kwan – Crazy Rich Asians
Uproarious, addictive, and filled with jaw-dropping opulence, Crazy Rich Asians is an insider's look at the Asian jet set; a perfect depiction of the clash between old money and new money - and a fabulous novel about what it means to be young, in love, and gloriously, crazily rich.

British Crime: Andrew Martin – Night Train to Jamalpur
Jamalpur is our book of the month for June. India, 1923. On the broiling Night Mail from Calcutta to Jamalpur, a man is shot dead in a first class compartment. Detective Inspector Jim Stringer was sleeping in the next compartment along. Was he the intended target?

Tough Crime: Greg Iles – Natchez Burning
Growing up in the rural Southern hamlet of Natchez, Mississippi, Penn Cage learned everything he knows about honor and duty from his father, Tom Cage. But now the beloved family doctor and pillar of the community is accused of murdering Violet Turner, the beautiful nurse with whom he worked in the dark days of the early 1960s. A fighter who has always stood for justice, Penn is determined to save his father, even though Tom, stubbornly evoking doctor-patient privilege, refuses to speak up in his own defense.

Rich in Southern atmosphere and electrifying plot turns, Natchez Burning marks the brilliant return of a genuine American master of suspense. Tense and disturbing, it is the most explosive, exciting, sexy, and ambitious story Greg Iles has written yet.

Science Fiction: John Barnes – Directive 51
Part philosophic discussion, part international terrorist faction, and part artists’ movement, “Daybreak” consists of a group of diverse people with radical ideas who are united in their desire to take down modern civilization. And when they strike, the government has no choice but to implement its emergency contingency program: Directive 51.

Fantasy: Graham Edwards – Talus and the Frozen King
A dead warrior king frozen in winter ice. Six grieving sons, each with his own reason to kill. Two weary travellers caught up in a web of suspicion and deceit.

In a time before our own, wandering bard Talus and his companion Bran journey to the island realm of Creyak, where the king has been murdered.

Creyak is a place of secrets and spirits, mystery and myth. It will take a clever man indeed to unravel the truth. The kind of man this ancient world has not seen before.

Paranormal/Urban Fantasy: Richelle Mead – Gameboard of the Gods (Age of X #1)
The truth is, when you banish the gods from the world, they eventually come back – with a vengeance.

In a futuristic world nearly destroyed by religious extremists, Justin March is a former investigator of religious groups who was sent into exile after a failed job, a fate that has left the brilliant servitor bitter and free to indulge his addictive personality.  Suddenly, Justin is sent home to the Republic of United North America (RUNA) with a peculiar assignment – to solve a string of ritualistic murders steeped in seemingly unexplainable phenomena.

Classic of the Month: George Eliot – Romola
There is no book of mine about which I more thoroughly feel that I swear by every sentence as having been written with my best blood'

Wrote George Eliot of Romola, the novel which argues her most profound and utopian vision of the position of women. Romola's patient subservience to her scholar-father Bardo, her unhappy marriage to supple and treacherous Tito, and her passionate intellectual and spiritual awakening take place in Renaissance Florence which, like Victorian Britain, was caught up in a period of ferment and transition.

Romola appeared in 1862-3 to high praise by Victorians from Tennyson and Trollope to Henry James, and discerning modern readers will recognize it as George Eliot's first mature masterpiece. In her introduction to this new edition, Dorothea Barrett explores the issues of gender and learning, desire and scholarship, and the interweaving of history and fiction which she identifies at the centre of the novel.

Teen reading: E. Lockhart – We Were Liars
We are the Liars. We are beautiful, privileged and live a life of carefree luxury.We are cracked and broken. A story of love and romance. A tale of tragedy. Which are lies? Which is truth?