Books of the month for March

General Fiction: Lia Mills – Fallen

A remarkable love story amidst the ruins of the First World War and the Easter Rising Spring, 1915. Katie Crilly gets the news she dreaded: her beloved twin brother, Liam, has been killed on the Western Front. A year later, when her home city of Dublin is suddenly engulfed in violence, Katie finds herself torn by conflicting emotions.Taking refuge in the home of a friend, she meets Hubie Wilson, a friend of Liam's from the Front. There unfolds a remarkable encounter between two young people, both wounded and both trying to imagine a new life.

Lia Mills has written a novel that can stand alongside the works of Sebastian Faulks, Pat Barker and Louisa Young.Selected as the 2016 'Two Cities One Book'; Title for Dublin and Belfast. "Lia Mills writes superbly about the human heart. This is an historical story with an urgency that is completely modern: Fallen is shot through with the pleasure and the difficulty of being alive." (Anne Enright, winner of the Man Booker Prize).

British Crime: Amy Stewart – Girl Waits with Gun

Constance Kopp doesn't quite fit the mold. She towers over most men, has no interest in marriage or domestic affairs, and has been isolated from the world since a family secret sent her and her sisters into hiding fifteen years ago. One day a belligerent and powerful silk factory owner runs down their buggy, and a dispute over damages turns into a war of bricks, bullets, and threats as he unleashes his gang on their family farm. When the sheriff enlists her help in convicting the men, Constance is forced to confront her past and defend her family and she does it in a way that few women of 1914 would have dared.

Tough Crime: Vu Tran – Dragonfish

Robert, an Oakland cop, still can’t let go of Suzy, the enigmatic Vietnamese wife who left him two years ago. Now she’s disappeared from her new husband, Sonny, a violent Vietnamese smuggler and gambler who is blackmailing Robert into finding her for him.

As he pursues her through the sleek and seamy gambling dens of Las Vegas, shadowed by Sonny’s sadistic son, ‘Junior’, and assisted by unexpected and reluctant allies, Robert learns more about his ex-wife than he ever did during their marriage. He finds himself chasing the ghosts of her past, one that reaches back to a refugee camp in Malaysia after the fall of Saigon, and his investigation uncovers the existence of an elusive packet of her secret letters to someone she left behind long ago.

As Robert starts illuminating the dark corners of Suzy’s life, the legacy of her sins threatens to immolate them all.

Science Fiction: Jamie Sawyer – Artefact (Lazarus War #1)

Artefact is book one of The Lazarus War, an explosive new space adventure series from one of the brightest new stars in science fiction – perfect for fans of The Edge of Tomorrow, Alien and James S. A. Corey's Expanse series. Jack Campbell, author of the Lost Fleet novels calls it 'a gripping read that moves at warp speed'. Mankind has spread to the stars, only to become locked in warfare with an insidious alien race. All that stands against the alien menace are the soldiers of the Simulant Operation Programme, an elite military team remotely operating avatars in the most dangerous theatres of war.Captain Conrad Harris has died hundreds of times – running suicide missions in simulant bodies. Known as Lazarus, he is a man addicted to death. So when a secret research station deep in alien territory suddenly goes dark, there is no other man who could possibly lead a rescue mission. But Harris hasn't been trained for what he's about to find. And this time, he may not be coming back …Artefact is an action-drenched tale of elite space marines, deep space exploration and galactic empires. Discover The Lazarus War – the thrilling new space opera series from one of the most exciting new voices in science fiction.

Fantasy: Leanna Renee Hieber – The Eterna Files

Queen Victoria appoints Harold Spire to Special Branch Division Omega, to investigate paranormal events. Spire, a skeptic, fumes at having to lead a madcap team of psychics, assassins, and scientists. The only person he trusts is researcher Rose Everhart, even though she wants to believe that the supernatural is real. Their mission: find the Eterna Compound, which grants immortality. Catastrophe destroyed the hidden Eterna lab in New York City, but the Queen believes someone escaped with some of the compound. American psychic Clara Templeton helped start Eterna after Lincoln's assassination but now has grave doubts about the wisdom of bestowing immortality on anyone. Like the British, Clara seeks the survivor of the disaster – but will she save or destroy Eterna?

Paranormal/Urban Fantasy: Shelly Laurenston – The Unleashing (Call of Crows #1)

Kera Watson never expected to face death behind a Los Angeles coffee shop. Not after surviving two tours lugging an M16 around the Middle East. If it wasn't for her hot Viking customer showing up too late to help, nobody would even see her die.

In uncountable years of service to the Allfather Odin, Ludvig "Vig" Rundstrom has never seen anyone kick ass with quite as much style as Kera. He knows one way to save her life--but she might not like it. Signing up with the Crows will get Kera a new set of battle buddies: cackling, gossiping, squabbling, party-hearty women. With wings. So not the Marines.

But Vig can't give up on someone as special as Kera. With a storm of oh-crap magic speeding straight for L.A., survival will depend on combining their strengths: Kera's discipline, Vig's loyalty... and the Crows' sheer love of battle. Boy, are they in trouble.

Classic of the Month: Oscar Wilde – Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays

Oscar Wilde was already one of the best known literary figures in Britain when he was persuaded to turn his extraordinary talents to the theatre. Between 1891 and 1895 he produced a sequence of distinctive plays which spearheaded the dramatic renaissance of the 1890s and retain their power today.

The social comedies, Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, and An Ideal Husband, offer a moving as well as witty dissection of society and its morals, with a sharp focus on sexual politics. By contrast, the experimental, symbolist Salome, written originally in French, was banned for public performance by the English censor. His final dramatic triumph was his `trivial' comedy for serious people, The Importance of Being Earnest' arguably the greatest farcical comedy in English.

Under the General Editorship of Dr Michael Cordner of the University of York, the texts of the plays have been newly edited and are presented with modernized spelling and punctuation.

Teen reading: Sara Barnard – Beautiful Broken Things

Best friends Caddy and Rosie are inseparable. Their differences have brought them closer, but as she turns sixteen Caddy begins to wish she could be a bit more like Rosie – confident, funny and interesting. Then Suzanne comes into their lives: beautiful, damaged, exciting and mysterious, and things get a whole lot more complicated. As Suzanne's past is revealed and her present begins to unravel, Caddy begins to see how much fun a little trouble can be. But the course of both friendship and recovery is rougher than either girl realizes, and Caddy is about to learn that downward spirals have a momentum of their own.

Non-Fiction: Richard Coles – Fathomless Riches

Fathomless Riches is the Reverend Richard Coles's warm, witty and wise memoir in which he divulges with searing honesty and intimacy his pilgrimage from a rock-and-roll life of sex and drugs in the Communards to one devoted to God and Christianity. The result is one of the most unusual and readable life stories of recent times, and has the power to shock as well as to console.