Anna Ann Annie by Thomas Trebitsch Parker

In this riveting novel of almost unbearable suspense, three fragile yet determined people become dangerously entangled in a relentlessly escalating crisis. Colonel Behrani, once a wealthy man in Iran, is now a struggling immigrant willing to bet everything he has to restore his family’s dignity. Kathy Nicolo is a troubled young woman whose house is all she has left, and who refuses to let her hard-won stability slip away from her. Sheriff Lester Burdon, a married man who finds himself falling in love with Kathy, becomes obsessed with helping her fight for justice. Drawn by their competing desires to the same small house in the California hills and doomed by their tragic inability to understand one another, the three converge in an explosive collision course. Combining unadorned realism with profound empathy, House of Sand and Fog marks the arrival of a major new voice in American fiction.

When Richie Rossiter, once a famous pianist, dies unexpectedly, Chrissie knows that she must now tell the truth to their three daughters: their parents were never married. And there is one more shock to come when Richie’s will is read. It seems he never forgot the wife and son he left behind years ago – Margaret, who lives a quiet life of routine and work, and Scott, who has unresolved feelings about the father who left him. Now tow families are left to confront their losses and each other, and neither of them will ever be the same.

German South-West Africa, early 1904: Revolt is raging among the oppressed Hereros. High above the infinite expanse of veld that is their homeland towers a Wagnerian castle, from which the ruthless Baron von Steinberg rules with neither mercy nor restraint. Into this cauldron of strife come two adventurers. Here each will meet a woman who will challenge his loyalties at the same time as she kindles his passions – and here they will witness violence and bloodshed such as they have never known.

Control was the word Dr Toby Harper lived by. She strove to keep her life in order, her ER in order. But no one could have been prepared for the man she admits one quiet night to the Springer Hospital. Delirious and in critical condition, he barely responds to treatment. And then he disappears without trace. The subsequent search leads Toby to a second patient with the same infection. And it reveals an unsettling twist – the infection can only be spread through direct tissue exchange. Soon Toby’s on a trail that winds from a pregnant sixteen-year-old prostitute to an unexpected tragedy in her own home. Only then does she discover the unthinkable: a terrifying and deadly epidemic is about to be unleashed …