Arcadia Book When Memory Dies Sivanandan A

The final volume of Miklos Banffy's panoramic trilogy of the dying years of the Habsburg empire • They Were Divided reflects the rapidly disintegrating course of events in Central Europe. In the foreground once again the lives of Balint, with his ultimately unhappy love for Adrienne, and his fatally flawed cousin, Laszlo Gyeroffy, who dies in poverty and neglect, are told with humour and a bitter-sweet nostalgia for a paradise lost through folly • The sinister and fast moving events in Montenegro, the Balkan wars, the apparent encirclement of Germany and Austria-Hungary by Britain, France and Russia, and finally the assassination of Franz Ferdinand all lead inexorably to the youth of Hungary marching off to their death and the dismemberment of their once great country

Thorn Marsh was raised in a house of whispers, of meaningful glances and half- finished sentences. Now she's a journalist with a passion for truth, more devoted to her work at the London Journal than she ever was to her ex-husband • When the newspaper is bought by media giant The Goring Group, who value sales figures over fact-checking, Thorn openly questions their methods, and promptly finds herself moved from the news desk to the midweek supplement, reporting heart-warming stories for their new segment, The Bright Side, a job to which she is spectacularly unsuited • On a final warning and with no heart-warming news in sight, a desperate Thorn fabricates a good-news story of her own. The story, centred on an angelic apparition on Hampstead Heath, goes viral

South London in the 1980s. Sixteen-year-old Brenton Brown is the mixed-race child of a mother he has never met. He's been living in a children's home all his life, and when he is unexpectedly reunited with his mother, Cynthia, his whole world seems poised to change • The best thing happens: Brenton has a family at last • And then the worst: Brenton falls in love with his beautiful half-sister, Juliet • As tensions brew in Brixton, Brenton finds himself embroiled in a violent feud with a killer. Vengeance seems like the only option as Brenton hurtles towards an explosive climax which will risk everything • Brixton Rock is the extraordinary debut of one of the UK's finest writers, a pitch-perfect depiction of South London life

Felix Ventura trades in memories, a slippery character selling new pasts to people whose bright futures lack only a good lineage, and wiping clean the slate of their identity • In a narrative that darts between past and present Angola, a bookish albino man, a beautiful woman, a mysterious foreigner and a witty talking lizard come together to discover their real origins. For theirs is a world where the truth seems to shift from moment to moment and where history itself is up for grabs

An extraordinary portrait of the vanished world of pre-1914 Hungary, They Were Counted is an epic story told through the eyes of two cousins, Count Balint Abady and Count Laszlo Gyeroffy. Shooting parties in great country houses, turbulent scenes in parliament and the luxury life in Budapest provide the backdrop for this gripping, prescient novel, forming a chilling indictment of upper-class frivolity and political folly in which good manners cloak indifference and brutality. Abady becomes aware of the plight of a group of Romanian mountain peasants and champions their cause, while Gyeroffy dissipates his resources at the gaming tables, mirroring the decline of the Austro-Hungarian empire itself • This is the first volume Banffy's trilogy, which continues with They Were Found Wanting and They Were Divided

Cambridge, 1941. A teenage William Catesby leaves his studies to join the war effort • Parachuted into Occupied France as an SOE officer, he witnesses remarkable feats of bravery during the • French Resistance • Yet he is also privy to infighting and betrayal - some of the Maquisards are more concerned with controlling the peace than fighting the war. Double agents and informers abound, and with torture a certainty if he is taken, Catesby knows there is no one he can trust • Passed from safe house to safe house, with the Abwehr on his tail, he is drawn towards Lyon, a city of backstreets and blind alleys. His mission is simple: thwart an act of treachery that could shape the future of France

With clear, vivid prose, this meticulously researched novel draws an intimate, moving portrait of the most famous living English painter • Born in Bradford in 1937, David Hockney had to fight to become an artist. After leaving home for the Royal College of Art in London his career flourished, but he continued to struggle with a sense of not belonging, because of his homosexuality, which had yet to be decriminalised, and because of his inclination for a figurative style of art, which was not sufficiently "contemporary" to be valued • Trips to New York and California - where he would live for many years and paint his iconic swimming pools - introduced him to new scenes and new loves, beginning a journey that would take him through the fraught years of the AIDS epidemic

A masterful and subsersive retelling of the Biblical story of David and Bathsheba, by an award-winning novelist at the height of his powers • Michal is a princess, Abigail a wealthy widow, and Bathsheba a soldier's bride, but as women in Ancient Israel their destiny is the same: to obey their fathers, serve their husbands and raise their children • Marriage to King David seems to offer them an escape, but behind the trappings of power they discover a deeply conflicted man. The legendary hero who slew Goliath, founded Jerusalem and saved Israel is also a vicious despot who murders his rivals, massacres his captives and menaces his harem • Michael Arditti's masterly new novel centres on three fascinating, formidable women, whose voices have hitherto been silenced

The second volume of Miklos Banffy's panoramic trilogy of the dying years of the Habsburg empire • The tale of two Transylvanian cousins, their loves, their ambitions and their fortunes continues in They Were Found Wanting. Balint Abady is forced to part from the beautiful and unhappily married Adrienne Uzdy. Laszlo Gyeroffy is rapidly heading for self-destruction through drink and his own fecklessness. The politicians, quarrelling among themselves and stubbornly ignoring their countrymen's real needs, are still pursuing their vendetta with the Habsburg rule from Vienna. Meanwhile they fail to notice how the Great Powers - through such events as Austria's annexation of Bosnia-Herzagovina in 1908 - are moving ever closer to the conflagration of 1914-1918 that will destroy their world for ever

The Francombe & Salter Mercury has served the residents of two South Coast resorts for over 150 years. Hit by both the economic decline and the advent of new technology, Duncan Neville, the latest member of his family to occupy the editor's chair, is struggling to keep the paper afloat. Duncan's personal life is in similar disarray as he juggles the demands of his elderly mother, disaffected son, harassed ex-wife and devoted secretary • Meanwhile, a childhood friend turned bitter rival unveils plans to rebuild the dilapidated pier, which, while promising to revive the town's fortunes, threaten its traditional ethos. Then Duncan meets Ellen, a recent divorcee, who has moved to Francombe with her two teenage children • By turns lyrical, witty and poignant, Widows and Orphans casts an unflinching eye over the joys and adversities of contemporary life and paints a masterful portrait of a decent man fighting for his principles in a hostile world

Hamburg, 1948 • In a routine operation, Chief Inspector Frank Stave is shot down. He survives, but transfers from the murder commission to the office combatting the black market. There, Stave is confronted with an enigmatic case: Trummerfrau, women helping to clear rubble from Hamburg's bombed streets, discover works of art from the Weimar period - right next to a unidentified corpse • Shortly afterwards, mysterious banknotes whose existence disturbs the Allies' secret plans begin to pop up on the black market. The Supervisor soon discovers strange parallels between the two cases. With the introduction of a new currency, Stave thinks he is on the brink of a solution. But the truth is dangerous, and not just for him

From Molly Potter, best-selling author of How Are You Feeling Today? and What's Worrying You?, comes a picture book for starting conversations with children about death, bereavement and what happens next • When someone dies, we can feel a whole host of different emotions and explaining them to a child isn't so easy. This book uses clear, easy-to-understand language to answer complex questions about death and how a child might feel when someone dies. It covers all manner of tricky subjects with sensitivity and honesty, from what death is to why people die • Each double page spread takes a child through how they might feel, what they might think and how they might behave. With engaging illustrations, gentle guidance and simple advice for parents and carers, Let's Talk About When Someone Dies fulfils an important but difficult need for starting conversations with children about death and bereavement, in an accessible and supportive way