Archives de catégorie : Nos incontournables

NO ONE LEFT de Paul Morland

Why we face population collapse and what to do about it.

NO ONE LEFT
Why the World Needs More Children
by Paul Morland
Forum Press, September 2024
(via Randle Editorial & Literary Consultancy)

A population calamity is unfolding before our eyes. It started in parts of the developed world and is spreading to the four corners of the globe. There are just too few babies being born for humanity to replace itself. Before the end of the current century at the latest, and probably much sooner, the world’s population will start to decline.

Leading demographer Paul Morland argues that the consequences of this promise to be calamitous. Labour shortages, pensions crisis, ballooning debt: what is currently happening to South Korea – which faces population decline of more than 85% within just two generations – threatens to engulf us all, and sooner than we think. In time a ballooning number of elderly people will simply be left to their own devices as there will not be enough people of working age to meet all needs. Whole settlements will start to be abandoned. Social collapse may ensue.

NO ONE LEFT will chart this future, explain its causes and suggest what might be done. We can and must rise to this challenge.

Paul Morland is the UK’s and one of the world’s leading demographers. He has been an Associate Research Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London and a Senior Member at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford. His previous books include The Human Tide: How Population Shaped the Modern World and Tomorrow’s People: The Future of Humanity in Ten Numbers.

A CURTAIN TWITCHER’S BOOK OF MURDER

Set in London in 1968, follows the lives of the inhabitants of a suburban London street. But this is no ordinary street.

A CURTAIN TWITCHER’S BOOK OF MURDER
by Gay Marris
Bedford Square (Ed. Carolyn Mays), June 2024
(via Randle Editorial & Literary Consultancy)

Ask anyone on Atbara Avenue how well they know their neighbours, and they’ll answer ‘well’.

After all, they see each other across the vast distance afforded by close proximity, and that is probably for the best…

For the best, because Atbara Avenue is a street where, all too often, murder feels like the solution.

With a delicious cast of characters, dazzling plotting, and an utterly unique voice, Gay Marris’ first book is remarkably accomplished. If you’ve been longing for a fresh and compelling new voice in the world of crime fiction, your wait is over.

Gay Marris is a retired research scientist. Her career focused on insect ecology, parasites and honey bee health. A CURTAIN TWITCHER’S BOOK OF MURDER is her first novel, set in the suburbs of the deceptively dangerous suburbs of 1960s London, where she grew up. Gay now lives in York with her husband, a cat and a tortoise.

A DAZZLING GREETING de Baik Sou-linne

A tender heart will save us countless times.

A DAZZLING GREETING
by Baik Sou-linne
Munhakdogne, May 2023
(via Randle Editorial & Literary Consultancy)

Haeni’s family falls apart after her older sister dies in a gas explosion accident in 1994. Unable to salvage the marriage, Haeni’s mother decides to separate from her father, and immigrates to Germany with Haeni and her younger sister.

In Germany, she meets new people who make her feel at home. Her aunt, Haengja, is a nurse who was dispatched to Germany in the 1960s. She is part of a community of dispatch nurses that include Aunt Maria and Aunt Seonja.

Haeni befriends Aunt Maria’s daughter, Lena, and Aunt Seonja’s son, Hansu. The three grow close and Hansu eventually asks for a favour: he wants his friends to help him find his mother’s first love. They start by reading Seonja’s diary and finds out that her first love’s initials are K.H.

Time flies by, and Haeni finds herself having to return to South Korea due to the IMF Crisis in 1997. Uprooted from a place she’s just started to call home, Haeni is once again seized by the fear of losing those she cares about. As such, she spends her adult life setting distances between her and whoever she meets.

One day, she bumps into Woojae, a friend from university. He starts pursuing her, and touched by his earnestness, Haeni finds herself willing to open her heart to others again. Her newfound love inspires her to try to solve the mystery of Aunt Seonja’s first love again. On her second attempt, she realizes that she’s seeing things from a new perspective, and picks up on clues she’d missed before.

As she embarks on this new mission as a new person, the people around her are just as eager to reach out to help her. This novel is proof that the smallest gestures of kindness can change lives.

Baik Sou-linne is one of South Korea’s most prolific and popular authors. She was named one of five Best Young Writers in 2021. Given her unique background as a French Literature major, Baik writes heartwarming stories about young women that are often set in unfamiliar countries, taking readers romantic adventures across the globe.

She debuted as a writer after her short story ‘Lying Practice’ was awarded the Spring Literary Contest in 2011. Since then, she has released multiple short story collections including Falling in Paul and Summer Villa. A DAZZLING GREETING is her first novel. Upon its release, it immediately claimed its spot on bestsellers lists across online bookstores in South Korea.

CASUALTIES OF TRUTH de Lauren Francis-Sharma

From the author of Book of the Little Axe, nominated for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, comes a riveting literary novel with the sharp edges of a thriller that explores the abuses of history and the costs of revenge.

CASUALTIES OF TRUTH
by Lauren Francis-Sharma
Atlantic Monthly Press, February 2025

Lauren Francis-Sharma’s two previous novels have established her as a deft chronicler of history and its intersections with flawed humans struggling toward justice. Her latest is a gripping novel set between Washington, DC and Johannesburg, South Africa that asks if we are ever truly able to escape our past and how to right an unquestionable wrong.

Prudence Wright seems to have it all: a loving husband, Davis; a spacious home in Washington, DC; and the past glories of a successful career at McKinsey, which now enables her to stay home and dedicate her days to her autistic son. When she and Davis head out for dinner with one of Davis’s new colleagues on a stormy summer evening, Prudence has little reason to think that certain details of her past might arise sometime between cocktails and the appetizer course. Yet when Davis’s new colleague turns out to be an old acquaintance, Matshediso, Prudence recalls the traumatic events of her childhood growing up in Baltimore and the formative time she spent in South Africa in 1996. There, she attended the Truth and Reconciliation hearings, which uncovered the many horrors and human rights abuses of the Apartheid state. These hearings fundamentally shaped her sense of righteousness and justice, and when Mat reveals the real reason for his reappearance, Prudence’s values will be put to a more difficult test than she has ever faced before.

Lauren Francis-Sharma, a child of Trinidadian immigrants has written about the Caribbean in both her novels. “‘Til the Well Runs Dry” loosely recounts the story of her grandmother’s mid-20th century journey to the United States, with feature articles in both the Washington Post in July 2014 and The Baltimore Sun in March 2015. Her latest, “Book of the Little Axe,” takes place in the late 18th century to the early 19th century, from the changing colonial rule on the island of Trinidad to the rugged terrain of Bighorn Mountain in western North America.

RITES OF POSSESSION SERIES d’Eva Chase

A romantasy series full of forbidden magic, impossible love, hot damaged men, and a sorceress in disguise who must expose a dangerous conspiracy brewing at the royal college.

RITES OF POSSESSION SERIES
by Eva Chase
Ink Spark Press, 2023 – 2024
(via JABberwocky Literary Agency)

THIEF OF SILVER AND SOULS (Book 1 – September 2023)

What if it takes a monster to save a kingdom?

I’ll never forget the sight of my little sister’s lifeless body—or that my rogue magic killed her.

Sorcery like mine is punishable by death. So I live in the shadows, stealing from the corrupt to give to the needy. Maybe a little good can wash the blood from my hands.

It seems like a decent plan… until I try to help a dying noblewoman and somehow steal her soul instead.

Now her ghost is demanding I take up the quest that got her killed: exposing a conspiracy at the royal college to unleash a deadly power on the entire kingdom.

Do I want to infiltrate the cutthroat world of haughty elites? Gods, no. But if I can save the kingdom, I could save my own soul too.

So I’ll pose as a refined lady, attending their classes and fancy balls, sneaking and spying like I learned on the streets. But I can’t tackle this threat alone. I’ll need to win the trust of the dead woman’s allies: four arrogant noblemen.

Four damaged yet dangerously enticing men. No matter what they stir in my heart, I can’t afford to let them get too close.

Because if they discover the monstrous things I’m capable of, saving my soul will be the least of my worries…

GAME OF DEATH AND DESIRE (Book 2 – December 2023)

To prove I’m not a monster, I have to play a monstrous game.

The men I’m falling for have discovered my horrific secret. Only the intervention of a god has saved me and my forbidden magic from the gallows… for now.

We’ve barely scraped the surface of the brutal conspiracy lurking at the royal college, and the threat looms ever larger. To get to the root of the evil and destroy it, we’ll have to infiltrate it at its source.

And I’m the only viable new recruit.

So I’ll play a dangerous game, courting the favor of cold-blooded murderers while dallying with noblemen who don’t know whether to revile or desire me.

But the deeper I’m drawn into the darkness, the more I wonder if there’s any way for me to truly win…

SECRETS OF GRAVES AND GOLD (Book 3 – March 2024)

Will my magic save the realm… or drive me into madness?

In the wake of an uprising of illicit sorcery, my men and I find ourselves on the run—determined to clear our names by protecting the kingdom.

But to face off against the psychopaths who want to remake our country into a realm of chaos and brutality, I’ll need to tap into my wild magic. And the god who’s watched over me expects me to stand on my own now.

If I can’t overcome the odds against us, the lives of the men I love are forfeit. But how far can I go without becoming what I’ve feared most?

LADY OF DOOM AND DEVOTION (Book 4 – Fall 2024)

We can’t let the wild win.

Despite everything I’ve done, my kingdom is falling apart. To overturn the murderous sorcerers determined to remake the realm into something wild and cruel, we must rely an unexpected heir to the throne.

But the first fault lines started dividing our country centuries ago. We can’t reach toward the past for absolution.

The men I love and the allies we’ve gathered will have to build a new future. And I’d sacrifice anything to know I’ve finally set things right… even my hard-won happiness.

It’s time to find out whether I’m worthy of staying in this world I’ve fought so desperately to save.

Eva Chase is an Amazon top 100 bestselling author of urban fantasy and paranormal romance. She grew up on a steady diet of magic, mayhem, and romantic angst, and brings plenty of all three to her stories. But no need to fear the dreaded love triangle—Eva’s heroines never have to choose.