| The Playgroup | | Janey Fraser | | With an opportunity to prove herself, Gemma can't wait to take over Puddleducks Playgroup. But the new head of the infant school, Joe Balls, soon tempers her enjoyment. Meanwhile, Nancy is in turmoil. Her only son has just started at the playgroup and her husband has taken a temporary posting to Vietnam. There never was much hope of conceiving her much-wanted second child so what is she to do now? A tumultuous term lies ahead for all. |  | |
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| Dead Men | | Richard Pierce | Birdie Bowers, an infamously secretive painter, is a woman given a dead man’s name by her obsessed parents. Her namesake was one of Scott’s companions on his fated expedition to the Antarctic. Almost a hundred years after his death, she is determined to discover what really happened to him accompanied by Adam, a bored computer geek, who falls in love with her. But Scott’s tent is now under 30 metres of ice.
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| The kite Runner | | Khaled Hosseini | | In his debut novel, The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini accomplishes what very few contemporary novelists are able to do: provide an educational and eye-opening account of a country's political turmoil - Afghanistan - while also developing characters whose heartbreaking struggles and emotional triumphs resonate with the reader. |  | |
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| Pompeii: A Novel | | Robert Harris | | Roman engineer Attilius rushes to repair an aqueduct in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, which, in A.D. 79, is getting ready to blow its top. Attilius meets Corelia, the defiant daughter of a vile real estate speculator, and later fights his way back to Pompeii in an attempt to rescue her. The volcanology is well researched and the plot keeps this impressive novel moving along toward its exciting finale. |  | |
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