Ugly (Book 1) & Beyond Ugly (Book 2)

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Author: Constance Briscoe

Number of pages : Ugly (433) Beyond Ugly (239)

Price: RM 38 for 2

Blurb from Ugly:

I handed my school photograph to my mother. She stared from the photograph to me.

'Lord, sweet Lord how come she so ugly. Ugly. Ugly.'

These cruel words are just the beginning. Constance's mother systematically abused her daughter, both physically and emotionally, throughout her childhood. Regularly beaten and starved, the child was so desperate she took herself off to Social Services and tried to get taken into care. When Constance was thirteen, her mother simply moved out, leaving her daughter to fend for herself: there was no gas, no electricity and no food.

But somehow Constance found the courage to survive her terrible start in life. This is her heartbreaking- and ultimately triumphant- story.

Blurb from Beyond Ugly:

'I would like some cosmetic surgery.'

'For what?'

'Because I'm ugly, ugly, ugly.'

It was Constance's mother who told her she was ugly. Over and over again. And that was just one strand of a childhood blighted by physical and emotional abuse. But the young girl had a strength and resilience beyond her years.

She put herself through university, financing her studies with several jobs - including one caring for the terminally ill in a hospice - and then fulfilled a lifelong ambition by joining a prestigious set of legal chambers. But Constance's troubles were not over...

The Last Eunuch of China: The Life of Sun Yaoting

Publisher: China Intercontinental Press
Author: Jia Yinghua
Number of pages: 314
Price: RM30
Synopsis:
China's last eunuch Sun Yaoting died in December 1996 at age 94. He took with him intimate stories of the last vestiges of Imperial China and was himself the last in the line of eunuchs who had served the royal family for more than 2000 years. His personal journey from poor farmboy to revered servant to Pu Yi and Wanrong, China's last emperor and empress, is an amazing journey which also chronicles nearly one century of turbulence and upheaval in Chinese history and culture.

This engrossing biography by Chinese historian Jia Yinghua features first-hand accounts by Sun Yaoting of his adventures in the Forbidden City, his reunion with Pu Yi in Japanese-held Manchukuo in the 1930s, his return to 'normal' life as a community organizer in the Buddhist temple where he lives out the rest of his life.

This book is a unique glimpse into China's storied past from the perspective of a man who faithfully served China's Imperial Family in the Forbidden City but was later forced to maneuver himself among the tremendous and often turbulent events that became the history of 20th century China. As Sun Yaoting recalls his experiences, he also recounts the life of the dwindling eunuch community in China.

Blue Diary

Publisher: Berkley International Edition
Author: Alice Hoffman
Number of pages: 287
Price: RM6
Synopsis:
When Ethan Ford fails to show up for work on a brilliant summer morning, none of his neighbours would guess that for more than thirteen years he has been running from his past. His true nature has been locked away, as hidden as his real identity. But sometimes locks spring open, and the devastating truths of Ethan's history shatter the small-town peace of Monroe, affecting family and friends alike.

Now, the police are at the door. Ethan Ford's life as an irreproachable family man and heroic volunteer fireman has come to an end - and Jorie Ford's life is coming apart. Some of the residents of Monroe are rallying behind Ethan. But others, including his wife and son, are wondering what remains true when so much is shown to be false - and how capable we really are of change.

The Nanny

Publisher: Arrow books
Author: Melissa Nathan
Number of pages: 536 pages
Price: RM 18
Synopsis:
When Jo Green takes a nannying job in London to escape her small-town routine, complicated family and perfect-on-paper boyfriend Shaun, culture shock doesn't even begin to describe it...

Dick and Vanessa Fitzgerald are the most incompatible pair since Tom and Jerry, and their children - glittery warrior pixie Cassandra, bloodthirsty Zak and shy little Tallulah - are downright mystifying. Suddenly village life seems terribly appealing.

Then, just as Jo's getting the hang of their designer lifestyle, the Fitzgeralds acquire a new lodger and suddenly she's sharing her nanny flat with the distractingly good-looking but inexplicably moody Josh. So when Shaun turns up, things get even trickier...

Brick Lane

Publisher: Scribner International
Author: Monica Ali
Number of pages: 541
Price: RM18
Synopsis:
Nazneen, raised in a Bangladeshi village, carries her sense of fatalism across continents to London, where she is married off to Chanu, a man old enough to be her father. For years she keeps house, cares for her husband, and bears children. But gradually she questions whether fate controls her or whether she has a hand in her own destiny. To her own amazement, Nazneen falls in love with a young man. She discovers the complexity that comes with free choice and the depth of her attachment to her husband, her daughters, and her new world.

Profoundly humane and beautifully rendered, Brick Lane captures a world at once unimaginable and achingly familiar.

Salem Falls

Publisher: Washington Square Press
Author: Jodi Picoult
Number of pages: 434
Price: RM 18
Synopsis:
A handsome stranger comes to the sleepy New England town of Salem Falls in hopes of burying his past: Once a teacher at a girls' prep school, Jack St. Bride was destroyed when a student's crush sparked a powder keg of accusation. Now, washing dishes for Addie Peabody at the Do-Or-Diner, he slips quietly into his new routine, and Addie finds this unssuming man fitting easily inside her heart. But amid the rustic calm of Salem Falls, a quartet of teenage girls harbor dark secrets - and they maliciously target Jack with a shattering allegation. Now, at the center of a modern-day witch hunt, Jack is forced once again to proclaim his innocence: to a town searching for answers, to a justice system where truth becomes a slippery concept written in shades of gray, and to the woman who has come to love him.

The Hour I First Believed

Publisher: Harper
Author: Wally Lamb
Number of pages: 632
Price: RM20
Synopsis:
Caelum Quirk and his wife Maureen move to Colorado and find jobs at Columbine High School. One day in April 1999, when Caelum is called away by a family emergency, Maureen cowers in a cupboard in the school library, hiding from two students on a murderous rampage. Though miraculously she survives, Maureen cannot recover from the trauma. Seeking solace, the couple returns to Connecticut to an illusion of safety on the Quirk family farm.

As Maureen fights to regain her sanity, Caelum discovers a cache of forgotten memorabilia spanning five generations of his family. As he painstakingly reconstructs the lives of his ancestors, he must confront their secrets and fashion a future from the ashes of his own tragedy. His personal quest for meaning becomes a mythic journey that is both contemporary and quintessentially American.

A Loyal Character Dancer

Publisher: Sceptre
Author: Qiu Xiaolong
Number of pages: 351
Price : RM 18
Synopsis:
Former dancer and party loyalist Wen Liping vanishes in rural China just before she is to leave the country. Her husband, a key witeness against a smuggling ring suspected of importing aliens to the US, refuses to testify until she is found and brought to join him in America.

A few days later, a badly mutilated body turns up in Shanghai's Bund Park. It bears all the hallmarks of a triad killing.

American immigration agencies, desperate to secure a conviction, send US Marshal Catherine Rohn to Shanghai to join the investigation.

Inspector Chen, an astute young policeman with twin passions for food and poetry, is under political pressure to find answers fast. When Catherine Rohn joins him he must decide what is more dangerous: to hide the truth, or to risk unleashing a scandal that could destroy his career.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter...

Publisher :A Penguin Book
Author : Kim Edwards
Number of pages: 513
Price : RM17
Synopsis:
This stunning novel begins on a winter night in 1964, when a blizzard forces Dr. David Henry to deliver his own twins. His son, born first, is perfectly healthy, but the doctor immediately recognizes that his daughter has Down Syndrome. For motives he tells himself are good, he makes a split-second decision that will haunt all their lives forever. He asks his nurse, Caroline, to take the baby away to an institution. Instead, she disappears into another city to raise the child as her own. Compulsively readable and deeply moving, 'The Memory Keeper's Daughter' is a brilliantly crafted story of parallel lives, familiai secrets and the redemptive power of love.