The Last Summer by Judith Kinghorn

Historical fiction has always been one of my favourite genres, even though it is not the most popular at present. This novel opens on the eve of the Great War, in the summer of 1914. Clarissa  Granville is 16 years old and leading a privileged life in a grand country house with her parents and 3 brothers when she meets Tom Cuthbert, the son of her parents housekeeper. Sounds pretty cliched, doesn't it? Well, the story line is just that but as Tom and Clarissa's love story loses its innocence so does their world sink into heartbreak on the bloody battle fields of Europe.

Within 4 years Clarissa believes that Tom is lost to her for ever, 2 of her brothers and her father are dead, another brother is hopelessly damaged by his experiences in the trenches, she drifts into a loveless marriage and her beloved home is sold for death duties.

Raised only to be a wife and mother, in a world that no longer exists, somehow Clarissa must find a life.

Yes, the story is a cliche, but the writing lifts this novel beyond ordinary. The innocence of Clarissa's early life makes this part of the story shine; the tragedy of war, whilst inevitable to the reader, still has the power to bow the head and slow the heart; we all recognise capricious fate and wish it could have been otherwise.    

If you like historical fiction, you'll like this. Try it.

Black Water Rising by Attica Locke

Short listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2010, this is a tale of corruption on a grand scale. Jay Porter is a lawyer with a past he has tried hard to bury. Baptised in the fires of the civil rights movement of the southern USA, betrayed and then painfully reinvented to a new life, his fragile existence is threatened by a good deed one dark night when he rescues a woman from drowning.

His impulse leads him into a trail of corporate and political corruption, threats to his life and the lives of his wife and unborn child and the resurrection of ghosts from his past. The worlds of oil corporations, docklands, civil rights, politics at all levels and personal bravery collide in a wonderfully dramatic story set in a period of huge social change.

This is a tangled thriller, with enough twists and turns to satisfy any fan of the genre. Clever and knowledgeable, Attica Locke is one to watch.