Gouri Dange

The Secret Scripture
by Sebastian Barry

Roseanne McNulty is nearing her one-hundredth birthday (although no one is quite sure of her age) and she faces an uncertain future. The Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital where she's spent the best part of her adult life is preparing for closure. Over the weeks leading up to this upheaval, she talks often with Dr Grene her psychiatrist. This relationship although guarded is trusting after so many years and intensifies and complicates as Dr Grene mourns the death of his wife.

The story that emerges through their respective journals, - of Roseanne's family in 1930s Sligo - is at once shocking and deeply beautiful. Through the haze of memory and constant retelling, Roseanne's story becomes an alternative and secre history of Ireland. This is a story exquisitely written, one of a life blighted by terrible mistreatment and ignorance, and yet one marked by love,passion and hope.

The Infinite Plan
by Isabel Allende

This is a mesmerizing poignant saga of one man's search for love and his struggle to come to terms with a childhood of poverty and neglect.

As Gregory's story unfolds,we follow his struggle to survive-persecution by the gangs in the barrio,the horrors of the wars in Vietnam-and to be successful.A lawyer in San Francisco,Gregory pursues money and possessions,looks for love with the wrong women,abuses alcohol,neglects his children,and loses himself in an illusory and wrongheaded quest.

The Infinite Plan transforms one man's story into a powerful tale of loneliness and love,betrayals and hurdles,and defeats that finally lead to acceptance and reconciliation.

Calling the Shots (Mel Beeby, Agent Angel)
by Annie Dalton

Mel gets the Call -- a strange out-of-body experience which tells Angel Academy students that they are ready for their first guardian angel module. At first, it seems like a suitably fluffy assignment -- the America of the 1920s, full of flappers and limos, jazz and silent movies. But Mel's got her hands full when she has to look after Honesty Bloomfield, a sullen, withdrawn girl who is travelling across America with her family...