KNIGHTLEY & SON shortlisted for Bolton Children’s Fiction Award

Rohan Gavin’s KNIGHTLEY & SON has been shortlisted for the Bolton Children’s Fiction Award. The shortlist includes 5 other books: Charlie Fletcher’s DRAGON SHIELD, Alan Gibbons’ HATE, E.B. Colin’s PYRATE’S BOY, Rebecca Stevens’ VALENTINE JOE and Tom Hoyle’s THIRTEEN. The winner will be selected by a vote by school children, opening in May next year, and announced on 26 June 2015.

Darkus Knightley is not your average thirteen-year-old: ferociously logical, super-smart and with a fondness for tweed, detective work is in his blood. His dad Alan Knightley was London's top private investigator and an expert in crimes too strange for Scotland Yard to handle, but four years ago the unexplained finally caught up with him - and he fell into a mysterious coma. Darkus is determined to follow in his father's footsteps and find out what really happened. But when Alan suddenly wakes up, his memory is wonky and he needs help. The game is afoot for Knightley & Son – with a mystery that gets weirder by the minute, a bestselling book that makes its readers commit terrible crimes, and a sinister organisation known as the Combination…

Rohan Gavin is a screenwriter and author based in London. He is the son of award-winning children's author Jamila Gavin. His second book, KNIGHTLEY & SON: K-9 was published by Bloomsbury earlier this year.

See here for Knightley & Son profiles and case files…

See here for more reviews and a handy reading guide.

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Tony Park’s DARK HEART out in paperback in the UK today

The “consistently entertaining and thought-provoking” Tony Park’s DARK HEART is published in paperback in the UK today from Quercus. 

During the Rwandan genocide, three foreigners – UN worker Carmel Shang, military doctor Richard Dunlop, and journalist Liesl Nel – were forced to stand by, powerless to prevent the massacre and unable to escape witnessing the horrors.

20 years later, scattered across the world, the wounds of Rwanda still run deep. Now, a tattered photograph that was clutched in the hand of a dying man holds a clue that brings them back together . . . and hides a secret that is making them a target of an assassin.

Hunted through South Africa’s Kruger National Park to Zambia, Australia, and back to Rwanda, the three must bring themselves to confront not just the scars of a nation and a continent, but of their own hearts.

It’s a busy month worldwide for Tony Park. THE DELTA is published in the US on 7 October, and his latest thriller THE HUNTER is published by Macmillan in Australia and South Africa on 14 October and in the UK by Quercus on 16 October. 

 

Praise for TONY PARK:

'An author who is starting to challenge the veteran Wilbur Smith for the title of 'master of the African thriller'' -- Geoffrey Wansell, Daily Mail

'Tony Park is one of Australia's best thriller writers and his African-based novels are consistently entertaining and thought-provoking.' -- Canberra Times

'Park's heroes are tough, blokey types - soldiers and coppers - and his heroines sassy and smart, but Africa always steals the show…a great way to spend a winter evening, transported to somewhere warm and exotic.' -- Georgia Gowing, The Independent Weekly

Elizabeth Chadwick’s THE WINTER CROWN published in the UK today

Elizabeth Chadwick’s second novel in her Eleanor of Aquitaine trilogy is published in hardback by Sphere today.

Winter 1154: Eleanor, Queen of England, is biding her time. Married now to England’s King Henry II, he battles for land across the channel, while Eleanor fulfils her duty as acting ruler and bearer of royal children. But she wants to be more than this - if only Henry would let her. Instead, Henry belittles and excludes her leaving Eleanor side-lined and angry. As her sons become young men, frustrated at Henry's hoarding of power, Eleanor is forced into a rebellion of devastating consequences.

The first in the trilogy, THE SUMMER QUEEN, was published by Sphere in 2013, and was featured in Bloggers Recommend as one of the 22 must reads for July 2014, and was the July Top Pick on RT Book Reviews, who called it “realistic, emotional, vibrant, exciting and unputdownable.”

Rights to both books have been sold in the US (Sourcebooks), Germany (Blanvalet), Latvia (Kontinent) and Czech Republic (Euromedia).

Praise for Elizabeth Chadwick:

'The best writer of medieval fiction currently around.' -- Historical Novel Review

'The author blends authentic period details with modern convention for emotional drama.' -- Elizabeth Buchan, Mail on Sunday

Praise for THE WINTER CROWN:

'Elizabeth Chadwick... brings history to life so vividly it is as if we are witnessing it ourselves and not simply reading it on the page.' – Kate Atherton, For Winter Nights

Praise for THE SUMMER QUEEN:

 ‘Engrossingly written and well researched, this is the first in a promised trilogy on Eleanor of Aquitaine… one of the medieval period’s wealthiest and most influential women.’ – Choice Magazine

‘Sucked me right in from the start, and refused to let me go ... one of my favourite reads of the year, and I may even go as far as to call it one of the best historical fiction novels I’ve ever read.’ – A Thousand and One Books