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Publishers' July Titles

The school story gets a new champion...

The school story gets a new champion at last - Carmen Reid brings her unique talents to late night feasts in the dorm and first fumblings with boys... Carmen was born and brought up in a chilly and windy corner of Scotland in the depths of the countryside.
This may explain her lifelong phobia of cows and abiding interest in cities, department stores, books, the cinema and newspapers. She has written five novels, has a sixth in the pipeline and pens loads of columns, articles and short stories as well. (She likes to keep busy). Carmen did once study English Literature at University College London, but, ignoring everything she’d learned, she spent most of her 20s working as a local, regional and then national newspaper reporter. Knowing deep down that she was supposed to be an author not a journo, she left her day job to have a baby and write her first novel. (Hey, and just four sleepless, penniless years later it was published!) Although there is a corner of her heart that will always belong to London (property developers welcome) she now lives in Glasgow, Scotland, with her husband, Thomas, and two children, Sam and Claudie, plus Jimmy the (lunatic) Jack Russell and Clive, Orangey and Gorcha, the fish. Fortunately her hobbies are cooking, cleaning, arguing about whose turn it is to walk the dog, clean the fish tank, take out the rubbish, do the laundry... and so on. CARMEN REID's SECRETS AT ST JUDE'S was last month's Children's Book of the month - in this issue I catch up with Carmen - click on the link to the left and find out why she's now writing top-class fiction for children as well as adults.

Books Monthly readers: get Ł5 off the published price of Ł25 with free postage and packing! For details, click here

The People’s War (25 September, Reader’s Digest, Ł25.00) is a fascinating glimpse into the extraordinary lives of ‘the ordinary people’ left behind, serving their country on the home front during World War II. It is a poignant collection of photographs and first-hand accounts of everyday life for the men, women and children who dug for victory, knitted for victory, went out to work, supported the troops on the frontline and waved goodbye to their loved ones. Vivid reports of evacuations, blackouts and camaraderie sit alongside heart-warming tales of personal victories, tragic stories of loss and confusion, and detailed accounts of the destruction sustained in Britain during what is often referred to as ‘the people’s war’. There's a special BOOKS MONTHLY reader offer on this book, and it's really worth it - just click on the link under the picture on the right and you'll soon have your own copy of this fabulous book!

CODY McFADYEN's new thriller THE DARKER SIDE, is dark, gruesome, violent and chilling; it's my pick of the month in the crime and thrillers section, and my only advice to you is to take a chance on it. It will upset you, revile you, make you think, disturb you, mesmerise you, but above all, it will thrill you. Read about it on the Crime & Thrillers Reviews page.

Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, the third Roman Emperor, is better known by another name: Caligula, a name synonymous with decadence, cruelty and madness. His reign was marked by excess, huge building projects, the largest gladiatorial battles Rome was ever to see - men and animals killed in their hundreds - conspiracies, assassination attempts and sexual scandal. A major new historical epic from Douglas Jackson - read more on the History reviews page.

And don't forget, you can purchase any of the titles you read about in BOOKS MONTHLY at the Booksmonthly Online Amazon store, just click on the Amazon logo anywhere in the magazine.

Books Monthly (formerly Gateway Monthly) is published by Paul Edmund Norman on the first day of each month. You can contact me via e-mail at: editor@booksmonthly.co.uk . If you'd like to get a story published in Books Monthly just e-mail it to me and I'll consider it - no payment though, I'm afraid!