Reading Matters (week 010) 04 March 2025

I’m sure you remember gallant SA sea captain Jack Pembroke. Created by author of 25 books (so far) Justin Fox, Hell Run Tobruk (Jonathan Ball) is a must-read for any SA’s in north Africa during WW2.

Pembroke, in his small whaler, dodges German warplanes in his runs to get supplies from Alexandria to Tobruk, and manages to have a passionate love affair too. A stand-alone novel even if it is the third in the Pembroke series.

The brilliant author, Isabel Allende’s The Wind Knows my Name (Bloomsbury/Jonathan Ball) writes about two child refugees, one from the Nazis and the other from El Salvador. Eighty years separates them but the suffering of refugees, so common today, is a joint experience. Allende captures it poetically.

Santa Montefiore is back with a spiritual story in which love, set in a glorious Cornish mansion, crosses timelines spanning a century. Shadows in the Moonlight (Orion/Jonathan Ball) is a trite title for an intriguing novel that will ring bells for many, even in our fast-paced, digital world.

Bestselling British author, Mandy Robotham, sets her World War 2 historical novels across Europe and Britain and  A Dangerous Game (Avon/Jonathan Ball) follows her trajectory. Emotive and fast paced.

Speeches that Changed the World (Quercus/Jonathan Ball) is back, in its glossy paper, hard cover form. On the cover this time is Volodymyr Zelensky, brave president of Ukraine and ‘I have a Dream’ Martin Luther King,Jr.

Children Malala Yousafzai who survived an Afghan bullet to her head, and climate activist Greta Thunberg, speak from the pages of this informative, insightful book. One to keep.

Reading Matters with Sue Grant-Marshall