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- The Hiding Place UK Edition
by Trezza Azzopardi
Trezza Azzopardi's mesmerising debut novel of a Maltese immigrant family in 1960s Cardiff, Wales, is a beautifully evocative tale igniting memories of family, childhood, violence and poverty for one young woman.
Returning to Tiger Bay, Cardiff, for her mother's funeral, Dolores Gauci encounters her sisters for the first time in 30 years after Social Services disbanded them following their father Frankie's abandonment and their mother Mary's attempted suicide. For Dol, aged five when her family is splintered apart, memory is a broken glass pane--a jagged window into the past, permitting only a distorted view and sharp, painful images. Dol remembers the fire, as it licked and then devoured her arm; the rabbit's skin being peeled from flesh,; the self-inflicted scars on her sister's arms; her father's belt cutting into skin.
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- Death in Malta
by Rosanne Dingli
Death in Malta's protagonist is human, vulnerable and believeable. He is homesick, he's suffering from writer's block. He falls in love, and becomes obsessed with a mystery surrounding the disappearance of a little boy from the very house he is living in. All the while, you wonder whether there's a corpse in one of those clay jars he found. All the while, you wonder whether what he starts to write is truth or fiction. This story, although it centres around the Australian writer, is really about the old doctor who becomes his friend - his sharply defined personality makes you look forward to the next time he appears. The essence of "Death in Malta" is really contained in the character of Dr Phineas Micallef. A great read, with a realistic ending.
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- The Brass Dolphin US Edition
- The Brass Dolphin UK Edition
by Joanna Trollope
From a popular author comes the first volume in a projected series of historical novels. This one spans the years 1938 to 1945 and introduces a delightful young woman who comes of age during the war. When 20-year-old Lila Cunningham learns that she and her impractical artist father face financial ruin in England, she reluctantly accepts the offer of a home (owned by her elderly employers) on the island of Malta. As life in the once grand but now dilapidated Villa Zonda unfolds, Lila takes a job with a British count and falls in love with Anton, one of his nephews, whose charm and wealth seem to promise her all the culture and comfort she always dreamed of. But during the long bombing campaign that Hitler wages against the Maltese in retaliation for their allegiance to Britain, Lila learns that appearances are deceptive. She finally comes to accept the unqualified devotion of Maltese native Angelo. This quintessential gentle read harkens back to the books of Elizabeth Cadell and D. E. Stevenson. Nancy Pearl
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- The Jukebox Queen of Malta US Edition
- The Jukebox Queen of Malta UK Edition
by Nicholas M. Rinaldi
In the annals of great literature, Malta's one potential claim to fame is that it might have been the location of Calypso's island in The Odyssey; apart from that, this tiny, windswept island midway between Italy and Libya makes itself scarce on the fictional front. But Nicholas Rinaldi brings it front and center in his remarkable second novel, The Jukebox Queen of Malta, and if his descriptions of the place leave you cold, his characters won't. Set during the early years of World War II, the story begins with the arrival of American soldier Rocco Raven, late of Brooklyn, during an air raid. While running from an attacking Messerschmitt, Raven is rescued by Jack Fingerly, a shadowy character who may--or may not--be an Army intelligence officer. To Rocco, a car mechanic in civilian life with a taste for Melville, Nietzsche, and Edgar Allan Poe, nothing about Malta makes sense--except his feelings for Melita Azzard, the eponymous heroine whom he meets during one of the incessant bombings that punctuate life on the island:
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- The Maltese Goddess US Edition
- The Maltese Goddess UK Edition
by Lyn Hamilton
Lara McClintoch is obsessed with finding rare and beautiful artifacts. Her travels take her to the ends of the earth, where history jealously guards its treasures--and where the mysteries of the past meet the dangers of the present... Lara flies to Malta to personally furnish the home of Toronto's Martin Galea, whose reputation as an architect is rivaled only by his reputation as a womanizer. But when he turns up dead, Lara soon finds out that her client and his new home share a troubled past--a past that stretches back to the ancient world, and reaches out with the insidious hand of modern intrigue...
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- Xrina At Hagar Qim
by Ignat Konstantinov, Kent E. Clizbe
The Children of Malta series brings the magic of Maltese history to life, thousands of years, thousands of children. 7,500 years of history in twelve stories for children. Each book tells a story about a boy or girl in a period of Maltese history.
Malta, a group of small islands in the Mediterranean, has seen a variety of cultures through the ages. Today, the oldest standing man-made structures are in Malta, the stone temples. We are not sure why they were built, or what they were used for, but it is clear that a highly evolved culture constructed them. Volume 1 of the series, Xrina at Hagar Qim: The Temple Culture, tells the story of an important day in the life of Xrina, the daughter of the master stone setter of the Maltese temples in 4,500 BC.
Lavishly illustrated, this book is intended for children between the ages of 2 to 10. You will want to visit the Maltese islands, with your children, to soak up the sun and sea air that inspired Xrina and her culture to build the temples.
As a stone slides into place in the complex temple of Hagar Qim, Xrina and her family take part in the joyous celebration. Experience it in vivid color with your own child, grandchild, niece, or nephew.
The series will continue with volumes covering the Phoenicians, the Romans, St. Paul's shipwreck, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Normans, the Knights of Malta, Napoleon, the British colonial days, WWII, and today.
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- People of the Temples
by Linda C. Eneix
A novel of an ancient time (ca.2500 BCE) when the age of megalithic temple-builders was coming to a close. Based on actual archaeological evidence on the Mediterranean island of Malta, the story chronicles a shift in the course of civilization: the peaceful world of neolithic goddess cultures and fertility cults would give way to coming patriarchal dominion. The Great Mother is still supreme at the sacred temples of the high priests and priestesses of the island as her people are faced with painful decisions for the future. Suggesting dim origins of popular myth and fable, this expertly narrated story touches on the superstitions, fears, aspirations, ambitions of its main characters -- strangely similar to those we experience today.
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- The Maltese Falcon (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) US Edition
- Maltese
Falcon - Audio Cassette
- Maltese
Falcon - UK Edition
by Dashiell Hammett
Sam Spade, Dashiell Hammett's archetypally tough San Francisco detective, is more noir than L.A. Confidential and more vulnerable than Raymond Chandler's Marlowe. In The Maltese Falcon, the best known of Hammett's Sam Spade novels (including The Dain Curse and The Glass Key), Spade is tough enough to bluff the toughest thugs and hold off the police, risking his reputation when a beautiful woman begs for his help, while knowing that betrayal may deal him a new hand in the next moment.
Spade's partner is murdered on a stakeout; the cops blame him for the killing; a beautiful redhead with a heartbreaking story appears and disappears; grotesque villains demand a payoff he can't provide; and everyone wants a fabulously valuable gold statuette of a falcon, created as tribute for the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV. Who has it? And what will it take to get it back? Spade's solution is as complicated as the motives of the seekers assembled in his hotel room, but the truth can be a cold comfort indeed.
Spade is bigger (and blonder) in the book than in the movie, and his Mephistophelean countenance is by turns seductive and volcanic. Sam knows how to fight, whom to call, how to rifle drawers and secrets without leaving a trace, and just the right way to call a woman "Angel" and convince her that she is. He is the quintessence of intelligent cool, with a wise guy's perfect pitch. If you only know the movie, read the book. If you're riveted by Chinatown or wonder where Robert B. Parker's Spenser gets his comebacks, read the master.
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- The Maltese Angel
by Catherine Cookson
The year is 1886, and Ward Gibson is a prosperous young farmer who becomes fascinated by Stephanie McQueen, a dancer. His marriage to her divides his home village, as he was expected to marry a local girl, and there follows a series of attacks on his farm, culminating in Stephanie's murder.
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- The Jew of Malta US Edition
- The Jew of Malta UK Edition
by Christopher Marlowe
(in full The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Jew of Malta) Five-act tragedy in blank verse by Christopher Marlowe, produced about 1590 and published in 1633. In order to raise tribute demanded by the Turks, Ferneze, the Christian governor of Malta, seizes half the property of all Jews living on Malta. When Barabas, a wealthy Jewish merchant, protests, his entire estate is confiscated. Seeking revenge on his enemies, Barabas plots their destruction, but in the end he is betrayed and dies the death he had planned for his enemies.
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- A Planter of Malta
by Joseph Conrad
At the age of twenty, Jozef Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski arrived in England unable to speak English. In sixteen years with the British Merchant Marine he not only mastered English but he rose form a deckhand to a captain. As Joseph Conrad, he went to become a successfull novelist in his adopted language.
Generally considered to be a teller of sea tales, he actually used the narrow confines of a ship to examine how society could cope with the forces of individual ego in the modern world.
Conrad's key works include "Heart of Darkness", "Lord Jim", and "Typhoon". Along with his well known works, Quiet Vision also brings you some of his lesser known writings.
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- Mealladh Am Malta
by Sheila MacLeod
Part of a series of novels by Gaelic authors writing on contemporary themes, aimed at senior secondary level classes. Ceit and Iseabail holiday in Malta where Ceit falls in love with a Maltese romeo, and Iseabail has reservations about him.
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