Not much festivity about the Revish newsletter this month, just a pile of books for you to read and review. If you want to receive any of the books listed just email team@revish.com with your postal address and we'll do the rest. And remember you can receive details of books available for review as soon as we have them in the group at http://www.revish.com/groups/availableforreview/

In this issue:

• Gentlemen, by Klas Östergren
• Jungle Capitalists, by Peter Chapman
• The Poison That Fascinates, by Jennifer Clement
• Twin Voices: A Memoir of Polio, the Forgotten Killer, by Janice Flood Nichols
• Who Killed Callaway?, by John Rhodes
• Conduct in Question, by Mary E. Martin
• Final Paradox, by Mary E. Martin
• A Trial of One, by Mary E. Martin
• Down to a Sunless Sea, by Mathias B. Freese
• Hike Your Own Hike: 7 Life Lessons from Backpacking Across America, by Francis Tapon
• The Heretic, by Andrew Feder
• Next month - everything we should have brought you this month…

Gentlemen, by Klas Östergren

Barricaded into a large, gloomy flat in Stockholm, 1979, a battered and frightened young man – Klas Östergren – writes the story of how he came to this sorry state. But is he a reliable narrator?

In this expansive and exuberant novel, he tells the story of his friends (and flatmates), the two Morgan brothers: Henry – a charismatic charmer, a man who loves to play at life but is mysteriously bound to the beautiful Maud; and Leo – a child genius who became a revolutionary poet, drinking and smoking his way to disillusionment. Despite their hedonistic lifestyle, they've stumbled on a dark secret that goes right to the heart of the country, a story that has sinister links with their own pasts. But now both of them have vanished, and Klas is frightened for his life.

When Klas Östergren, aged 25, made his debut in Sweden with this powerful and original work, it was instantly recognised as a masterpiece. Playing with truth and lies, fact and fiction – and everything in-between – this blackly humorous spy novel, love story and boys' own adventure is sure to charm and delight a new audience in its English incarnation.

We've copies of this book to send worldwide, but UK-based reviewers are preferred.

More on Gentlemen at Canongate

Jungle Capitalists, by Peter Chapman

In this powerful and gripping book, Peter Chapman shows how the pioneering example of the banana importer United Fruit set the precedent for the institutionalized greed of today’s multinational companies.

From the business’s 19th Century beginnings in the jungles of Costa Rica, via the mass-marketing of the banana as the original fast food, United Fruit’s involvement in bloody coups in Guatemala and El Salvador, the mid-1970s and the spectacular suicide on Park Avenue of the company’s chairman, from its bullying business practices to its covert links to the US government, United Fruit blazed the trail of global capitalism through the 20th Century.

Chapman weaves a dramatic tale of big business, lies and power to show how one company pioneered the growth of globalization and – in doing so – has helped farm the banana to the point of extinction.

We've copies of this book to send worldwide, but UK-based reviewers are preferred.

More on Jungle Capitalists at Canongate

The Poison That Fascinates, by Jennifer Clement

Deserted by her mother as a baby, Emily lives with her father in Mexico City, working in the local orphanage. When a mysterious cousin, Santi, appears on the doorstep, he brings with him family secrets, and soon Emily finds desire and temptation have overturned her straightforward life forever.

The Poison that Fascinates is an alluring fable forged in astonishing, sensuous prose. Jennifer Clement conjures a world heavy with the weight of Mexican superstition, mythology and faith, where saintliness and mortal sin sit side by side.

We've copies of this book to send worldwide, but UK-based reviewers are preferred.

More on The Poison That Fascinates at Canongate

Twin Voices: A Memoir of Polio, the Forgotten Killer, by Janice Flood Nichols

"Twin Voices: A Memoir of Polio, the Forgotten Killer" tells the author's personal story and the larger story of polio the disease. Nichols, though temporarily paralyzed, survived the 1953 polio epidemic. Unfortunately, her twin brother Frankie did not. She shares her story in hopes of helping others avoid the loss she and her family suffered by disseminating accurate information about the need for vaccinations.

Here is what former First Lady of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Michele (Moore) Ridge said about "Twin Voices": "I am overwhelmed with emotion and gratitude that you have written your story... I could hear your voice literally, and wished I could hear Frankie's 'snuffles'... A lot of people need to read your book."

We've copies of this book to send US-based reviewers only.

More on the Twin Voices website

Who Killed Callaway?, by John Rhodes

Imagine an aristocratic society willing to flummox a murder investigation in order to hide its own dirty secrets. So it is in Who Killed Callaway? where compelling characters from patrician backgrounds would rather protect their questionable pasts than see justice done. In the same vein as Agatha Christie, PD James, and Dorothy L. Sayers, novelist John Rhodes aligns a 1920's British mystery setting into a page-turning whodunit.

In his search for the murderer of a young man at a private boarding school, Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Ford of Scotland Yard faces his own demons by returning to the school he'd once attended. The school's authorities, in their zeal to maintain Kings School's esteemed reputation, provide conflicting stories while the clues they offer may be nothing more than red herrings – even after a second murder occurs. However, by the climactic conclusion, in true, delicious British detective style, Ford gathers the suspects in a country manor in order to unmask both the posh society's secrets, as well as the murderer.

Given the prestigious iUniverse Editor's Choice Publishers Choice and Readers Choice award, Rhodes, who attended a school in England, examines the privileges of the wealthy while transporting readers to a time when the world was recovering from the ravishes of World War I. In Who Killed Callaway? – and why – Detective Thomas Ford not only reveals the murderer but also exposes the sins of the aristocracy. Rhodes does the genre proud and readers will want to see Detective Ford solving more mysteries to come.

We've copies of this book to send to reviewers based in the US and Canada.

More on Who Killed Callaway at Amazon

Conduct in Question, by Mary E. Martin

The first in The Osgoode Trilogy, lawyer Harry Jenkins longs for freedom and love.

Trapped under his senior partner's thumb for years and in a dead marriage, he has nearly reached his breaking point.

The city is haunted by the spectre of the Florist, a sadistic murderer with an artistic flair, who believes he is called to judge the worthiness of his victims.

We've copies of this book to send to reviewers based in the US and Canada.

More on Conduct in Question at Amazon

Final Paradox, by Mary E. Martin

The second in The Osgoode Trilogy, Harry Jenkins is an honest lawyer seeking truth and love in a world darkened by fraud and deceit.

Years back, Elixicorp, a company developing a drug to forestall memory loss, defrauded millions from Toronto's elite.

But since then, no one has been able to find this long buried treasure, which has poisoned the lives of all who seek it.

We've copies of this book to send to reviewers based in the US and Canada.

More on Final Paradox at Amazon

A Trial of One, by Mary E. Martin

In the final installment of The Osgoode Trilogy, attorney Harry Jenkins is on a frantic search for shares of Elixicorp Enterprises stock, worth over thirty million dollars, for his elderly client, Norma Dinnick. The shares were originally sold to raise money for research into memory loss in seniors. Ironically, no one seems to remember just where the shares might be.

Pursuing Jenkins through Toronto and London, and to the darkened, narrow calles of Venice, is Dr. Robert Hawkes, a sinister madman who claims to have the cure for Alzheimer's disease.

We've copies of this book to send to reviewers based in the US and Canada.

More on A Trial of One at Amazon

Down to a Sunless Sea, by Mathias B. Freese

Down to a Sunless Sea plunges the reader into uncomfortable situations and into the minds of troubled characters. Each selection is a different reading experience – poetic, journalistic, wryly humorous, and even macabre.

An award-winning essayist and historical novelist, Mathias B. Freese brings the weight of his twenty-five years as a clinical social worker and psychotherapist into play as he demonstrates a vivid understanding of – and compassion toward – the deviant and damaged.

We've copies of this book to send to reviewers worldwide.

More on Down to a Sunless Sea

Hike Your Own Hike: 7 Life Lessons from Backpacking Across America, by Francis Tapon

Francis Tapon knew he had a good life – he had a great career, fantastic friends, a nice home, and a cool electric shaver. However, something was missing. His life was good, but not great. It was quite predictable and safe, but thoroughly uninspiring. He wondered how to take his life to the next level.

He thought it would be smart to do what the sages do: hang out in the woods for several months and get some wisdom. Although he ultimately found wisdom, finding it wasn't as easy or as romantic as all those spiritual books say it is. They neglect to mention that during the hot humid summer months there's no air conditioning in the woods.

Hike Your Own Hike balances the story of an adventurous and insightful trip across the Appalachian Mountains with practical advice on how to squeeze the most out of life both on and off the trail. It's enlightening, educational, and entertaining. It's a serious book that doesn't take itself so seriously. Hiking the entire Appalachian Trail in one season has soared in popularity over the last 20 years.

Compared to 1986, there are eight times more people trying to "thru-hike" it! What accounts for this phenomenon?

Today people are overly stressed and need a break to return to the fundamentals. Feeling disconnected from the rhythms of life, hikers go on multi-month trails to recalibrate their perspective and to remind themselves of what really matters.

Hike Your Own Hike is about an incredible pilgrimage, what we can learn from it, and how to enrich our lives without getting too muddy.

We've copies of this book to send to reviewers based in the US.

More on the Hike Your Own Hike website

The Heretic, by Andrew Feder

When a man begins experiencing bizarre dreams, a visit to a psychic transports him to the time of Alexander the Great, and he discovers the amazing truth about his past in Andrew Feder's new historical fiction novel, The Heretic, the sequel to When The Angels Have Risen.

After questioning his bizarre dreams and an unexplained sudden knowledge of ancient Greek, Jerry Fletcher seeks the help of a psychic, who suggests that he undergo past life regression. Under this treatment, Jerry begins remembering his past lives – a Jew during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, a young Arapaho brave, a knight during the Middle Ages – until he stops in Ancient Greece with Aias, a Spartan who was renowned during his time as the world's greatest warrior, but whose name went unrecorded in history.

Aias was not only Alexander the Great's mentor and true friend, he was a highly skilled warrior – akin to a ninja – and an inspiring military hero. The name of Aias has been mysteriously removed from Alexander's journal, but now the truth of this daring man is finally revealed, from the brutal military campaigns to the erotic escapades.

Alexander the Great often compared Aias to Illiad's Hector and Achilles.

Ptlomey thought that Aias was perhaps a God reincarnate from Olympus.

Alexander called him Aries incarnate.

His enemies called him Aias the Decapitator.

Aristotle called him The Heretic.

And the women of Greece called him – well, you'll have to read the book to find out.

A story of romance and violence, adventure and spirituality, The Heretic unveils a new legend at home with the classics.

We've copies of this book to send to reviewers based in the US.

More on the Heretic website

Next month - all the things we promised for this month…!

It's been a bit hectic here at Revish Towers this month, so we've had to put back all the other exciting stuff we had lined up for this month. So eyes peeled for Pratchett, widgets, videos and the rest.

Happy reading!

The Revish Team