When the Ground Is Hard

Edgar Award nominee stuns in this heartrending tale set in a Swaziland boarding school where two girls of different castes bond over a shared copy of Jane Eyre. Adele Joubert loves being one of the popular girls at Keziah Christian Academy. She knows the upcoming semester at school is going to be great with her best friend Delia at her side. Then Delia dumps her for a new girl with more money, and Adele is forced to share a room with Lottie, the school pariah, who doesn't pray and defies teachers' orders. But as they share a copy of Jane Eyre, Lottie's gruff exterior and honesty grow on Adele, and Lottie learns to be a little sweeter. Together, they take on bullies and protect each other from the vindictive and prejudiced teachers. Then a boy goes missing on campus and Adele and Lottie must rely on each other to solve the mystery and maybe learn the true meaning of friendship.

Teen & Young Adult

Nunn, Malla

Literature & Fiction

G.P.Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers'

This heartrending YA tale set in a Swaziland boarding school and featuring an unlikely friendship between girls of different castes won the LA Times Book Prize and is now available in paperback.\nAdele Joubert loves being one of the popular girls at Keziah Christian Academy. She knows the upcoming semester at school is going to be great with her best friend Delia at her side. Then Delia dumps her for a new girl with more money, and Adele is forced to share a room with Lottie, the school pariah, who doesn't pray and defies teachers' orders.\nBut as they share a copy of Jane Eyre, Lottie's gruff exterior and honesty grows on Adele, and Lottie learns to be a little sweeter. Together, they take on bullies and protect each other from the vindictive and prejudiced teachers. Then a boy goes missing on campus and Adele and Lottie must rely on each other to solve the mystery and along the way learn the true meaning of friendship.

Sugar Town Queens

Product Description 
From Los Angeles Times Book Prize Award winner and Edgar Award nominee Malla Nunn comes a stunning portrait of a family divided and a powerful story of how friendship saves and heals.\nWhen Amandla wakes up on her fifteenth birthday, she knows it's going to be one of her mother's difficult days. Her mother has had another vision. This one involves Amandla wearing a bedsheet loosely stitched as a dress. An outfit, her mother says, is certain to bring Amandla's father back home, as if he were the prince and this was the fairytale ending their family was destined for. But in truth, Amandla's father has long been gone--since before Amandla was born--and even her mother's memory of him is hazy. In fact, many of her mother's memories from before Amandla was born are hazy. It's just one of the many reasons people in Sugar Town give them strange looks--that and the fact her mother is white and Amandla is Black.\nWhen Amandla finds a mysterious address in the bottom of her mother's handbag along with a large amount of cash, she decides it's finally time to get answers about her mother's life. What she discovers will change the shape and size of her family forever. But with her best friends at her side, Amandla is ready to take on family secrets and the devil himself. These Sugar Town queens are ready to take over the world to expose the hard truths of their lives. 
 From School Library Journal 
Gr 8 Up-Amandla wakes up on her 15th birthday only to remember that surprise gifts are not always a good thing, especially when they come from her mother Annalisa. This year the gift is a blue "dress" made out of a sheet that will supposedly bring her long-absent father home. As always, Amandla acquiesces to Annalisa's fragile mental state and dons the strange attire while frantically plotting an escape plan. People already wonder about her mother's blonde hair, blue eyes, and white skin, which stand in stark contrast to Amandla's brown skin and greenflecked hazel eyes. She cannot imagine the humiliation awaiting her when she leaves the house wearing the sheet and ponders the cause of her mother's mental fuzziness and "visions," why they live in their poor community, and who and where her father is. These questions propel the plot forward as Amandla uncovers the painful secrets of her mother's past with the help of supportive, intergenerational friends and family. She also gains the courage to confront violent misogyny and racism in a post-apartheid South Africa, coming to accept herself as a biracial, intelligent individual. VERDICT This descriptive, fast-paced narrative is a compelling read that is difficult to put down and will likely fly off library shelves.-Ruth Quiroa, National Louis Univ., Lisle, ILα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. 
 Review 
Praise for Sugar Town Queens:\nAn Amazon Best Book – August 2021\n★ “Amandla uncovers the painful secrets of her mother’s past with the help of supportive, intergenerational friends and family. She also gains the courage to confront violent ­misogyny and racism in a post-apartheid South Africa, coming to accept herself as a biracial, intelligent individual. This 
descriptive, 
fast-paced ­narrative is a 
compelling read that is 
difficult to put down and will likely fly off library shelves.” — 
School Library Journal, starred review\n★ “Nunn grounds her tale in Amandla’s convictions and 
embrace of her life and neighbors in Sugar Town. Complexities of race and racism in Mandela’s freed South Africa are 
handled with realism and strength . . . but it is the 
resilient community that is front and center in Nunn's 
unique and detailed setting. Readers will cheer Amandla as she discovers who she is and where she came from in this 
captivating book.” — 
Booklist, 
starred review\n★ “Nunn’s 
evocative storytelling will make you ache for Amandla. She is a complex creation whose circumstances

From Los Angeles Times Book Prize Award winner and Edgar Award nominee Malla Nunn comes a stunning portrait of a family divided and a powerful story of how friendship saves and heals. When Amandla wakes up on her fifteenth birthday, she knows it's going to be one of her mother's difficult days. Her mother has had another vision. This one involves Amandla wearing a bedsheet loosely stitched as a dress. An outfit, her mother says, is certain to bring Amandla's father back home, as if he were the prince and this was the fairytale ending their family was destined for. But in truth, Amandla's father has long been gone--since before Amandla was born--and even her mother's memory of him is hazy. In fact, many of her mother's memories from before Amandla was born are hazy. It's just one of the many reasons people in Sugar Town give them strange looks--that and the fact her mother is white and Amandla is Black. When Amandla finds a mysterious address in the bottom of her mother's handbag along with a large amount of cash, she decides it's finally time to get answers about her mother's life. What she discovers will change the shape and size of her family forever. But with her best friends at her side, Amandla is ready to take on family secrets and the devil himself. These Sugar Town queens are ready to take over the world to expose the hard truths of their lives.

"Jacob's Rest is a tiny town on the border between South Africa and Mozambique. It is 1952, and new apartheid laws have recently gone into effect. When an Afrikaner police officer is murdered, the powerful police Security Branch, dedicated to flushing out black communist radicals, preempts Detective Emmanuel Cooper's investigation. But Cooper isn't interested in political expediency and has never been one for making friends. Instead, he strikes out on his own, following a trail of clues that lead him to uncover shocking secrets." - Taken from cover p.4.

A Beautiful Place to Die

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Thorndike Press

A tale based on the author's childhood in 1950s apartheid southern Africa finds English detective Emmanuel Cooper's investigation into an Afrikaans police officer's murder hampered by the Afrikaner Secret Police's campaign to capture black communist radicals. 75,000 first printing.

A Beautiful Place to Die: A Novel (Detective Emmanuel Cooper)

Genre Fiction

Atria Books

Award-winning screenwriter Malla Nunn delivers a stunning and darkly romantic crime novel set in 1950s apartheid South Africa, featuring Detective Emmanuel Cooper -- a man caught up in a time and place where racial tensions and the raw hunger for power make life very dangerous indeed. In a morally complex tale rich with authenticity, Nunn takes readers to Jacob's Rest, a tiny town on the border between South Africa and Mozambique. It is 1952, and new apartheid laws have recently gone into effect, dividing a nation into black and white while supposedly healing the political rifts between the Afrikaners and the English. Tensions simmer as the fault line between the oppressed and the oppressors cuts deeper, but it's not until an Afrikaner police officer is found dead that emotions more dangerous than anyone thought possible boil to the surface. When Detective Emmanuel Cooper, an Englishman, begins investigating the murder, his mission is preempted by the powerful police Security Branch, who are dedicated to their campaign to flush out black communist radicals. But Detective Cooper isn't interested in political expediency and has never been one for making friends. He may be modest, but he radiates intelligence and certainly won't be getting on his knees before those in power. Instead, he strikes out on his own, following a trail of clues that lead him to uncover a shocking forbidden love and the imperfect life of Captain Pretorius, a man whose relationships with the black and coloured residents of the town he ruled were more complicated and more human than anyone could have imagined. The first in her Detective Emmanuel Cooper series, A Beautiful Place to Die marks the debut of a talented writer who reads like a brilliant combination of Raymond Chandler and Graham Greene. It is a tale of murder, passion, corruption, and the corrosive double standard that defined an apartheid nation. I

A Beautiful Place to Die: An Emmanuel Cooper Mystery

The second in a crime series set in 1950's South Africa when apartheid laws were first introduced.

Let the Dead Lie (Emmanuel Cooper)

Detective Emmanuel Cooper returns to solve a darkly romantic mystery in this rich and complex novel by Malla Nunn, author of Let the Dead Lie and A Beautiful Place to Die. Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper returns in this powerful, atmospheric novel about two communities forced to confront each other after a murder that exposes their secret ties and forbidden desires in apartheid South Africa, by award-winning author Malla Nunn. The body of a beautiful seventeen-year-old Zulu girl, Amahle, is found covered in wildflowers on a hillside in the Drakensberg Mountains, halfway between her father’s compound and the enormous white-owned farm where she worked. Detective Sergeant Cooper and Detective Constable Samuel Shabalala are sent to the desolate landscape to investigate. They soon discover that Amahle’s life was woven into both the black and white communities in ways they could never have imagined. Cooper and Shabalala must enter the guarded worlds of a traditional Zulu clan and a divided white farming community to gather up the secrets she left behind and bring her murderer to justice. In a country deeply divided by apartheid, where the law is bent as often as it is broken, Emmanuel Cooper fights against all odds to deliver justice and bring together two seemingly disparate and irreconcilable worlds despite the danger that is arising.

Blessed Are the Dead: An Emmanuel Cooper Mystery

Emily Bestler Books

Set in the corrupt, unforgiving world of apartheid South Africa, this novel in the Detective Emmanuel Cooper series follows Cooper as he faces a test of loyalty and friendship. Five days before Christmas, Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper sits at his desk at the Johannesburg major crimes squad, ready for his holiday in Mozambique. A call comes in: a respectable white couple has been assaulted and left for dead in their bedroom. The couple’s teenage daughter identifies the attacker as Aaron Shabalala— the youngest son of Zulu Detective Constable Samuel Shabalala—Cooper’s best friend and a man to whom he owes his life. The Detective Branch isn’t interested in evidence that might contradict their star witness’s story, especially so close to the holidays. Determined to ensure justice for Aaron, Cooper, Shabalala, and their trusted friend Dr. Daniel Zweigman hunt for the truth. Their investigation uncovers a violent world of Sophiatown gangs, thieves, and corrupt government officials who will do anything to keep their dark world intact.

Present Darkness: A Novel (Emmanuel Cooper Mysteries)

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Nunn, Malla. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Nunn, Malla

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Nunn, Malla. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

When the Ground Is Hard

When the Ground Is Hard

Sugar Town Queens

Sugar Town Queens

A Beautiful Place to Die

A Beautiful Place to Die: A Novel (Detective Emmanuel Cooper)

A Beautiful Place to Die: An Emmanuel Cooper Mystery

Let the Dead Lie (Emmanuel Cooper)

Blessed Are the Dead: An Emmanuel Cooper Mystery

Present Darkness: A Novel (Emmanuel Cooper Mysteries)