Bøker av Joan Fallon

This fast moving historical novel is a story of love, politics, class prejudice, intrigue and betrayal in the year leading up to the Spanish Civil War.

Jacaranda Dunne-known to everyone as JD-is an ex-Metropolitan police officer who has moved to Málaga to open a detective agency. At first, the work is routine, missing dogs, stolen passports and unfaithful husbands. Then one day a woman bursts into the agency, waving the photo of a young girl; it's her missing daughter, Sophie.Together with her best friend, Julie-both aged fourteen at the time-Sophie had disappeared the previous summer. An extensive police search has failed to find the teenagers but now they have found Julie's dead body, but instead of continuing with the investigation they have closed the case. The distraught mother tells JD that she is her last hope and begs for her help.But has too much time passed? Is the girl still alive? Why have the police shut down the investigation? And more to the point, how can JD find her when the police have failed to do so?This intricate crime mystery, Sophie is still Missing, is the first book in the Jacaranda Dunne Mysteries by award winning Joan Fallon, and takes the reader into the shadowy world of the Costa Del Sol, people trafficking and modern slavery.If you love the Cormoran Strike novels you will enjoy following JD as she searches for the missing girl.

The Prisoner is an exciting, fast moving story of adventure and romance set in the exotic and vibrant 11th century city of Málaga, and is the third novel in The City of Dreams series. It opens when a young Moorish prince wakes to the filth and stench of his new home; at first he can't understand what's happened to him. Where is he? Gradually he remembers what his brother Hasan has done to him, but the question remains, why? His brother is the new caliph of Málaga but instead of welcoming Ben-Yahya, with open arms, he has him thrown into prison. He can only guess what Hasan is plotting, but one thing he does know is that no-one gets out of these dungeons alive. Against this unsettled period in the history of Moorish Spain, where life becomes even more turbulent as intrigues and treachery within the royal household threaten the stability of the city, Salma and her family arrive in Málaga, hoping to follow their dreams and make new lives for themselves. However they soon discover that life in the city is not all they had hoped for; she and her husband share a secret, which if discovered could mean they would face exile or even death.

In the first novel in a new historical series set in Moorish Spain, Joan Fallon sets the action in the busy medieval port of Málaga. Following on from the successful al-Andalus series, we meet up again with the younger members of the family who had escaped from the besieged city of Córdoba.Makoud, now a middle-aged apothecary, has come to Málaga with his family to work. Shortly after they arrive they hear of the sudden death of the caliph, Yahya I and rumours that he was poisoned. Makoud is worried that the poison used by the assassins was bought from his shop. His son, Umar, now a soldier in the caliph's army, decides to investigate but he underestimates the power of the people behind the assassination, and instead he finds himself accused of murder and locked in the dungeons. His father, family and friends pool all their resources to try to help him but the closer they get to the truth, the greater the danger they are all in.

When Mark tells his wife that he has been having an affair with her oldest and dearest friend, he sets off a chain of events that reverberates throughout his whole family and changes the lives of those he loves forever.Love Is All tells the heart-breaking story of a family still grieving after the death of the youngest son, five years previously. Teresa, Mark and their two grown-up sons are at last coming to terms with a life without him, when the harmony of their home is shattered by Mark's confession. Distraught with grief and rage, Theresa runs out of the house and drives off into the night; she crashes her car and is seriously hurt.Months later, when she eventually comes out of a coma, her family are devastated to hear that she has Locked-In Syndrome. She is effectively locked inside her own body and unable to communicate with anyone.In this tense, inspiring hospital drama, we see Teresa struggle with a nightmare from which she cannot wake. At first she is unable to accept the enormity of her plight and decides to seek refuge in an imaginary parallel world, a world where she is a desirable woman again. She refuses to acknowledge either the doctors or her family, but Ian, her younger son, will not let her go; he persists in every way he can to give her back the will to live.

It is the year 1008 AD and al-Mansur, the despotic ruler of al-Andalus is dead. Without his iron grip the country is heading for civil war. Rule and order have collapsed and anarchy reigns. If Ahmad wants to keep his family safe they must leave Córdoba but before he can take action, the enemy lays siege to the city and their escape is cut off. For two years they struggle to survive in the beleaguered city, with no food, little water and no hope of escape. When he hears that Córdoba is about to surrender, Ahmad knows he must come up with a plan or his family will face certain death at the hands of the Berber mercenaries. One way or another they have to find a way out of the city, so he turns to an unlikely ally for help. An exciting, action-packed conclusion to the al-Andalus series.

Daughters of Spain gives a gripping account of the hard won changes within society for the women of Spain, through the eyes and experiences of the women themselves. I first began to think about writing this book in the late 1980s, when I lived in Spain for a brief period. I was impressed by the way the Spanish women I met had embraced the freedom of modern life in the short period since the death of Spain's dictator General Franco, in 1975. However I did nothing about it. The years went by and I began to realise that if I didn't make a start soon, most of the women I wanted to interview would be dead. So in 2007 I began to interview as many women as I could; I began with friends, then they introduced me to their mothers, aunts, neighbours and so it grew. I also read all that I could lay my hands on about the Spanish Civil war and the Franco era. The women I interviewed were from all walks of life and spanned a wide range of ages. Because the interviews covered a period of immense social change in Spain's recent history, I decided to link them together with short commentaries on topics such as divorce, abortion, contraception, domestic abuse and education, thus putting them into context. The result is a mosaic of their lives, a vivid and unique picture of what life was really like for women in Spain over the past seventy years, of the hardships they endured and their aspirations for a more egalitarian future.