Books with author Jeffrey Li

Malcolm Hopeton is on trial for his life - he has committed a horrific act that reverberates through the community of the Four Corners as it emerges from the shadows of the American Civil War. Becca Davis has been keeping house for the widowed August Swartout for four years when she receives word that her brother Harlan has been injured in a tussle with the infamous murderer. But when Harlan comes to the house to recuperate, Becca and August are surprised. Not only does Harlan forgive his attacker, but he is ready to stand at his trial and plead in his defence. Soon, Enoch Stone, the local lawyer, comes knocking. Sensing an opportunity to advance his own position, he has taken on Hopeton's case. As the truth behind the violence comes to light and the townspeople become caught up in the events, notions of honour and integrity, theft and revenge will be sorely tested. And they will each come to realise that the world they thought they knew can never be the same again. A Slant of Light is a powerful novel of lust and love, loss and war, prophets and followers: of the moments that shatter our lives and the ways in which they are remade.

Thabo means happiness. It was the name given to him by his father seventeen years ago on the starlit night he was born in the Mountain Kingdom of Lesotho. African names often shape the destiny of the name bearer, and so it had been with Thabo. He was content as a Basotho herd boy and blessed with happiness. He knew no other life, had never been to school, and would travel the same path as his father before him.

Eleven-year-old Harry Winchester inherits an ornate bed from a distant relation, Uncle Toby. Despite being puzzled since he scarcely knew Uncle Toby, Harry has more important things on his mind. In the autumn he is to move to Underhill High, the local secondary school and he is anxious, especially since his older brother William is apparently much cleverer than he is. At Underhill High, Harry meets Betsy Barrow and Georgie Milton, a skilled judo player. He also meets a gang of bullies and some eccentric members of staff, including Jack Benedict, a bizarre and gifted English teacher. Harry's mum and dad arrange to have the bed moved into his room causing a series of strange events to occur. It turns out that the bed has unusual properties and the world of Harry's imagination becomes strangely intertwined with the real world. Uncle Toby's Second Best Bed is not a story about space travel or magic. Harry's journeys are in the mind as well as the body, and, at the end of the story, he has become a much wiser young person.