Andrew Hunter Murray Books

For Christmas 2015 the writers behind the hit TV show QI and international bestsellers return with a brand new book, proving once again that everything you think you know is wrong.

"My parents were slaves in New York State. My master's sons-in-law ... came into the garden where my sister and I were playing among the currant bushes, tied their handkerchiefs over our mouths, carried us to a vessel, put us in the hold, and sailed up the river. I know not how far nor how long -- it was dark there all the time." These words, recorded by Benjamin Drew in 1855, provide Sophia Burthen's account of her arrival as an enslaved person into what is now Canada sometime in the late 18th century. In It Was Dark There All the Time, writer and curator Andrew Hunter builds on the testimony of Drew's interview to piece together Burthen's life, while reckoning with the legacy of whiteness and colonialism in the recording of her story. In so doing, Hunter demonstrates the role that the slave trade played in pre-Confederation Canada and its continuing impact on contemporary Canadian society. Evocatively written with sharp, incisive observations and illustrated with archival images and contemporary works of art, It Was Dark There All the Time offers a necessary correction to the prevailing perception of Canada as a place unsullied by slavery and its legacy.

"2059. The world has stopped turning. One half suffers an endless frozen night; the other, nothing but burning sun. Only in a slim twilit region can life survive. In an isolationist Britain, Ellen Hopper receives a letter from a dying man. It contains a powerful and dangerous secret. One that those in power will kill to conceal..."--Publisher

In a disintegrating and increasingly lawless land, a young man is travelling north.Ben is a young painter from the crowded, turbulent city. For six months his fiancée Cara has been living on the remote island of Sanctuary Rock, the property of millionaire philanthropist Sir John Pemberley. Now she has decided to break off their engagement and stay there for good.Ben resolves to travel to the island to win Cara back. But the journey there is a harsh and challenging one, and when he does arrive, a terrible shock awaits him.As Ben begins to find his way around Pemberley's perfect island, he knows he must also discover - what has made Cara so determined to throw her old life away? And is Sanctuary Rock truly a second Eden, as the mysterious Sir John claims - or a prospect of hell?By the Sunday Times-bestselling author of The Last Day, this high-concept thriller will provoke and grip you from the very first page.