12 Days of Christmas book giveaway – Day 9

DECEMBER is finally here, and with it, come the Christmas carols, decorations and end-of-year parties.

But sometimes, it can be difficult to get into the holiday cheer. And with many still recovering from the economic pitfalls of lockdown, rising fuel prices and the ever-looming load-shedding, Caxton Local Media, in partnership with several prominent publishing houses, will be running 12 book giveaways to stir up the festive spirit.

This is our own twist to the 12 Days of Christmas. And while this is traditionally supposed to run from December 25 to January 5, we thought we would start out our December with a ‘12 Days of Giveaways’!

It’s actually Day Nine of our giveaway feature! Can you believe it? Are you ready to win some novels written by bestselling authors?

Then, simply fill in the competition form below to stand a chance to win!

The Rise and Reign of the Mammals Steve Brusatte, Pan Macmillan, ISBN: 9781529034226

The passing of the age of the dinosaurs allowed mammals to become ascendant. But mammals have a much deeper history. They – or, more precisely, we – originated around the same time as the dinosaurs, over 200 million years ago; mammal roots lie even further back, some 325 million years.

Over these immense stretches of geological time, mammals developed their trademark features: hair, keen senses of smell and hearing, big brains and sharp intelligence, fast growth and warm-blooded metabolism, a distinctive line-up of teeth (canines, incisors, premolars, molars), mammary glands that mothers use to nourish their babies with milk, qualities that have underlain their success story.

Out of this long and rich evolutionary history came the mammals of today, including our own species and our closest cousins. But today’s 6 000 mammal species – the egg-laying monotremes including the platypus, marsupials such as kangaroos and koalas that raise their tiny babies in pouches, and placentals like us, who give birth to well-developed young – are simply the few survivors of a once-verdant family tree, which has been pruned both by time and mass extinctions.

In The Rise and Reign of the Mammals, palaeontologist Steve Brusatte weaves together the history and evolution of our mammal forebears with stories of the scientists whose fieldwork and discoveries underlie our knowledge, both of iconic mammals like the mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers of which we have all heard, and of fascinating species that few of us are aware of.

For what we see today is but a very limited range of the mammals that have existed; in this fascinating and ground-breaking book, Steve Brusatte tells their – and our – story.

The Island, Adrian McKinty, Jonathan Ball Publishers, ISBN: 9781409189640

After moving from a small country town to Seattle, Heather Baxter marries Tom, a widowed doctor with a young son and teenage daughter. A working vacation overseas seems like the perfect way to bring the new family together, but once they’re deep in the Australian outback, the jet-lagged and exhausted kids are so over their new mom.

When they discover remote Dutch Island, off-limits to outside visitors, the family talks their way onto the ferry, taking a chance on an adventure far from the reach of iPhones and Instagram.

But as soon as they set foot on the island, which is run by a tightly knit clan of locals, everything feels wrong. Then a shocking accident propels the Baxters from an unsettling situation into an absolute nightmare.

When Heather and the kids are separated from Tom, they are forced to escape alone, seconds ahead of their pursuers.

Now it’s up to Heather to save herself and the kids, even though they don’t trust her, the harsh bushland is filled with danger, and the locals want her dead.

Heather has been underestimated her entire life, but she knows that only she can bring her family home again and become the mother the children desperately need, even if it means doing the unthinkable to keep them all alive.

*T&Cs – The winner will be selected by Caxton Local Media. Competition entries close on Wednesday, December 15. The winner will be notified via telephone. The winner will be required to collect their copies from the Highway Mail office at 115 Escom Road, New Germany, Pinetown. 

This competition has ended. :(