List
Australian Best Sellers, 2022
100 books Discoverable by Booko Admin
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The Husband's Secret
Liane Moriarty · 2013
Liane Moriarty is the author of Three Wishes, The Last Anniversary, What Alice Forgot and The Hypnotist's Love Story. All of her novels have been published successfully around the world and translated into seven languages. Writing as L.M. Moriarty, she is also the author of the Space Brigade series for children. Liane lives in Sydney with her husband, son and daughter.
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If Wishes Were Horses
Karly Lane · 2017
Already struggling to come to terms with the tragic death of her husband, Sophie Bryant nearly loses her own life while attending a domestic dispute as a paramedic. Diagnosed with a mild form of post-traumatic stress disorder, Sophie decides to accept a posting to the remote township of Hilsons Ridge. Soon after her arrival, Sophie decides on a whim to buy an old house on the outskirts of town. There, she discovers the diary of a light horse trooper from the First World War, which she finds fascinating. Local vet, Zac Conway, is also struggling in the wake of losing his life partner. So when Sophie brings an abandoned horse to him for treatment and they get to know each other, Zac is surprised to feel emotions he never hoped to experience again. The peace and tranquillity of living in her new community sees Sophie gradually recovering from her trauma and grief. As she discovers more about her farm’s history, she realises that the past and the present are irrevocably connected and, just like love, it waits for the right person to come along to unlock its secrets. If Wishes Were Horses is a totally captivating novel combining romance and history with a dash of suspense.
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The Torrent
Dinuka McKenzie · 2022
A loving husband lost to devastating summer floods. A teenage girl injured during a robbery. Two seemingly unconnected cases that will push a detective to the brink.An atmospheric, compelling new voice in Australian crime fiction. In Northern New South Wales, heavily pregnant and a week away from maternity leave, Detective Sergeant Kate Miles is exhausted and counting down the days. But a violent hold-up at a local fast-food restaurant with unsettling connections to her own past, means that her final days will be anything but straightforward.When a second case is dumped on her lap, the closed case of man drowned in recent summer floods, what begins as a simple informal review quickly grows into something more complicated. Kate can either write the report that's expected of her or investigate the case the way she wants to. As secrets and betrayals pile up, and the needs of her own family intervene, how far is Kate prepared to push to discover the truth?
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The Thursday Murder Club
Richard Osman · 2020
Who said old age has to be dull? In a peaceful retirement village off the A21 in Kent, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved killings. But when a local property developer shows up dead, 'The Thursday Murder Club' find themselves in the middle of their first live case. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be octogenarians, but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves. Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer, before it's too late? A page-turning murder mystery in the tradition of Christie, and a joyful, laugh-out-loud celebration of modern Britishness and the power of friendship, The Thursday Murder Club is a true classic in the making.
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Keeping Up Appearances
Tricia Stringer · 2022
As tensions simmer in a small country town, three women are going to need more than CWA sausage rolls and can-do community spirit to put things right. From a bestselling Australian author comes a delightful novel full of practical wisdom and dry humour that examines female friendship, buried secrets and why honesty is (usually) the best policy. Privacy is hard to maintain in Badara, the kind of small Australian country town where everyone knows everyone else's business. So discovers single mum Paige when she and her three children arrive from the city seeking refuge. Paige's only respite from child care and loneliness is the Tuesday gym club, where she had feared the judgement of the town matriarchs, but she is met only with generosity and a plethora of baked goods. Besides, both the brusque Marion and her polished sister-in-law Briony are too busy dealing with their own dramas to examine hers.Well-to-do farmer's wife and proud mother Briony is in full denial of her family's troubles. Even with her eldest daughter's marriage in ruins and her son Blake's recent bombshell. Suddenly Briony and husband Vince have a full house again - and the piles of laundry aren't the only dirty linen that's about to be aired.For Marion, the unearthing of a time capsule - its contents to be read at the Celebrate Badara weekend - is a disaster. She was only a teenager when she wrote down those poisonous words, but that doesn't mean she won't lose friends and family if they hear what she really thinks of them - especially as the letter reveals their darkest secrets to the world. When the truth comes out for Badara, keeping up appearances may no longer be an option for anyone ...
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Daisy Jones & The Six
Taylor Jenkins Reid · 2019
A gripping novel about the whirlwind rise of an iconic 1970s rock group and their beautiful lead singer, revealing the mystery behind their infamous breakup. "I devoured Daisy Jones & The Six in a day, falling head over heels for it. Daisy and the band captured my heart."-Reese Witherspoon Everyone knows DAISY JONES & THE SIX, but nobody knows the reason behind their split at the absolute height of their popularity . . . until now. Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it's the rock 'n' roll she loves most. By the time she's twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things. Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she's pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road. Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend. The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a talented writer who takes her work to a new level with Daisy Jones & The Six, brilliantly capturing a place and time in an utterly distinctive voice.
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Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë · 1905
As an orphan, Jane's childhood is not an easy one but her independence and strength of character keep her going through the miseries inflicted by cruel relatives and a brutal school. However, her biggest challenge is yet to come. Taking a job as a governess in a house full of secrets, for a passionate man she grows more and more attracted to, ultimately forces Jane to call on all her resources in order to hold on to her beliefs.
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The Heart's Invisible Furies
John Boyne · 2016
Cyril Avery is not a real Avery or at least that’s what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he? Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead. At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from – and over his three score years and ten, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country and much more. In this, Boyne's most transcendent work to date, we are shown the story of Ireland from the 1940s to today through the eyes of one ordinary man. The Heart's Invisible Furies is a novel to make you laugh and cry while reminding us all of the redemptive power of the human spirit.
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The Prodigal Sister
Darry Fraser · 2021
Headstrong Prudence North faces a dangerous blackmailer who threatens her family and her dreams of escaping domestic drudgery. An enthralling historical mystery from a bestselling Australian author. 1900 Melbourne, VictoriaMiss Prudence North is freshly returned from university in Scotland and determined to find her place among the male-dominated world of the new forensic sciences when a high-ranking policeman waylays her. He threatens to charge her father for illegal medical practices unless she helps him build a case against local landowner Jasper Darke by spying on him. With her sister's illness worsening, if their income disappears, Prudence will have to take on nursing and domestic duties and she'll never have the freedom she craves. Prudence has no choice but to agree. Immediately taken with the handsome Mr Darke, a seemingly good and honest man, Prudence can't see what nefarious activities she's meant to be reporting on. She'll have to get closer...But when a body turns up at her father's surgery, the forensics reveal to Prudence there's more going on about all this than meets the eye. It's clear it's up to her to uncover the truth - of this murder, of whatever's going on at the surgery after hours and, especially, of the intriguing Jasper Darke. Her life, her family and her future rely on it... PRAISE FOR DARRY FRASER:'Darry Fraser has proven yet again that she is a master at writing Australian historical fiction ... The Last Truehart is an enjoyable and well written tale - a great yarn, a dashing hero and a real sense of place in the evolution of Australian society of the time.' - Great Reads & Tea Leaves'Darry Fraser effortlessly weaves historical events throughout... a must read for historical fiction fans.' - The Burgeoning Bookshelf'A fabulous storyteller who underlies this compelling plot with strong female characters who challenge the status quo...Fast paced historical fiction, first-hand experience of the South Australian landscape, and the added bonus of a plot line that has been drawn from Darry Fraser's very own family history make this an authentic, seamless and riveting tale.' - Better Reading
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Demon Copperhead
Barbara Kingsolver · 2022
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION New York Times Readers’ Pick: Top 100 Books of the 21st Century • An Oprah’s Book Club Selection • An Instant New York Times Bestseller • An Instant Wall Street Journal Bestseller • A #1 Washington Post Bestseller • A New York Times \"Ten Best Books of the Year\" \"Demon is a voice for the ages—akin to Huck Finn or Holden Caulfield—only even more resilient.” —Beth Macy, author of Dopesick \"May be the best novel of [the year]. . . . Equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking, this is the story of an irrepressible boy nobody wants, but readers will love.” —Ron Charles, Washington Post From the acclaimed author of The Poisonwood Bible and The Bean Trees and the recipient of the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, a brilliant novel that enthralls, compels, and captures the heart as it evokes a young hero’s unforgettable journey to maturity Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities. Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens’ anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can’t imagine leaving behind.
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The Liars
Petronella McGovern · 2022
From the bestselling author of Six Minutes and The Good Teacher comes a compelling family drama of marital secrets and family tensions set within an investigation of sinister unsolved killings. 'One of my favourite Australian writers! Petronella McGovern consistently delivers smart, twisty page-turners guaranteed to keep her readers coming back for more!' Liane Moriarty 'Compelling, contemporary crime fiction at its best. McGovern fully captures the soul of an Australian small town overdue a reckoning.' RWR McDonald, author of the bestselling Nancy Business What if your search for the truth puts your family at risk? The close-knit community of Kinton Bay is shocked when fifteen-year-old Siena Britton makes a grisly discovery in the national park. She believes it's a skull from the town's violent colonial past and posts a video which hits the news headlines. Her parents, Meri and Rollo, aren't so sure. In 1998, their classmate went missing after a party in the Killing Cave. They're horrified to discover the destructive teenage parties are still happening, and Siena was there last weekend. While Meri is trying to keep her daughter out of trouble, she doesn't realise her son, Taj, has his own problems. And none of them foresees the danger that Siena's actions will create for the whole family. As more secrets are exposed, the police investigate whether multiple murders have been committed. If so, by whom? And is the killer still living in Kinton Bay? The Liars is a heart-stopping cocktail of family secrets, sinister unsolved killings and a community at war with itself. A wife burning with resentment. A husband hiding the past. Their teenage daughter crusading for the truth. Who can we trust?
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The Good Sister
Sally Hepworth · 2020
There's only been one time that Rose couldn't stop me from doing the wrong thing and that was a mistake that will haunt me for the rest of my life. Fern Castle works in her local library. She has dinner with her twin sister Rose three nights a week. And she avoids crowds, bright lights and loud noises as much as possible. Fern has a carefully structured life and disrupting her routine can be ... dangerous. When Rose discovers that she cannot fall pregnant, Fern sees her chance to pay her sister back for everything Rose has done for her. Fern can have a baby for Rose. She just needs to find a father. Simple. Fern's mission will shake the foundations of the life she has carefully built for herself and stir up dark secrets from the past, in this quirky, rich and shocking story of unexpected love.
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A Thousand Splendid Suns
Khaled Hosseini · 2000
The #1 international bestseller: a riveting and powerful story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship and an indestructible love.
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Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Gabrielle Zevin · 2022
This is not a romance, but it is about love Two kids meet in a hospital gaming room in 1987. One is visiting her sister, the other is recovering from a car crash. The days and months are long there. Their love of video games becomes a shared world -- of joy, escape and fierce competition. But all too soon that time is over, fades from view. When the pair spot each other eight years later in a crowded train station, they are catapulted back to that moment. The spark is immediate, and together they get to work on what they love - making games to delight, challenge and immerse players, finding an intimacy in digital worlds that eludes them in their real lives. Their collaborations make them superstars. This is the story of the perfect worlds Sadie and Sam build, the imperfect world they live in, and of everything that comes after success: Money. Fame. Duplicity. Tragedy. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow takes us on a dazzling imaginative quest as it examines the nature of identity, creativity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play and, above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love.
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The Last Station
Nicole Alexander · 2022
With the riverboat trade along the Darling River slowly dying, a once-prosperous pastoralist family fights to survive - and discovers there is a cost to love . . . In nineteenth-century New South Wales, the name Dalhunty stood for prosperity and prestige. The family's vast station was home to more than 80 people, and each year their premium wool was shipped down the bustling Darling River to be sold in South Australia. Yet, just decades later, Dalhunty Station is on the brink of ruin . . . In the summer of 1909, eccentric Benjamin Dalhunty and his son Julian anxiously await the arrival of the Lady Matilda, the first paddle-steamer to navigate the river in more than two years. It will transport their very last wool clip to market. Twenty-year-old Julian wants more from life than the crumbling station, but as the eldest son his future has been set since birth. Until the day his mother invites a streetwise young man from Sydney into their home . . . Ethan Harris's arrival shines a light on a family at breaking point. But he also unwittingly offers Julian an escape, as the young men embark on a perilous journey down the Darling and west into untamed lands. The Last Station is a captivating story of heritage, heartbreak and hope, set during the dying days of the riverboat trade along the Darling River.
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Fairy Tale
Stephen King · 2022
Legendary storyteller Stephen King goes into the deepest well of his imagination in this spellbinding novel about a seventeen-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher - for their world or ours. Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a hit-and-run accident when he was ten, and grief drove his dad to drink. Charlie learned how to take care of himself - and his dad. Then, when Charlie is seventeen, he meets a dog named Radar and her aging master, Howard Bowditch, a recluse in a big house at the top of a big hill, with a locked shed in the backyard. Sometimes strange sounds emerge from it. Charlie starts doing jobs for Mr. Bowditch and loses his heart to Radar. Then, when Bowditch dies, he leaves Charlie a cassette tape telling a story no one would believe. What Bowditch knows, and has kept secret all his long life, is that inside the shed is a portal to another world. King's storytelling in Fairy Tale soars. This is a magnificent and terrifying tale about another world than ours, in which good is pitted against overwhelming evil, and a heroic boy - and his dog - must lead the battle.
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The Secret History
Donna Tartt · 1981
Donna Tartt's The Secret History is the original American campus novel. When Richard Papen joins an elite group of clever misfits at his New England college, it seems he can finally become the person he wants to be. But the moral boundaries he will cross with his new friends - and the deaths they are responsible for - will change all of their lives forever. The Secret History recounts the terrible price we pay for mistakes made on the dark journey to adulthood.
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The Wife and the Widow
Christian White · 2019
Set against the backdrop of an eerie island town in the dead of winter, THE WIFE AND THE WIDOW is a mystery/thriller told from two perspectives: Kate, a widow whose grief is compounded by what she learns about her dead husband's secret life; and Abby, an island local whose world is turned upside down when she's forced to confront the evidence that her husband is a murderer. But nothing on this island is quite as it seems, and only when these women come together can they discover the whole story about the men in their lives. Brilliant and beguiling, THE WIFE AND THE WIDOW takes you to a cliff edge and asks the question: how well do we really know the people we love?
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Before You Knew My Name
Jacqueline Bublitz · 2021
There is no name to be spoken, but I am recognised by each of the women present, clasped around their lifted hands, heavy on their hearts. I am their fears, and their lucky escapes, their anger, and their wariness. I am their caution and their yesterdays, the shadow version of themselves all those nights they have spent looking over shoulders, or twining keys between fingers ... So that when the man's passion is spent, it is the quiet rage of women that lingers, can be seen, glittering, from above. Long after all the little fires have been extinguished, and the mourners have moved on. Dead girls don't usually get to tell their story, but Alice Lee has always been a different type of girl. When she arrives in New York on her eighteenth birthday, carrying nothing but $600 cash and a stolen Leica in her bag, Alice is a plucky teenager looking to start a new life away from her dark past. Now she's 'Jane Doe', 'Riverside Jane', an unidentified body on a slab at City Morgue. Newspaper headlines briefly report that 'the body was discovered by a jogger'. Ruby Jones is a lonely Australian woman trying to put distance between herself and a destructive relationship back home, and is struggling in the aftermath of being the person to find Alice's body. When she encounters Death Club, a small group of misfits who meet at bars around the city to discuss death and dying, she finds a safe space to explore her increasing obsession with the girl and her unidentified killer. Alice, seemingly stuck between life and death, narrates Ruby's story, hoping that this woman will help her come to terms with what happened and assist in identifying her body. From this first devastating encounter, an enduring connection between the two women is formed. One that will eventually lead to the man who murdered Alice ...
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Paperbark Hill
Maya Linnell · 2022
A pitch-perfect rural romance from the bestselling author of Magpie's Bend. Diana McIntyre and her four boys have had a tough eighteen months but with the love and support of her family, she believes their lives are finally back on track. Diana's dream of starting a flower farm has been the perfect diversion, with an elderly dahlia expert showing her the ropes. She won't have to do this alone. Locum pharmacist and single dad Ned Gardiner hasn't called Victoria home for years. However his father's death forces Ned to return to the family farm, a place that holds few happy memories for him. Dealing with his estranged mother and sorting his father's affairs, he plans on leaving as soon as possible, but what will it take for Ned to put down roots? With six children between them, can this pair juggle families, farms and an unlooked-for romance? Praise for Maya Linnell: '...told with plenty of heart and lashings of authenticity.' - Mrs B's Book Reviews on Wildflower Ridge '...imbued with such deep empathy for everything country, we can't get enough of Maya's fictitious McIntyre family.' Australian Country on Magpie's Bend 'Maya's books reek of authenticity and celebrate everything that's wonderful about small-town living.' Cassie Hamer, author of After the Party 'Heart-warming, funny and poignant...will capture your heart and imagination' Blue Wolf Reviews on Bottlebrush Creek
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The Alchemist
Paulo Coelho · 1988
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho continues to change the lives of its readers forever. With more than two million copies sold around the world, The Alchemist has established itself as a modern classic, universally admired. Paulo Coelho’s masterpiece tells the magical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure as extravagant as any ever found. The story of the treasures Santiago finds along the way teaches us, as only a few stories can, about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, learning to read the omens strewn along life’s path, and, above all, following our dreams. Acclaimed illustrator Daniel Sampere brings Paulo Coelho's classic to new life in this gorgeously illustrated graphic novel adaptation.
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No Plan B
Lee Child & Andrew Child · 2022
The gripping new Jack Reacher thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling authors Lee Child and Andrew Child“No Plan B is not to be missed. A perfectly plotted, fast-paced thriller, with bigger twists than ever before. It’s no wonder Jack Reacher is everyone’s favorite rebel hero.”—Karin SlaughterIn Gerrardsville, Colorado, a woman dies under the wheels of a moving bus. The death is ruled a suicide. But Jack Reacher saw what really happened: A man in a gray hoodie and jeans, moving stealthily, pushed the victim to her demise—before swiftly grabbing the dead woman’s purse and strolling away. When another homicide is ruled an accident, Reacher knows this is no coincidence. With a killer on the loose, Reacher has no time to waste to track down those responsible. But Reacher is unaware that these crimes are part of something much larger and more far-reaching: an arsonist out for revenge, a foster kid on the run, a cabal of powerful people involved in a secret conspiracy with many moving parts. There is no room for error, but they make a grave one. They don’t consider Reacher a threat. “There’s too much at stake to start running from shadows.” But Reacher isn’t a shadow. He is flesh and blood. And relentless when it comes to making things right.For when the threat is Reacher, there is No Plan B.
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The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood · 1985
Seven special editions of Margaret Atwood's finest novels, published to celebrate her 70th birthday.
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The Silent Patient
Alex Michaelides · 2019
I love him so totally, completely, sometimes it threatens to overwhelm me. Sometimes I think- No. I won't write about that. ALICIA Alicia Berenson writes a diary as a release, an outlet - and to prove to her beloved husband that everything is fine. She can't bear the thought of worrying Gabriel, or causing him pain. Until, late one evening, Alicia shoots Gabriel five times and then never speaks another word. THEO Forensic psychotherapist Theo Faber is convinced he can successfully treat Alicia, where all others have failed. Obsessed with investigating her crime, his discoveries suggest Alicia's silence goes far deeper than he first thought. And if she speaks, would he want to hear the truth? The Silent Patient is a heart-stopping debut thriller about a woman's brutal and random act of violence against her husband - and the man obsessed with discovering why.
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Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)
George Orwell · 1905
First published in 1949, George Orwell's 1984 has lost none of its impact and vision with which it first hit readers.
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Apples Never Fall
Liane Moriarty · 2021
From the outside, the Delaneys appear to be an enviably contented family. Even after all these years, former tennis coaches Joy and Stan are still winning tournaments, and now they've sold the family business they have all the time in the world to learn how to 'relax'. Their four adult children are busy living their own lives, and while it could be argued they never quite achieved their destinies, no-one ever says that out loud. But now Joy Delaney has disappeared and her children are re-examining their parents' marriage and their family history with fresh, frightened eyes. Is her disappearance related to their mysterious house guest from last year? Or were things never as rosy as they seemed in the Delaney household?
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The Unbelieved
Vikki Petraitis · 2022
Winner of the inaugural Allen & Unwin Crime Prize. 'So you believed the alleged rapists over the alleged victim?' Jane's voice took on an indignant pitch. 'Girls lie sometimes.' I nodded. 'And rapists lie all the time.' When Senior Detective Antigone Pollard moves to the coastal town of Deception Bay, she is still in shock and grief. Back in Melbourne, one of her cases had gone catastrophically wrong, and to escape the guilt and the haunting memories, she'd requested a transfer to the quiet town she'd grown up in. But there are some things you can't run from. A month into her new life, she is targeted by a would-be rapist at the pub, and realises why there have been no convictions following a spate of similar sexual attacks in the surrounding district. The male witnesses in the pub back her attacker and even her boss doesn't believe her. Hers is the first reported case in Deception Bay, but soon there are more. As Antigone searches for answers, she encounters a wall of silence in the town built of secrets and denial and fear. The women of Deception Bay are scared and the law is not on their side. The nightmare has followed her home. Chilling, timely and gripping, The Unbelieved takes us behind the headlines to a small-town world that is all too real - and introduces us to a brilliant new voice in crime fiction.
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Exiles
Jane Harper · 2021
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER FOR 2023At a busy festival site on a warm spring night, a baby lies alone in her pram, her mother having vanished into the crowds.A year on, Kim Gillespie's absence casts a long shadow as her friends and loved ones gather deep in the heart of South Australian wine country to welcome a new addition to the family. Aaron Falk, federal investigator, is joining the celebrations. But as he soaks up life in the lush valley, he begins to suspect this tight-knit group may be more fractured than it seems. As hidden truths slowly emerge, Falk faces the darkest of questions.WINNER OF THE NED KELLY AWARD FOR BEST CRIME FICTION 2023SHORTLISTED FOR THE ABIA GENERAL FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023SHORTLISTED FOR THE DANGER AWARD FOR FICTION 2023LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKPEOPLE ADULT FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023PRAISE FOR EXILES'A beautifully observed crime novel' Sydney Morning Herald'Jane Harper knows how to write an undulating, riddling tale to keep you on your toes. Exiles is no different.' Russh'You'll find yourself immediately hooked' The Age'Exiles holds everything and more fans of the Investigator want in a Falk novel. A generous, elegant, and atmospheric read, that brings to the foreground a different kind of hero.' Happy Mag
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Persuasion
Jane Austen · 1920
At twenty-seven, Anne Elliot is no longer young and has few romantic prospects. Eight years earlier, she had been persuaded by her friend Lady Russell to break off her engagement to Frederick Wentworth, a handsome naval captain with neither fortune nor rank. What happens when they encounter each other again is movingly told in Jane Austen's last completed novel. Set in the fashionable societies of...
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Normal People
Sally Rooney · 2018
Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2018. ‘Rooney... has undoubtedly delivered one of the best novels of the year’ - The Express Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in rural Ireland. The similarities end there; they are from very different worlds. When they both earn places at Trinity College in Dublin, a connection that has grown between them lasts long into the following years. This is an exquisite love story about how a person can change another person's life - a simple yet profound realisation that unfolds beautifully over the course of the novel. It tells us how difficult it is to talk about how we feel and it tells us - blazingly - about cycles of domination, legitimacy and privilege. Alternating menace with overwhelming tenderness, Sally Rooney's second novel breathes fiction with new life.
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The Song of Achilles
Madeline Miller · 2009
A breathtakingly original rendering of the Trojan War - a devastating love story and a tale of gods and kings, immortal fame and the human heart
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The Tattooist of Auschwitz
Heather Morris · 2014
This beautiful, illuminating tale of hope and courage is based on interviews that were conducted with Holocaust survivor and Auschwitz-Birkenau tattooist Ludwig (Lale) Sokolov—an unforgettable love story in the midst of atrocity. “The Tattooist of Auschwitz is an extraordinary document, a story about the extremes of human behavior existing side by side: calculated brutality alongside impulsive and selfless acts of love. I find it hard to imagine anyone who would not be drawn in, confronted and moved. I would recommend it unreservedly to anyone, whether they’d read a hundred Holocaust stories or none.”—Graeme Simsion, internationally-bestselling author of *The Rosie Project* In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners. Imprisoned for over two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism—but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion. Risking his own life, he uses his privileged position to exchange jewels and money from murdered Jews for food to keep his fellow prisoners alive. One day in July 1942, Lale, prisoner 32407, comforts a trembling young woman waiting in line to have the number 34902 tattooed onto her arm. Her name is Gita, and in that first encounter, Lale vows to somehow survive the camp and marry her. A vivid, harrowing, and ultimately hopeful re-creation of Lale Sokolov's experiences as the man who tattooed the arms of thousands of prisoners with what would become one of the most potent symbols of the Holocaust, The Tattooist of Auschwitz is also a testament to the endurance of love and humanity under the darkest possible conditions.
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The Ruin
Dervla McTiernan · 2018
Cormac Reilly is about to reopen the case that took him twenty years to forget ... The most addictive crime fiction debut of 2018. 'The Ruin is spectacularl...
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Dirt Town
Hayley Scrivenor · 2022
'A heart-wrenching mystery . . . A stellar debut.' Jane Harper My best friend wore her name, Esther, like a queen wearing her crown at a jaunty angle. We were twelve years old when she went missing. On a sweltering Friday afternoon in Durton, best friends Ronnie and Esther leave school together. Esther never makes it home. Ronnie's going to find her, she has a plan. Lewis will help. Their friend can't be gone, Ronnie won't believe it. Detective Sergeant Sarah Michaels can believe it, she has seen what people are capable of. She knows more than anyone how, in a moment of weakness, a person can be driven to do something they never thought possible. Lewis can believe it too. But he can't reveal what he saw that afternoon at the creek without exposing his own secret. Five days later, Esther's buried body is discovered. What do we owe the girl who isn't there? Character-rich and propulsive, with a breathtakingly original use of voice and revolving points of view, Hayley Scrivenor delves under the surface, where no one can hide. With emotional depth and sensitivity, this stunning debut shows us how much each person matters in a community that is at once falling apart and coming together. Esther will always be a Dirt Town child, as we are its children, still. 'You will not be able to put it down.' Hannah Kent 'Masterful. Australian crime has a new star.' Chris Hammer Praise for Dirt Town: 'A heart-wrenching mystery, Hayley Scrivenor's remarkable sense of place brings Dirt Town to life. A stellar debut.' - Jane Harper 'Dirt Town is a remarkable debut, Hayley Scrivenor masterful in her deft handling of the tensions underpinning a small, regional town, and the complex characters that populate it. You will not be able to put it down.' - Hannah Kent 'I loved this. What wonderful writing. Scarily good! . . . Masterful. Australian crime has a new star. The characters of Dirt Town are rich, raw and beautifully realised. One of the crime books of the year. Intelligent, nuanced and compassionate.' - Chris Hammer
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This Has Been Absolutely Lovely
Jessica Dettmann · 2021
Family is forever, and there's nothing you can do about it.The charming, hilarious and all-too-relatable new novel from the author of How to be Second Best Molly's a millennial home organiser about to have her first baby. Obviously her mum, Annie, will help with the childcare. Everyone else's parents are doing it. But Annie's dreams of music stardom have been on hold for thirty years, paused by childbirth then buried under her responsibilities as a mother, wage earner, wife, and only child of ailing parents. Finally, she can taste freedom. As Molly and her siblings gather in the close quarters of the family home over one fraught summer, shocking revelations come to light. Everyone is forced to confront the question of what it means to be a family.This Has Been Absolutely Lovely is a story about growing up and giving in, of parents and children, of hope and failure, of bravery and defied expectation, and the question of whether it is ever too late to try again.Praise for Jessica Dettmann:'A totally engaging and disarmingly charming writer' Kathy Lette'A natural knack for humour' Better Reading'Blends the family drama of Liane Moriarty with the humour of Sophie Kinsella' Newtown Review of Books'Ultimate summer read' Herald Sun'Heartwarming yet biting' Sunday Telegraph'Sharp and crisp and funny. I was dazzled.' Mia Freedman
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Killing Floor
Lee Child · 1997
All is not well in Margrave, Georgia. The sleepy, forgotten town hasn't seen a crime in decades, but within the span of three days it witnesses events that leave everyone stunned. An unidentified man is found beaten and shot to death on a lonely country road. The police chief and his wife are butchered on a quiet Sunday morning. Then a bank executive disappears from his home, leaving his keys on the table and his wife frozen with fear. The easiest suspect is Jack Reacher - an outsider, a man just passing through. But Reacher is not just any drifter. He is a tough ex-military policeman, trained to think fast and act faster. He has lived with and hunted the worst: the hard men of the American military gone bad.
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Dune
Frank Herbert · 1905
Before The Matrix, before Star Wars, before Ender's Game and Neuromancer, there was Dune: winner of the prestigious Hugo and Nebula awards, and widely considered one of the greatest science fiction novels ever written. Melange, or 'spice', is the most valuable - and rarest - element in the universe; a drug that does everything from increasing a person's life-span to making intersteller travel possible. And it can only be found on a single planet: the inhospitable desert world Arrakis. Whoever controls Arrakis controls the spice. And whoever controls the spice controls the universe. When the Emperor transfers stewardship of Arrakis from the noble House Harkonnen to House Atreides, the Harkonnens fight back, murdering Duke Leto Atreides. Paul, his son, and Lady Jessica, his concubine, flee into the desert. On the point of death, they are rescued by a band for Fremen, the native people of Arrakis, who control Arrakis' second great resource: the giant worms that burrow beneath the burning desert sands. In order to avenge his father and retake Arrakis from the Harkonnens, Paul must earn the trust of the Fremen and lead a tiny army against the innumerable forces aligned against them. And his journey will change the universe.
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Again, Rachel
Marian Keyes · 2022
The international No.1 bestselling author writes her first sequel starring her most beloved character - form an orderly line! Back in the long ago nineties, Rachel Walsh was a mess. But a spell in rehab transformed everything. Life became very good, very quickly. These days, Rachel has love, family, a great job as an addiction counsellor, she even gardens. Her only bad habit is a fondness for expensive trainers. But with the sudden reappearance of a man she'd once loved, her life wobbles. She'd thought she was settled. Fixed forever. Is she about to discover that no matter what our age, everything can change? Is it time to think again, Rachel?
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All Our Shimmering Skies
Trent Dalton · 2020
The bestselling author of Boy Swallows Universe, Trent Dalton, returns with All Our Shimmering Skies - a glorious novel destined to become another Australian classic. Darwin, 1942, and as Japanese bombs rain overhead, motherless Molly Hook, the gravedigger's daughter, turns once again to the sky for guidance. She carries a stone heart inside a duffel bag next to the map that leads to Longcoat Bob, the deep country sorcerer who put a curse on her family. By her side are the most unlikely travelling companions: a razor-tongued actress named Greta and a fallen Japanese fighter pilot named Yukio. 'Run, Molly, run,' says the daytime sky. Run to the vine forests. Run to northern Australia's wild and magical monsoon lands. Run to friendship. Run to love. Run. Because the graverobber's coming, Molly, and the night-time sky is coming with him. So run, Molly, run. All Our Shimmering Skies is a story about gifts that fall from the sky, curses we dig from the earth and the secrets we bury inside ourselves. It is an odyssey of true love and grave danger; of the darkness and the light; of bones and blue skies. A buoyant, beautiful and magical novel abrim with warmth, wit and wonder, a love letter to Australia and the art of looking up.
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All That's Left Unsaid
Tracey Lien · 2021
‘A vivid portrait of life as a refugee in 1990s Australia . . . Tracey Lien’s first novel is a deeply moving tale of rage, regret and resilience . . . A brilliant debut’ The Times 'An unforgettable debut, utterly compelling from start to finish. Original. Heartbreaking. Gripping. I just loved it!' Liane Moriarty ‘An urgent story that commands an audience. All That’s Left Unsaid is a gripping and unflinching narrative that is as heart-wrenching as it is unputdownable’ Karin Slaughter * They claim they saw nothing. She knows they’re lying. 1996 – Cabramatta, Sydney ‘Just let him go.’ Those are words Ky Tran will forever regret. The words she spoke when her parents called to ask if they should let her younger brother Denny out to celebrate his high school graduation with friends. That night, Denny – optimistic, guileless Denny – is brutally murdered inside a busy restaurant in the Sydney suburb of Cabramatta, a refugee enclave facing violent crime, and an indifferent police force. Returning home for the funeral, Ky learns that the police are stumped by her brother’s case. Even though several people were present at Denny’s murder, each bystander claims to have seen nothing, and they are all staying silent. Determined to uncover the truth, Ky tracks down and questions the witnesses herself. But what she learns goes beyond what happened that fateful night. The silence has always been there, threaded through the generations, and Ky begins to expose the complex traumas weighing on those present the night Denny died. As she peels back the layers of the place that shaped her, she must confront more than the reasons her brother is dead. And once those truths have finally been spoken, how can any of them move on? * ‘A complex, harrowing look into the impacts on trauma on a community, written with the urgent pace of a thriller and peppered with moments of levity’ Vogue Australia ‘While the mystery is compelling, like the richest literary crime fiction, this story has broader ambitions than revealing who did it . . . Poignant and impeccable storytelling’ Oprah Daily ‘A mystery that is both suspenseful and lyrical, All That’s Left Unsaid marks out Lien as a debut novelist to watch’ i
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IT
Stephen King · 1986
It is the children who see - and feel - what makes the town so horribly different. In the storm drains and sewers It lurks, taking the shape of every nightmare, each one's deepest dread. As the children grow up and move away, the horror of It is buried deep - until they are called back.
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The Woman in the Library
Sulari Gentill · 2022
Book Riot's 15 Best New Mystery Books of 2022 BookBub Most Anticipated Books of 2022 PopSugar's 25 Must Read Thrillers and Mysteries in 2022 We Are Bookish 24 Highly Anticipated Books Hitting Shelves in 2022 GoodReads Most Anticipated New Mysteries In every person's story, there is something to hide... The ornate reading room at the Boston Public Library is quiet, until the tranquility is shattered by a woman's terrified scream. Security guards take charge immediately, instructing everyone inside to stay put until the threat is identified and contained. While they wait for the all-clear, four strangers, who'd happened to sit at the same table, pass the time in conversation and friendships are struck. Each has his or her own reasons for being in the reading room that morning--it just happens that one is a murderer. Award-winning author Sulari Gentill delivers a sharply thrilling read with The Woman in the Library, an unexpectedly twisty literary adventure that examines the complicated nature of friendship and shows us that words can be the most treacherous weapons of all.
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The Mother-In-Law
Sally Hepworth · 2019
" Deliciously entertaining " --People Magazine's "People Pick" - Entertainment Weekly's "MUST List" - O Magazine's "15 Best Beach Books of the Year So Far" - Bustle "Best Book of April" - Refinery29 "Best Book of April" - Cosmopolitan "Best Book of April" - Woman's Day's "27 Fiction Books of 2019 to Add to Your Reading List ASAP" - BookBub's "Biggest Books of April" - PopSugar's "30 Must-Read Books of 2019" A twisty, compelling new novel about one woman's complicated relationship with her mother-in-law that ends in death... From the moment Lucy met her husband's mother, she knew she wasn't the wife Diana had envisioned for her perfect son. Exquisitely polite, friendly, and always generous, Diana nonetheless kept Lucy at arm's length despite her desperate attempts to win her over. And as a pillar in the community, an advocate for female refugees, and a woman happily married for decades, no one had a bad word to say about Diana...except Lucy. That was five years ago. Now, Diana is dead, a suicide note found near her body claiming that she longer wanted to live because of the cancer wreaking havoc inside her body. But the autopsy finds no cancer. It does find traces of poison, and evidence of suffocation. Who could possibly want Diana dead? Why was her will changed at the eleventh hour to disinherit both of her children, and their spouses? And what does it mean that Lucy isn't exactly sad she's gone? Fractured relationships and deep family secrets grow more compelling with every page in this twisty, captivating new novel from Sally Hepworth. Praise for Sally Hepworth: "With jaw-dropping discoveries, and realistic consequences, this novel is not to be missed . Perfect for lovers of Big Little Lies. " -- Library Journal , starred review "Hepworth deftly keeps the reader turning pages and looking for clues , all the while building multilayered characters and carefully doling out bits of their motivations." -- Booklist
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The Godmothers
Monica McInerney · 2020
'I don't want two wishy-washy godmothers,' Jeannie had said that afternoon in the country hospital when Eliza was only a day old. 'No dolls. No pink dresses. Just lots of adventures. Lots of spoiling. The pair of you like two mighty warriors protecting her at every step.' Eliza Miller grew up in Australia as the only daughter of a troubled young mother, but with the constant support of two watchful godmothers, Olivia and Maxie. Despite her tricky childhood, she always felt loved and secure. Until, just before her eighteenth birthday, a tragic event changed her life. Thirteen years on, Eliza is deliberately living as safely as possible, avoiding close relationships and devoting herself to her job. Out of the blue, an enticing invitation from her godmothers prompts a leap into the unknown. Within a fortnight, Eliza finds herself in the middle of a complicated family in Edinburgh. There's no such thing as an ordinary day any more. Yet, amidst the chaos, Eliza begins to blossom. She finds herself not only hopeful about the future, but ready to explore her past, including the biggest mystery of all - who is her father? Set in Australia, Scotland, Ireland and England, THE GODMOTHERS is a story about love, loss, hope and sorrow, about the families we are born into and the families we make for ourselves.
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A Gentleman in Moscow
Amor Towles · 1988
On 21 June 1922 Count Alexander Rostov – recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt – is escorted out of the Kremlin, across Red Square and through the elegant revolving doors of the Hotel Metropol. But instead of being taken to his usual suite, he is led to an attic room with a window the size of a chessboard. Deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the Count has been sentenced to house arrest indefinitely. While Russia undergoes decades of tumultuous upheaval, the Count, stripped of the trappings that defined his life, is forced to question what makes us who we are. And with the assistance of a glamorous actress, a cantankerous chef and a very serious child, Rostov unexpectedly discovers a new understanding of both pleasure and purpose.
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Mad Honey
Jodi Picoult, Jennifer Finney Boylan · 2022
A soul-stirring novel about what we choose to keep from our past, and what we choose to leave behind, from the New York Times bestselling author of Wish You Were Here and the bestselling author of She's Not There. Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life - living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising a beautiful son, Asher - was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in, and taking over her father's beekeeping business. Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mother relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start. And for just a short while, these new beginnings are exactly what Olivia and Lily need. Their paths cross when Asher falls for the new girl in school, and Lily can't help but fall for him, too. With Ash, she feels happy for the first time. Yet at times, she wonders if she can she trust him completely ... Then one day, Olivia receives a phone call: Lily is dead, and Asher is being questioned by the police. Olivia is adamant that her son is innocent, and begs her brother, lawyer Jordan McAfee (The Pact, Nineteen Minutes, Salem Falls) to defend Asher. But she would be lying if she didn't acknowledge the flashes of his father's temper in Asher, and as the case against him unfolds, she realises he's hidden more than he's shared with her. Mad Honey is a riveting novel of suspense, an unforgettable love story and a moving and powerful exploration of the secrets we keep and the risks we take in order to become ourselves.
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The Night Circus
Erin Morgenstern · 2011
In this mesmerizing debut, a competition between two magicians becomes a star-crossed love story. The circus arrives at night, without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within nocturnal black and white striped tents awaits a unique experience, a feast for the senses, where one can get lost in a maze of clouds, meander through a lush garden made of ice, stand awestruck as a tattooed contortionist folds herself into a small glass box, and gaze in wonderment at an illusionist performing impossible feats of magic. Welcome to Le Cirque des Reves. Beyond the smoke and mirrors, however, a fierce competition is underway - a contest between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood to compete in "a game," in which each must use their powers of illusion to best the other. Unbeknownst to them, this game is a duel to the death, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. "From the Hardcover edition."
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Lying Beside You
Michael Robotham · 2022
TWO MISSING WOMEN. ONE WITNESS. SO MANY LIES . . . The brand-new thriller by the number-one bestselling and award-winning master of crime Twenty years ago, Cyrus Haven's family was murdered. Only he and his brother survived. Cyrus because he hid. Elias because he was the killer. Now Elias is being released from a secure psychiatric hospital and Cyrus, a forensic psychologist, must decide if he can forgive the man who destroyed his childhood. As he prepares for the homecoming, Cyrus is called to a crime scene in Nottingham. A man is dead and his daughter, Maya, is missing. Then a second woman is abducted . . . The only witness is Evie Cormac, a troubled teenager with an incredible gift: she can tell when you are lying. Both missing women have dark secrets that Cyrus must unravel to find them - and he and Evie know better than anybody how the past can come back to haunt you . . . This breathtaking new thriller from the #1 bestselling author will keep you guessing until the very end. Praise for Lying Beside You: 'Compulsively readable. As always, Michael Robotham builds his nail-biter around damaged people who only want to do what's right' Linwood Barclay Praise for Michael Robotham: 'One of crime's smartest practitioners' The Australian Women's Weekly 'Robotham renders the ordinary extraordinary' Sydney Morning Herald 'Superior writing, clever plotting and credible characters' Canberra Weekly
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Khaki Town
Judy Nunn · 2019
Khaki Town, Judy Nunn’s exciting new novel, is inspired by a true wartime story that has remained a well-kept secret for over seventy years.It seems to have happened overnight, Val thought . How extraordinary. We’ve become a khaki town.It’s March 1942. Singapore has fallen. Darwin has been bombed. Australia is on the brink of being invaded by the Imperial Japanese Forces. And Val Callahan, publican of The Brown’s Hotel in Townsville, could not be happier as she contemplates the fortune she’s making from lonely, thirsty soldiers. Overnight the small Queensland city is transformed into the transport hub for 70,000 American and Australian soldiers destined for combat in the South Pacific. Barbed wire and gun emplacements cover the beaches. Historic buildings are commandeered. And the dance halls are in full swing with jazz, jitterbug and jive.The Australian troops begrudge the confident, well-fed ‘Yanks’ who have taken over their town and their women. There’s growing conflict, too, within the American ranks, because black GIs are enjoying the absence of segregation. And the white GIs don't like it.As racial violence explodes through the ranks of the military, a young United States Congressman, Lyndon Baines Johnson, is sent to Townsville by his president to investigate. ‘Keep a goddamned lid on it, Lyndon,’ he is told, ‘lest it explode in our faces…’
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The Good Mother
Rae Cairns · 2020
Shortlisted for the 2021 Ned Kelly Awards for Best Debut Crime FictionA fast-paced, explosive thriller from an electrifying new voice She's protected them from the truth. Can she save them from her past?Sarah Calhoun is a regular Sydney soccer mum, but she's keeping terrifying secrets from everyone she loves . . . and her past is about to catch up with her.When two men from Northern Ireland hunt her down, she's forced to return to Belfast to testify at a murder trial. Caught in the crossfire of an obsessive policeman, driven by a disturbing past, and a brutal IRA executioner, Sarah faces an impossible choice: lie and allow a killer to run free, or tell the truth and place her children in the line of fire.With her family and innocent people at risk, Sarah must find the courage to fight for the truth. But righting the wrongs of the past just might cost her everything . . .This taut, plot-fuelled thriller will keep you on the edge of your seat to its gripping finale.'Show me a soldier who would fight harder than a mother to save her son.'PRAISE'Past and present collide on and off the page in this explosive debut . . . a pacy, plot-driven thriller that stands up against some of the best in the genre.' Sunday Telegraph
