fiction - Good Book Guide
61 Hours
Lee Child
$32.95
Winter in South Dakota. Blowing snow, icy roads, a tired driver. A bus skids and crashes and is stranded in a gathering storm.
There's a small town twenty miles away, where a vulnerable witness is guarded around the clock. There's a strange stone building five miles further on, all alone on the prairie. There's a ruthless man who controls everything from the warmth of Mexico.
Jack Reacher hitched a ride in the back of the bus. A life without baggage has many advantages. And crucial disadvantages too, when it means facing the arctic cold without a coat. But he's equipped for the rest of his task. He doesn't want to put the world to rights. He just doesn’t like people who put it to wrongs.
A Change in Altitude
$32.99
A Pure Clear Light
Madeleine St John
$32.95
A Pure Clear Light examines a marriage at the moment it goes haplessly off-track. Simon and Flora Beaufort have a comfortable, happy life in London. When Flora takes their three children for a month-long vacation in France, Simon stays home to work on his latest film project. He meets Gillian, a cool, blonde accountant, and as their passionate affair begins Flora discovers a new love of her own. Simon and Flora stray from each other, but neither of them can escape the revelation that lies at the heart of the phenomenon called love.
A Stairway to Paradise
St John Madeleine
$29.95
A Stairway to Paradise is classic Madeleine St John: poignant, witty, full of sharp and subtle observations.
Alex and Andrew are friends. And Barbara…Barbara is a goddess. Here is the eternal triangle, the story of three people locked in an unhappy tangle of emotions, none able to articulate the precise quality of their longing and dissatisfaction. In St John’s hands, what is commonplace is transformed and transcendent.
A Woman of Seville
$27.99
Before I Fall
Lauren Oliver
$29.95
Sam Kingston and her friends are the queen bees of their school, and they go through life leaving the tattered remains of their classmates’ popularity, dignity, and happiness in their wake. So when Sam and her friends are in a car accident on their way home from a party, an accident that Sam remembers dying in, it doesn’t seem fair that she is given a second chance. She wakes up and it is February 12th all over again. And again, and again, until she can figure out how to end the loop. She realises that she needs to fix the things that are broken in her life, from her relationship with her parents and sister, to her long-ago friendship with the boy next-door. And to do that she has to look at the way her actions ripple through the lives of the people around her, and how something as small as stealing someone’s parking spot, going to the right party, or kissing the right boy can change everything.
I couldn’t put this book down, I needed to know how all the events of Sam’s final day would come together, and what would happen to her when it was finally February 13th. I recommend this book to anyone who likes their novels a little bittersweet, as well as to parents of teenage girls who are despairing, wondering if their daughter will grow out of her angry teen years. Sam’s journey will give you hope, but also probably make you want to lock your daughter in the house until she’s 21...
Review by Katie from our Bulimba store.
Blossoms & Shadows
Lian Hearn
$35.00
Blossoms and Shadows is the story of the birth of modern Japan in the mid 1860s when it is in the grip of a tumultuous revolution. It is told by Tsuru, a young woman who breaks every stereotype of the Japanese lady. Refusing to take on the domestic role that is expected of her, Tsuru embraces the new world. A tale of forbidden love and battling against the conventions of the day, Blossoms and Shadows is an engaging new novel from Lian Hearn, author of the bestselling Tales of the Otori series.
Blue Bloods: Masquerade
Melissa de la Cruz
$16.99
Preparations are under way for the ball of the century. But as any true Blue Blood knows, it’s the after-party that counts and Mimi Force is getting ready to make sure her masquerade ball is the place to be. But Schuyler Van Alen has more on her mind. She is getting closer to finding out what has been preying on the young vampires, and is discovering the deadly secrets hidden by their masks. Masquerade is rich with glamour, attitude and vampire lore, leaving readers thirsting for more.
Blue Bloods: Revelations
Melissa de la Cruz
$16.99
For the Young, Fabulous and Fanged...All is never what it seems. Schuyler Van Alen's blood legacy has just been called into question: is the young vampire in fact a Blue Blood, or is it the sinister Silver Blood that runs through her veins? As controversy swirls, Schuyler is left stranded in the Force household, trapped under the same roof as her cunning nemesis, Mimi Force, and her forbidden crush, Jack Force. But when an ancient place of power is threatened in Rio de Janeiro, the Blue Bloods need Schuyler on their side. The stakes are high, the battle is bloody; and through it all Schuyler is torn between duty and passion, love and freedom. Romance, glamour and vampire lore collide in the highly anticipated third book in best-selling author Melissa de la Cruz's Blue Bloods series.
Blue Bloods: The Van Alen Legacy
Melissa de la Cruz
$16.99
With the stunning revelation surrounding Bliss's true identity comes the growing threat of the sinister Silver Bloods. Once left to live the glamorous life in New York City, the Blue Bloods now find themselves in an epic battle for survival.Not to worry, love is still in the air for the young vampires of the Upper East Side. Or is it? Jack and Schuyler are over. Oliver's brokenhearted. And only the cunning Mimi seems to be happily engaged.Young, fabulous and fanged, Melissa de la Cruz's vampires unite in this highly anticipated fourth instalment of the Blue Bloods series.
Blueeyedboy
Joanne Harris
$32.95
From the author of Chocolat and The Lollipop Shoes comes Blueeyedboy – Joanne Harris’s second psychological thriller. Told through posts on a webjournal called ‘badguysrock’, Blueeyedboy is a dark and intricately plotted tale of a poisonously dysfunctional family, a blind child prodigy, and a serial murderer who is not who he seems.Harris makes creative use of all the multiple personalities, disguise and mind games that come with playing out a life on the internet and the result is a provocative and brilliantly atmospheric novel.
Book of Lost Threads
Tess Evans
$27.99
Moss has run away from Melbourne on the trail of a man she knows only by name. She arrives in the small town of Opportunity but manages to disturb the long-held secrets of three of the town’s inhabitants: Finn, a brilliant mathematician; Lily, an eighty-three-year-old knitter of tea cosies; and Sandy, the town buffoon. As the four develop unlikely friendships with each other, they find a way to lay their sorrows to rest and knit together the threads that will restore them to life.
Come, Thou Tortoise
Jessica Grant
$24.95
Audrey Flowers, affectionately known as Oddly, lives with her pet tortoise in Oregon. Although she has a low IQ, Audrey is not stupid. She is, however, decidedly unconventional. When her father is struck down by a Christmas tree, she returns to her hometown in Newfoundland. Her Uncle Thoby leaves abruptly after the funeral, leaving distraught Audrey wondering why he left. Before long, she realises there is a mystery to her father’s life and death, and embarks on an extraordinary journey to solve it.
Death in Calabria
Michele Giuttari
$29.99
Calabriais one of the wildest and most beautiful regions in Italy and home to the deadly ‘Ndrangheta – a much-feared organised Mafia crime operation that is shrouded in mystery. When several Calabria citizens turn up dead in New York and in some of the isolated villages that dot the Calabrian countryside, Chief Superintendent Michele Ferrara is tasked with investigating the murders. He must infiltrate a village deep in the Calabrian mountains and put his life on the line to learn more about a family at the centre of an ancient, bloody feud.
Elegance Of The Hedgehog
Muriel Barberry
$24.95
Rene is the concierge of a grand Parisian apartment building, home to members of the great and the good. Over the years she has maintained her carefully constructed persona as someone reliable but totally uncultivated, in keeping, she feels, with societys expectations of what a concierge should be. But beneath this faade lies the real Rene: passionate about culture and the arts, and more knowledgeable in many ways than her employers with their outwardly successful but emotionally void lives. Down in her lodge, apart from weekly visits by her one friend Manuela, Rene lives resigned to her lonely lot with only her cat for company. Meanwhile, several floors up, twelve-year-old Paloma Josse is determined to avoid the pampered and vacuous future laid out for her, and decides to end her life on her thirteenth birthday. But unknown to them both, the sudden death of one of their privileged neighbours will dramatically alter their lives forever. By turn moving and hilarious, this unusual novel became the top-selling book in France in 2007 with sales of over 900,000 copies to-date. The French publishing phenomenon of 2007 from an initial print run of 4,000, sales of over 900,000 in hardback. Translation rights sold to 34 countries Cited in Paris Match magazine in highlights of 2007 along with the i-phone and facebook Winner of the prestigious 2007 French booksellers award To be published in English simultaneously in UK and US Published in Italy in October 2007 with sales to date of 400,000 AUTHOR: Muriel Bar
Fallen
$29.95
What if the person you were meant to be with could never be yours? Seventeen-year-old Lucinda falls in love with a gorgeous, intelligent boy, Daniel, at her new school, the grim and foreboding Sword & Cross ... only to find out that Daniel is a fallen angel, and that they have spent lifetimes finding and losing one another as good and evil forces plot to keep them apart. Fallen is an intensely addictive teen novel about fallen angels and forbidden love.
Fury
Shirley Marr
$
“Let me tell you my story. Not just the facts I know you want to hear. If I'm going to tell you my story, I'm telling it my way. This is how it goes. Strap yourself in...” Eliza Boans is spoilt, sarcastic, a total snob, and a bit of a control freak. She has everything: a big house, rich parents, a great education, and a bright future. So, why is she sitting in a police station confessing to murder?
Girl in Translation
Jean Kwok
$32.95
Kimberly Chang moves with her mother from their home in Hong Kong to New York, but neither speaks a word of English. They live in squalor in Brooklyn, with Kim attending school during the day and working with her mother in a Chinatown sweatshop at night. Exiled by language, estranged in a new culture and weighed down by staggering poverty, Kim must learn to translate not just her language but who she is as she straddles these two very different worlds.
Griffith Review 26: Stories for Today
$24.95
Stories for Today features new fiction by established and emerging writers who make sense of the country as it is now, in a borderless, globalised world balanced between crisis and opportunity. Voices from home and the Australian diaspora explore the effects of migration, easy movement, pandemics, recession, connection with Asia, the service economy and more. Including a series of short essays, with questions about why writing fiction matters, how it differs from other forms of communication, and what it contributes to our culture and understanding of ourselves.
Hearts and Minds
Amanda Craig
$24.99
Raging with moralistic passion, Hearts and Minds centres human rights lawyer Polly and her quest to investigate what happened to her missing au pair, Iryna. Woven intricately into Polly’s fate is Job, an illegal Zimbabwean mini-cab driver; political magazine assistant Katie, an American trying to find herself; and fifteen year old Anna, unaware of the horrors that wait in her new life. As the characters lives collide, the layers of London life get stripped bare, and nothing is as it seems.
Hector & the Search for Happiness: The First of Hector’s Journeys
Francois Lelord
$19.95
Hector is a successful young psychiatrist who’s very good at treating patients that are in real need of his help. But many people he sees are simply dissatisfied with their lives, and Hector can’t do much for them. It’s beginning to depress him. So when a patient tells him he looks in need of a holiday, Hector decides to set off on a worldwide search to find out what makes people everywhere happy (and sad), and whether the secret of true happiness really exists.
House Rules
Jodi Picoult
$32.99
Jacob Hunt is a teenage boy with Asperger’s Syndrome who has an obsessive focus on forensic analysis. He keeps a police scanner in his room, always showing up at crime scenes telling the cops what they need to do. And he’s usually right. But when his tutor is found dead, Jacob finds himself accused of murder. The police take his reluctance to make eye contact, stimulatory tics and twitches and inappropriate gestures as signs of guilt. And so begins his family’s daunting task to prove his innocence.
Indelible Ink: A Novel
Fiona McGregor
$32.95
Marie King has grown accustomed to life on Sydney’s affluent north shore. But now she’s divorced, her kids have moved out, and the family house needs to be sold. On a drunken whim, Marie gets a tattoo – and strikes up an unlikely friendship with her tattoo artist, Rhys. Marie’s transformation mortifies her children, but they have their own challenges to tackle. Incredible Ink is a multi-layered examination of how we live now, in which one family becomes a microcosm for the changes operating in society at large.
Inheritance
Nicholas Shakespeare
$
Andy Larkham is late for the funeral of his favourite teacher, who once told him: ‘It’s hard work being anyone’. This is especially true for Andy – stuck in a dead-end job, terminally short of cash and with a fiancée who is about to ditch him. Suddenly, he inherits £17,000,000. Both a love story and a tragedy of betrayal and missed opportunities, Inheritance explores the temptations of unexpected wealth, the secrets of damaged families, and the price of being true to oneself.
Island Beneath The Sea
Isabel Allende
$
Born a slave on the island of Saint-Domingue, ZaritC) -- known as TC)tC) -- is the daughter of an African mother she never knew and one of the white sailors who brought her into bondage. Though her childhood is one of brutality and fear, TC)tC) finds solace in the traditional rhythms of African drums and the voodoo loas she discovers through her fellow slaves. When twenty-year-old Toulouse Valmorain arrives on the island in 1770, itb2s with powdered wigs in his trunks and dreams of financial success in his mind. But running his fatherb2s plantation, Saint Lazare, is neither glamorous nor easy. Against the merciless backdrop of sugar cane fields, the lives of TC)tC) and Valmorain grow ever more intertwined. When the bloody revolution of Toussaint Louverture arrives at the gates of Saint Lazare, they flee the island that will become Haiti for the decadence and opportunity of New Orleans. There, TC)tC) finally forges a new life - but her connection to Valmorain is deeper than anyone knows and not so easily severed. Spanning four decades, ISLAND BENEATH THE SEA is the moving story of one womanb2s determination to find love amid loss, to offer humanity though her own has been so battered, and to forge her own identity in the cruellest of circumstances.
Jasper Jones
Craig Silvey
$23.99
Late on a hot summer night in the tail end of 1965, Charlie Bucktin, a precocious and bookish boy of thirteen, is startled by an urgent knock on the window of his sleep-out. His visitor is Jasper Jones, an outcast in the regional mining town of Corrigan. Rebellious, mixed-race and solitary, Jasper is a distant figure of danger and intrigue for Charlie. So when Jasper begs for his help, Charlie eagerly steals into the night by his side, terribly afraid but desperate to impress.
Jasper takes him through town and to his secret glade in the bush, and it's here that Charlie bears witness to Jasper's horrible discovery. With his secret like a brick in his belly, Charlie is pushed and pulled by a town closing in on itself in fear and suspicion as he locks horns with his tempestuous mother; falls nervously in love and battles to keep a lid on his zealous best friend, Jeffrey Lu.
And in vainly attempting to restore the parts that have been shaken loose, Charlie learns to discern the truth from the myth, and why white lies creep like a curse. In the simmering summer where everything changes, Charlie learns why the truth of things is so hard to know, and even harder to hold in his hear
Juliet
Anne Fortier
$32.99
When a young woman inherits the key to a safety deposit box in Siena, she is told it will lead to an old family treasure. But her mysterious inheritance leads her on a perilous journey into the past - and to the true history of her ancestor, Giulietta, whose legendary love for a young man named Romeo turned medieval Siena upside down. As she crosses paths with descendants of the families involved in the unforgettable blood feud that inspired Shakespearea??s famous tale, it becomes clear that the notorious curse a??A plague on both your housesa?? is still at work, and that she is the next target. Both an inspired reimagining of the greatest love story ever told and a romantic, heart-pumping thriller, Juliet intertwines the fates of two fascinating women who lived centuries apart into one unforgettable tale no true romantic will be able to resist. Already a bestseller in Italy and Germany, Juliet is set to win the hearts of readers in 30 other countries - and film rights have been snapped up by Universal. a?? ... A love story that reads like a Da Vinci Code for the smart modern woman.a?? PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (starred review) a??Delightfully original - and the kind of thing you wish you had thought up yourself. We will never see Romeo and Juliet in quite the same way again..a??. NYT bestelling author ALISON WEIR
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
Helen Simonson
$32.99
The retired Major Ernest Pettigrew leads a quiet life in a small English village. He values the proper things that Englishmen have treasured for generations – honour, duty and a properly brewed cup of tea. His brother’s death sparks an unexpected friendship with the Pakistani shopkeeper from the village, Mrs Jasmina Ali. Drawn together by their shared love of literature and the loss of their respective spouses, the Major and Mrs Ali soon find their friendship blossoming into something more – a development that isn’t well received by the outraged village.
Meltdown
$32.95
Milk Fever
Lisa Reece-Lane
$32.95
Julia Heath is experiencing a tree-change nightmare. She suspects her yoga-teacher husband of having an affair, her mother-in-law is coming to stay, and her son is obsessed with flies. But Julia soon falls under the spell of Tom – a handsome yet troubled dairy farmer. When Julia’s husband sets out to cure Tom’s migraines and memory lapses, all three lives become entwined. Milk Fever explores the healing nature of relationships and how, ultimately, we are all necessary to each other.
Mr Rosenblum's List
Natasha Solomons
$29.99
Through study and application the tenacious Jack Rosenblum intends to become a Very English Gentleman. Jack is compiling a list – a comprehensive guide to the manners and customs of his new home. Apart from the occasional curse he never speaks German, believing assimilation to be the secret of success. However, his bid to blend in remains fraught with unexpected hurdles even though the war ended eight years ago. His wife, Sadie, doesn’t want to forget their past, but Jack is convinced they can find a place to call home.
My Name is Memory
Ann Brashares
$32.99
Daniel has ‘the memory’ – the ability to recall past lives and recognise the reincarnated souls he has known. It’s both a gift and a curse. He and Lucy have been drawn together over and over, life after reincarnated life. But the force that draws them together always tears them painfully and fatally apart. A magical and suspenseful story of true love, My Name is Memory proves the power and endurance of a union that was meant to be.
Paris Vendetta
$32.99
Reading Madame Bovary
Amanda Lohrey
$32.95
A woman finds her everyday world engulfed by vivid fantasies. A businessman finds a new way to deal with his rage. A couple contemplate the best way to educate their children. A young woman finds herself on a boat with a bunch of delinquent schoolkids. A diary is discovered. A commune goes wrong. This collection of stories, from one of Australia’s leading short-fiction writers, deals with transition and transformations. The characters find themselves caught between order and chaos, and they must change or become trapped. These tales enlighten and entertain in equal measure.
Revenge
Sharon Osborne
$23.99
Revenge is about two sisters, Amber and Chelsea Stone, who share the same dream of huge global fame. As children they were close, but success has pulled them apart. Both have the looks, the talent, and the star quality - but only one has the ruthless ambition to make it to the very top, and she will stop at nothing to get what she wants.
Room
Emma Donoghue
$32.99
Jack is now five and, like any little boy, excited at the prospect of presents and cake. But although Jack is a normal child in many ways, his upbringing is far from ordinary: Jack's entire life has been spent in a room that measures just 12 square feet; as far as he's concerned, Room is the entire world. He shares this world with his mother, with Plant, and TV and his friends the cartoon characters - but Jack knows that nothing else he sees on the screen is real. Old Nick, on the other hand, is all too real, but only visits at night - when Jack is meant to be asleep in Wardrobe. And only Old Nick has the code to Door, which is otherwise locked... Told in Jack's voice, 'Room' is the story of a mother's love for her son, and of a young boy's innocence. Unsentimental yet affecting, devastating yet uplifting, it promises to be the most talked about novel of 2010.
Scatterheart
Lili Wilkinson
$19.99
It’s 1814 and Hannah Cheshire leads a privileged life in London, with fine clothes, servants and a handsome young tutor. Then one day it is all taken away. Her father disappears and she is left to fend for herself. Not equipped for the real world she ends up penniless and sentenced to transportation to the colonies for a crime she didn’t commit. Stripped of everything she knows and holds dear, Hannah must learn to make new friends and live a new life.
Shiver
$29.99
For years, Grace has watched the wolves in the woods. One yellow-eyed wolf, her wolf, is a chilling presence she can’t seem to live without. Meanwhile, Sam lives two lives: In winter, the frozen woods, the protection of the pack, and the silent company of a fearless girl. In summer, a few precious months of being human, until the cold makes him shift back again. Now, Grace meets a yellow-eyed boy whose familiarity takes her breath away. It’s her wolf, it has to be!
Short Second Life of Bree Tanner
Stephenie Meyer
$22.99
Fans of The Twilight Saga will be enthralled by the riveting story of Bree Tanner, a character introduced in Eclipse, and the darker side of the newborn vampire world she inhabits. In another irresistible combination of danger, mystery and romance, Stephenie Meyer tells the devastating story of Bree and the newborn army as they prepare to close in on Bella Swan and the Cullens, following their encounter to its unforgettable conclusion.
'I'm as surprised as anyone about this novella,' said Stephenie Meyer. 'When I began working on it in 2005, it was simply an exercise to help me examine the other side of Eclipse, which I was editing at the time. I thought it might end up as a short story that I could include on my website. Then, when work started on The Twilight Saga: The Official Guide, I thought the Guide would be a good fit for my Bree story. However, the story grew longer than I anticipated, until it was too long to fit into the Guide.'
So Much For That
Lionel Shriver
$32.99
Shep Knacker has dreamed all his life of leaving New York, but he comes to realise that his wife Glynis has never been serious about making this change. He decides to leave with or without her, but on the very day he announces this she informs him she has cancer. Despite having insurance coverage, Glynis’s expensive treatments hurtle Shep toward bankruptcy. From the author of We Need to Talk About Kevin comes this brilliant new novel that asks the uncomfortable question: how much money is one human life worth?
Solar
Ian McEwan
$32.95
Michael Beard is a Nobel prize-winning physicist whose best work is behind him. He half-heartedly heads a government-backed initiative tackling global warming, and is a compulsive womaniser. Beard finds his fifth marriage floundering, and when his professional and personal worlds collide an opportunity presents itself for Beard to extricate himself from his marital mess, reinvigorate his career and save the world from environmental disaster. Solar is a profound and darkly satirical novel showing human frailty struggling with the most pressing and complex problem of our time.
Started Early, Took My Dog
Kate Atkinson
$32.95
It is a day like any other for security chief Tracy Waterhouse until she makes a purchase she hadn’t bargained for. It takes only one moment of madness for the tedium of Tracy’s everyday life to be replaced by fear and danger at every turn. Witnesses to Tracy’s exchange are Tilly, an elderly actress, and Jackson Brodie. All three characters learn that the past is never history and that no good deed goes unpunished. This is the fourth novel featuring Jackson Brodie from the bestselling author of When Will There Be Good News?
The Ape House
Sara Gruen
$32.99
From the author of Water for Elephants comes a story of how six bonobo apes change the lives of three humans. Isabel Duncan is a scientist at the Great Ape Language Lab. She feels more comfortable with the bonobos than she has ever felt among humans. But when an explosion tears the lab apart, the six apes disappear. Then a reality TV show featuring the missing apes debuts and immediately becomes a huge phenomenon. Isabel must connect with her own kind to save the bonobos from this parody of human life.
The Bath Fugures
Brian Castro
$29.99
The Bath Fugues is a meditation on melancholy and art, in the form of three interwoven novellas, centred respectively on an aging art forger; a Portuguese poet, opium addict and art collector; and a doctor, who has built an art gallery in tropical Queensland. These characters are tied by more than their art, each dealing with questions of deception and discovery, counterfeiting and rewriting, transmission and identity and each stretching the bonds of trust and friendship.
The Book of Emmett
Debroah Forster
$23.95
A stunning first novel from a Melbourne author. The story of the Brown family will wrench at your heart and make you hug those you love ever tighter.
Emmett Brown is as dark as Heathcliff, and as unpredictable. Sometimes he's an inspiration, but not often. He's a man of booze and obsessions: one of them is his 'System', an attempt to bend the laws of probability. But when the lottery numbers and horses fail him, so do love and reason, and he becomes an ogre to his wife and children.
For the innocents - Louisa, Rob, Peter, Daniel and Jessie - the bonds formed hiding in hedges at the end of the street, waiting for the maelstroms to pass, are complex and unbreakable. Over the years, the consequences of Emmett's rages shape both their spirits and psyches, but as he lies dying they discover that love - however imperfect - is the best defence against pain.
THE BOOK OF EMMETT is a novel about hope and love and surviving.
The Brave
Nicholas Evans
$32.99
The motto of the boarding school to which Tommy Bedford is dispatched is “Fortune Favours the Brave.” It’s 1959 and the school bristles with bullies and sadistic staff. Tommy, a quirky loner obsessed with cowboys and Indians, needs all the bravery he can summon. Forty years on, Tommy is distanced from troubled past and rarely sees his son, Danny who is deployed in Iraq. But when Danny is charged with murder, Tommy must confront his boyhood ghosts to save the son he’s let slip away. The Brave I a stunning new novel from Nicholas Evans, author of the bestselling novel The Horse Whisperer.
The Carrie Diaries
Candace Bushnell
$24.99
Before Carrie Bradshaw became the queen of the New York City social scene, she was a regular girl growing up in the suburbs of Connecticut. How did she turn into one of the most-read social observers of our generation? THE CARRIE DIARIES opens in Carrieb2s senior year of high school. She and her best friends are inseparable - and then Sebastian Kydd comes into the picture. Sebastian is a bad boy - older, intriguing and unpredictable. Carrie falls into the relationship that she was always supposed to have in high school - until a friendb2s betrayal makes her question everything. With her high school days coming to a close, Carrie will realise itb2s finally time to go after everything she ever wanted. Fans of SEX AND THE CITY will love seeing Carrie Bradshaw evolve from a regular girl into a sharp, insightful writer. And web2ll see what brings Carrie to her beloved New York City, where the next CARRIE DIARIES book will take place.
The Death of a Mafia Don
$29.99
The Dog Who Came In From The Cold
Alexander McCall Smith
$0.00
Following on from the huge success of the 44 Scotland Street series, Alexander McCall Smith has moved house to a crumbling four-storey mansion in Pimlico Corduroy Mansions. It is inhabited by a glorious assortment of characters: among them, Oedipus Snark, the first ever nasty Lib Dem MP, who is so detestable his own mother, Berthea, is writing an unauthorised biography about him; and one small vegetarian dog, Freddie de la Hay, who has the ability to fasten his own seatbelt. (Although Corduroy Mansions is a fictional name, the address is now registered by the Post Office.)
The Dog Who Came In From The Cold (Audio CD)
Alexander McCall Smith
$35.00
Welcome to Corduroy Mansions in Pimlico: a temple of Arts and Crafts architecture, with comforting, weathered brickwork and frankly frivolous dormer windows, it is home to a delightfully eccentric cast of Londoners
The English Class
Ouyang Yu
$32.95
In the late 1970s, at the end of the Cultural Revolution in China, Jing becomes a truck driver in a provincial shipyard. He manages to teach himself English and eventually passes the examination to get into English Class at Donghu University. There he falls in love with Deidre, the estranged partner of Dr Wagner, the English teacher. This is an engaging and masterful novel that explores the aspiration of many to migrate to English speaking countries, and subtly deconstructs the mechanisms of colonialism against an increasingly vibrant Chinese economy.
The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest
Stieg Larsson
$32.95
Two seriously injured people arrive at the emergency ward of the Sahlgrensa hospital in Gothenburg. One is the wanted murderer Lisbeth Salander who has taken a bullet to the head and needs immediate surgery, the other is Alexander Zalachenko, an older man who Lisbeth has attacked with an axe.
In this third novel in the Millennium trilogy, Lisbeth is planning her revenge against the men who tried to kill her, and even more importantly, revenge against the government which nearly destroyed her life. But first she must escape from the intensive care unit and exculpate her name from the charges of murder that hangs over her head.
In order to succeed with the latter, Lisbeth will need the help of journalist Mikael Blomkvist. He is writing an exposing article that will shake the Swedish government, the secret service and the whole country by its foundations. Finally there is a chance for Lisbeth Salander to put her past behind her and finally there is a chance for truth and justice to prevail.
The Girl Who Played With Fire
Stieg Larssn
$24.95
Lisbeth Salander is a wanted woman. Two Millennium journalists about to expose the truth about the sex trafficking trade are murdered and Salander's prints are on the weapon. Her history of unpredictable and vengeful behaviour makes her an official danger to society - but no-one can find her.Mikael Blomkvist, editor-in-chief of Millennium, does not believe the police. Using all his magazine staff
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Stieg Larsson
$24.95
Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering on the island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger clan. Her body was never found, yet her uncle is convinced it was murder - and that the killer is a member of his own tightly knit but dysfunctional family. He employs disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist and the tattooed, truculent computer hacker Lisbeth Salander to investigate. When the pair link Harriet's disappearance to a number of grotesque murders from forty years ago, they begin to unravel a dark and appalling family history. But the Vangers are a secretive clan, and Blomkvist and Salander are about to find out just how far they are prepared to go to protect themselves.
The Good Psychologist
Noam Shpancer
$
A highly recommended read.
The Gourmet
$29.95
The Lacuna
Barbara Kingsolver
$35.00
The Last Warner Woman
Kei Miller
$32.99
Jamaican-born Adamine Bustamante discovers she has the gift of warning. But when Adamine migrates to England her prophecies are no longer be respected – people think she is crazy and lock her away in a mental hospital. Now an old woman, Adamine wants to tell her story but she must compete with Mr Writer Man who is twisting her words for his own purposes. In a story about magic and migration, about stories and storytelling, we discover it is never one person who owns a story, or who has the right to tell it.
The Legacy
Kirsten Tranter
$32.99
After inheriting a fortune, Ingrid leaves Australia, her friends, and her partner, to marry Gil Grey and set up home in New York.
But on September 11, 2001, Ingrid has an appointment downtown and is never seen again…Or is she?
Ingrid’s friend Julia, searches for clues about her life but uncovers only further layers of mystery and deception.
The Passage
Justin Cronin
$35.00
Amy Harper Bellafonte is six years old and her mother thinks she's the most important person in the whole world. She is. Anthony Carter doesn't think he could ever be in a worse place than Death Row. He's wrong.
FBI agent Brad Wolgast thinks something beyond imagination is coming. It is.
The Piper's Son
Melina Marchetta
$24.95
Thomas Mackee wants oblivion. Wants to forget parents who leave and friends he used to care about and a string of one-night stands, and favourite uncles being blown to smithereens on their way to work on the other side of the world.
But when his flatmates turn him out of the house, Tom moves in with his single, pregnant aunt, Georgie. And starts working at the Union pub with his former friends. And winds up living with his grieving father again. And remembers how he abandoned Tara Finke two years ago, after his uncle's death.
And in a year when everything's broken, Tom realises that his family and friends need him to help put the pieces back together as much as he needs them.
The Postmistress
Blake Sarah
$32.95
Those who carry the truth sometimes bear a terrible weight . . .
It is 1940 and half the world is living through the horror of the Second World War, but America still believes it is safe from the bloodshed.
In Franklin, a small town on Cape Cod, Iris James is the postmistress and she firmly believes that her job is to keep and deliver people's secrets, to pass along the news of love and sorrow that letters carry. But one day she does the unthinkable: she doesn't deliver a letter and instead slips it into her pocket.
Every night Iris and Emma Fitch, the young doctor's wife, tune in to Frankie Bard's radio dispatches, anguished bulletins sent from the air-raid shelters and Underground stations of London during the Blitz.
One night in a bomb shelter, Frankie meets a doctor from Cape Cod with a letter in his pocket, a letter Frankie vows to deliver.
In the last desperate days of the summer of 1941 Frankie leaves a traumatised London, rides the trains out of Germany and records the stories of refugees desperately trying to escape. The townspeople of Franklin listen and the war seems a life-time away, but Iris and Emma, unable to tear themselves away from Frankie's voice, know better.
The Postmistress is an unforgettable tale of the secrets we must bear or bury. It is about what happens to love during wartime, when those we cherish leave. And how every story of love or war is about looking left when we should have been looking right.
The Reversal
Michael Connolly
$32.99
The Reversal is Michael Connelly’s latest blistering bestseller. Long-time defence attorney Mickey Haller is recruited to change sides and prosecute the high-profile retrial of a brutal child murder. After 24 years in prison, convicted killer Jason Jessup has been exonerated by new DNA evidence. Haller is convinced Jessup is guilty, and he takes the case on the condition that his investigator is LAPD Detective Harry Bosch. Together, Bosch and Haller set off on a case where the odds and the evidence are against them, but Bosch is sure Jessup plans to kill again.
The Stone Cutter
Camilla Lackberg
$32.99
This novel opens with the death of a child and, in a carefully layered and nuanced manner, the narrative seeks not only the culprit but to explore the impacts and ripples that this tragic event has on ordinary lives and relationships.
From the distraught parents who have hidden complications of their own; to the lead investigator battling lack of talent in his team, as well as the difficulties of being a new parent.
Family relationships are central to the story and in a variety of ways fathers, mothers, grandparents and in-laws contribute to the unfolding events that add to this an underlying theme involving past relationships and the way in which simmering animosities and actions fold into, and influence contemporary events. It is the bringing together of the past and present which gives this work a complex and surprising denouement.
Lackberg is at her best mixing the dramas of the everyday with the ever present darker forces that lead to death and violence. This is novel is so well crafted and such an intriguing read that you won’t want to put the book down!
The Surrendered
Chang-Rae Lee
$32.99
Compelling, suspenseful and unforgettable, The Surrendered is a stunning epic of war, redemption and human longing. It tells the story of June Han, who was a young girl when she was left orphaned by the Korean War. Hector Brennan – fighter and drinker – is the man who once saved June’s life. Reunited they embark on a journey in search of their past. The result is a heartbreaking story of how love and war inalterably change the lives of those they touch.
The Swan Thieves
Elizabeth Kostova
$32.99
‘The Swan Thieves’ is a story of obsession, history's losses, and the power of art to preserve hope. The novel is told through the story of a psychiatrist who uncovers the secret that torments one of his patients, leading him to uncover a tragedy at the heart of the French.
The White Woman on the Green Bicycle
Monique Roffey
$24.95
A heartbreaking story of love, isolation and political unrest set in post-colonial Trinidad.
George & Sabine arrive in Trinidad as young newlyweds intending on staying only three years. George is seduced by the island and their life whereas Sabine in oppressed not just by the heat but by the cultural barriers that exist.
I really enjoyed this book; Roffey has managed to make you feel the lush green heat of the island and Sabine’s desperation at still being there after all these years.
This Body of Death
Elizabeth George
$32.99
While DI Thomas Lynley is still on compassionate leave after the murder of his wife, Isabelle Ardery is brought into the Met as his temporary replacement. The discovery of a body in a Stoke Newington cemetery offers Isabelle the chance to make her mark with a high profile murder investigation. Persuading Lynley back to work seems the best way to guarantee a result: Lynley's team is fiercely loyal to him and Isabelle needs them - and especially Barbara Havers - on side. The Met is twitchy: a series of PR disasters has undermined its confidence. Isabelle knows that she'll be operating under the unforgiving scrutiny of the media, so is quick perhaps too quick - to pin the murder on a convenient suspect. The murder trail leads Lynley and Havers to the New Forest, and the eventual resolution of the case. Its roots are in a long-ago act of violence that has poisoned subsequent generations and its outcome is both tragic and shocking.
Tom Hurstbourne or a Squatters Life
Gloria Grant & Gerard Benjamin
$39.95
Long-lost manuscript becomes a Queensland First after 145 years.
Faced with losing his centuries old family estate to debt, Tom Hurstbourne headed to colonial Australia to make his fortune. He had no idea that the Shrewsbury lawyer he left in charge of his affairs would snatch this chance to exact the ultimate revenge on Tom, the last of the Hurstbourne dynasty…
Brisbane Editors, Gloria Grant & Gerard Benjamin, transcribed the manuscript and wrote its introduction and contextual notes.
Torment
Lauren Kate
$29.95
Torment is the fabulous sequel to Fallen and sees the return of fallen angel, Daniel, and his mortal love, Lucinda. After what happened at Sword & Cross, Luce has been hidden away by Daniel in a new school filled with Nephilim, the offspring of fallen angels and humans. At the school Luce discovers what the Shadows that have followed her all her life mean. Yet the more Luce learns about herself, the more she realises that the past is her only key to unlocking her future, and that Daniel hasn’t told her everything.
Trespass
Rose Tremain
$32.95
Among the hills and gorges of the Cevennes, the dark and beautiful heartland of southern France, lives Aramon Lunel – an alcoholic haunted by his violent past. His sister, Audrun, dreams of exacting retribution for the unspoken betrayals that have blighted her life. Into this closed Cevenol world comes Anthony Verey – a wealthy but disillusioned antiques dealer from London who, now in his sixties, hopes to remake his life in France. Two worlds and two cultures collide, and a frightening and unstoppable series of consequences is set in motion.
Truth
Peter Temple
$32.95
At the close of a long day, Inspector Stephen Villani stands in the bathroom of a luxury apartment high above the city. In the glass bath, a young woman lies dead, a panic button within reach.
So begins Truth, the sequel to Peter Temple’s bestselling masterpiece, The Broken Shore, winner of the Duncan Lawrie Dagger for Best Crime Novel.
Villani’s life is his work. It is his identity, his calling, his touchstone. But now, over a few sweltering summer days, as fires burn across the state and his superiors and colleagues scheme and jostle, he finds all the certainties of his life are crumbling.
Truth is a novel about a man, a family, a city. It is about violence, murder, love, corruption, honour and deceit. And it is about truth.
Will
$24.95
Wolf Hall
$32.99
Mary's Top 10
- Brisbane
- Started Early, Took My Dog
- Death in Calabria
- The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
- The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest
- Atlantic: A Vast Ocean of a Million Stories
- Cruiser
- Juliet
- The Girl Who Played With Fire
- Room
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