Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

$22.99 AUD

Category: General

#1 New York Times BestsellerA Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick   "I can't even express how much I love this book I didn't want this story to end "--Reese Witherspoon   "Painfully beautiful."--The New York Times Book Review   "Perfect for fans of Barbara Kingsolver."--Bust le   For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life--until the unthinkable happens.   Perfect for fans of Barbara Kingsolver and Karen Russell, Where the Crawdads Sing is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps. ...Show more

The Sphinx The Life of Gladys Deacon Duchess of Marlborough by Hugo Vickers

$32.99 AUD

Category: General

The fiercely intelligent beauty who married the 9th Duke of Marlborough and both dazzled and puzzled the glittering social circles of the Belle Epoque in which she moved.One of the most beautiful and brilliant women of her time, Gladys Deacon dazzled and puzzled the glittering social circles in which sh e moved.Born in Paris to American parents in 1881, Gladys emerged from a traumatic childhood - her father having shot her mother's lover dead when Gladys was only eleven - to captivate and inspire some of the greatest literary and artistic names of the Belle Epoque. Marcel Proust wrote of her, 'I never saw a girl with such beauty, such magnificent intelligence, such goodness and charm.' Berenson considered marrying her, Rodin and Monet befriended her, Boldini painted her and Epstein sculpted her. She inspired love from diverse Dukes and Princes, and the interest of women such as the Comtesse Greffulhe and Gertrude Stein.In 1921, when Gladys was forty, she achieved the wish she had held since the age of fourteen to marry the 9th Duke of Marlborough, then freshly divorced from fellow American Consuelo Vanderbilt. Gladys's circle now included Lady Ottoline Morrell, Lytton Strachey and Winston Churchill, who described her as 'a strange, glittering being'. But life at Blenheim was not a success: when the Duke evicted her in 1933, the only remaining signs of Gladys were two sphinxes bearing her features on the west terraces and mysterious blue eyes in the grand portico. She became a recluse, and the wax injections she'd had to straighten her nose when she was 22 had by now ravaged her beauty. Gladys was to spend her last years in the psycho-geriatric ward of a mental hospital, where she was discovered by a young Hugo Vickers.Intrigued and compelled to unmask the truth of her mysterious life, Vickers visited her over the course of two years, eventually publishing Gladys, Duchess of Marlborough, a biography of her life - and his first book - in 1979, two years after Gladys's death. Forty years on, Vickers has now completely rewritten and revised his original biography, updating it with previously unavailable material and drawing on his own personal research all over Europe and America.He once asked Gladys, 'Where is Gladys Deacon?' She answered him slowly, 'Gladys Deacon? . . . She never existed.' The Sphinx is a fascinating portrait of this elusive but brilliant woman who was at the centre of a now bygone era of wealth and privilege - and a tribute to one of the brightest stars of her age. ...Show more

In the Clearing by J. P. Pomare

$32.99 AUD

Category: Crime/Thriller | Reading Level: near fine

Amy has only ever known what life is like in the Clearing. She knows what's expected of her. She knows what to do to please her elders, and how to make sure life in the community remains happy and calm. That is, until a new young girl joins the group. She isn't fitting in; she doesn't want to stay. What happens next will turn life as Amy knows it on its head. Freya has gone to great lengths to feel like a 'normal person'. In fact, if you saw her go about her day with her young son, you'd think she was an everyday mum. That is, until a young girl goes missing and someone from her past, someone she hasn't seen for a very long time, arrives in town. As Amy and Freya's story intertwines the secrets of the past bubble up to the surface. This rural Aussie town's dark underbelly is about to be exposed and lives will be destroyed. ...Show more

The Girl in the Painting by Tea Cooper

$32.99 AUD

Category: General

   For readers of The True Story of Maddie Bright, The Woman in the Green Dress and The Birdman's Wife comes this atmospheric and richly detailed Australian historical mystery from a bestselling Australian author. Maitland 1913 Miss Elizabeth Quinn is something of an institution in Maitland Town. For longer than anyone could remember she and her brother, businessman Michael, have lived in the impressive two-storey stone house next to the church. When she is discovered cowering in the corner of the exhibition gallery at the Technical College the entire town knows something strange has come to pass.Was it the prehistoric remains or perhaps the taxidermy exhibition that had reduced the whale-boned encased pillar of society to a quivering mess? Or is there something odd about a striking painting on loan from the National Gallery?Mathematical savant Jane Piper is determined to find out. Deposited on the doorstep of the local orphanage as a baby, she owes her life and education to the Quinns' philanthropic ventures and Elizabeth has no one else to turn to.As the past and the present converge, Elizabeth's grip on reality loosens. Can Jane, with her logical brain and penchant for puzzles, unravel Elizabeth's story before it is too late?Ranging from the gritty reality of the Australian goldfields to the grand institutions of Sydney, the bucolic English countryside to the charm of Maitland Town, this compelling historical mystery in the company of an eccentric and original heroine is rich with atmosphere and detail. ...Show more

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

$22.99 AUD

Category: Crime/Thriller

The instant #1 New York Times bestseller An unforgettable - and Hollywood-bound - new thriller. . . A mix of Hitchcockian suspense, Agatha Christie plotting, and Greek tragedy." - Entertainment Weekly The Silent Patient is a shocking psychological thriller of a woman's act of violence against her husban d - and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive. Alicia Berenson's life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London's most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word. Alicia's refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London. Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations - a search for the truth that threatens to consume him. . . . " ...Show more

The Lost Summers of Driftwood by Vanessa McCausland

$29.99 AUD

Category: General

Dear Life: A Doctor’s Story of Love and Loss by Rachel Clarke

$32.99 AUD

Category: General

'What a remarkable book this is; tender, funny, brave, heartfelt, radiant with love and life, and with the love of life. It brought me often to laughter and - several times - to tears' Robert Macfarlane From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Your Life in My Hands comes this vibrant, tender and dee ply personal memoir that finds light and love in the darkest of places. As a specialist in palliative medicine, Dr Rachel Clarke chooses to inhabit a place many people would find too tragic to contemplate. Every day she tries to bring care and comfort to those reaching the end of their lives and to help make dying more bearable. Rachel's training was put to the test in 2017 when her beloved GP father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She learned that nothing - even the best palliative care - can sugar-coat the pain of losing someone you love. And yet, she argues, in a hospice there is more of what matters in life - more love, more strength, more kindness, more joy, more tenderness, more grace, more compassion - than you could ever imagine. For if there is a difference between people who know they are dying and the rest of us, it is simply this: that the terminally ill know their time is running out, while we live as though we have all the time in the world. Dear Life is a book about the vital importance of human connection, by the doctor we would all want by our sides at a time of crisis. It is a love letter - to a father, to a profession, to life itself. ...Show more

The Woman Who Changed Her Brain (New Edition) by Barbara Arrowsmith-Young

$24.99 AUD

Category: General

Wife After Wife by Olivia Hayfield

$32.99 AUD

Category: General

***Glamour, infidelity, murder*** In the world of the wealthy elite . . . vows are made to be broken Ruthless, devilishly handsome businessman Harry Rose is head of Rose Corporation, No. 18 on the Forbes rich list, and recently married to wife number six. But now, with his business in the spotlight an d his love life under scrutiny, Harry's perfect world has the potential to come crashing to the ground. From eighties young gun to noughties billionaire, there's a reason why Harry's many wives have found him impossible to resist. But behind the money, sex and glamour lies a truer tale of infidelity, conspiracy and lies . . . Loosely based on the trials and tribulations of the most infamous historical playboy of them all, Henry VIII, this tale of glamour and serial monogamy will leave you wickedly entertained.   ...Show more

Beyond Recall by Gerald Seymour

$32.99 AUD

Category: Crime/Thriller

'Seymour produces the most intelligent writing in the thriller genre' Financial Times *** Gary - 'Gaz' - Baldwin is a watcher, not a killer. Operating with a special forces unit deep in Syria, he is to sit in a hide, observe a village, report back and leave. But the appalling atrocity he witnesses wi ll change his life forever. Before long, he is living as a handyman on the Orkney islands, far from Syria, far from the army, not far enough from the memories that have all but destroyed him. 'Knacker' is one of the last old-school operators at the modern MI6 fortress on the Thames. He presides over the Round Table, a little group who meet in a pub and yearn for simpler, less bureaucratic times. When news reaches Knacker that the Russian officer responsible for the Syrian incident may be in Murmansk, northern Russia, he sets in motion a plan to kill him. It will involve a sleeper cell, a marksman and other resources - all unlikely to be sanctioned by the MI6 top brass, so it must be done off the books. But first, he will need a sure identification. And for that, he needs a watcher... Full of surprise, suspense and betrayal, Beyond Recall is a searching novel of moral complexity and a story of desperate survival. ...Show more

Abigail by Magda Szabó; Len Rix (Translator)

$32.99 AUD

Category: General

A cult coming-of-age novel by the author of THE DOOR and KATALIN STREET. Magda Szabo's Abigail is the most widely read of all her novels in her native Hungary. Now, fifty years after its original publication, it appears in English for the first time. Gina, the only child of a widowed general, lives a c osseted and carefree existence in Budapest, even in the shadow of the Second World War. When the general sends her to girls' boarding school in Debrecen, in the east of the country, she is devastated. Her belongings are taken away on arrival, and she is initiated into the peculiar rites of her peers. She soon finds herself ostracized and, desperately unhappy, tries to escape. When brought back to the school, all she can do is entrust her fate to the legendary and mysterious Abigail, a statue of a woman in the school grounds, to whom the pupils confide their troubles in handwritten messages. But who is the mystifying figure behind Abigail, who wishes her well? Eventually Gina achieves hard-won solidarity in a restrictive environment, and begins to discover her place in the world. Rich in imagery, and with Gina's internal world beautifully realised, Abigail is a tale of suspense and revelation in a shifting world where things are often not quite as they first seem. Translated from the Hungarian by Len Rix ...Show more

Kingdomtide by Rye Curtis

$32.99 AUD

Category: General

The lives of two women--the sole survivor of an airplane crash and the troubled park ranger who leads the rescue mission to find her --intersect in a gripping debut novel of hope and resilience, second thoughts and second chances I no longer pass judgment on any man nor woman. People are people, and I do not believe there is much more to be said on the matter. Twenty years ago I might have been of a different mind about that, but I was a different Cloris Waldrip back then. I might have gone on being that same Cloris Waldrip, the one I had been for seventy-two years, had I not fallen out of the sky in that little airplane on Sunday, August 31, 1986. It does amaze that a woman can reach the tail end of her life and find that she hardly knows herself at all. When seventy-two-year-old Cloris Waldrip finds herself lost and alone in the unforgiving wilderness of the Montana mountains, with only a bible, a sturdy pair of boots, and a couple of candies to keep her alive, it seems her chances of ever getting home to Texas are slim. Debra Lewis, a park ranger, who is drinking her way out of the aftermath of a messy divorce is the only one who believes the old lady may still be alive. Galvanized by her newfound mission to find her, Lewis leads a motley group of rescuers to follow the trail of clues that Cloris has left behind. But as days stretch into weeks, and Cloris's situation grows ever more precarious, help arrives from the unlikeliest of places, causing her to question all the certainties on which she has built her life. Suspenseful, wry and gorgeously written Kingdomtide is the inspiring account of two unforgettable characters, whose heroism reminds us that survival is only the beginning. 'Suspenseful from start to finish ... First novels are often praised for an author's potential, but Kingdomtide displays an exceptional talent fully realized' Ron Rash, New York Times bestselling author of Serena ...Show more