Needing a break from all that binge-watching? Run out of things to watch? How about a good ol’ book to snuggle up on the couch with, especially as the weather starts to pack in? Here are some great reads to get stuck into.
The Secrets of Strangers – Charity Norman
A regular weekday morning veers drastically off-course for five strangers whose paths cross in a London cafe—their lives never to be the same again when an apparently crazed gunman holds them hostage. But there is more to the situation than first meets the eye and as the captives grapple with their own inner demons, the line between right and wrong starts to blur.
Will the secrets they keep stop them from escaping with their lives? A compelling, tense and heartfelt drama where the only thing that’s certain is that nothing is as it seems.
Below Deck – Sophie Hardcastle
Twenty-one-year-old Olivia hears the world in colour, but her life is mottled grey. Estranged from her parents, and living with her grandfather who is drowning in sadness, Oli faces the reality of life beyond university alone. When she wakes on a boat with no recollection of how she got there, she accepts the help of two strangers who change the course of her future forever. With Mac and Maggie, Oli learns to navigate a life upon open ocean and the world flowers into colours she’s never seen before.
Four years later, Oli, fluent in the language of the sea, is the only woman among men on a yacht delivery from Noumea to Auckland. In the darkness below deck, she learns that at sea, no one can hear you scream.
Moving to London, Oli’s life at sea is buried. When she meets Hugo, the wind changes, and her memories are dust blown into shapes. Reminding her of everything. Below Deck is about the moments that haunt us, the moments that fan out like ripples through the deep. So that everything else becomes everything after.
Death In The Ladies’ Goddess Club – Julian Leatherdale
‘Crime’s not a woman’s business, Joanie. It’s not some bloody game.’
In the murky world of Kings Cross in 1932, aspiring crime writer Joan Linderman and her friend and flatmate Bernice Becker live a wild bohemian life. Through a carnival of parties and fancy- dress balls, Joan also dates her devoted boyfriend Hugh, a war- wounded, communist poet.
One Saturday night, Joan is horrified to find her neighbour, Ellie, dead. Determined to prove her worth as a crime writer and bring Ellie’s murderer to justice, Joan decides to investigate the killing alongside Sergeant Lillian Armfield. But as Joan digs deeper, the list of suspects grows longer, involving the dangerous underbelly of the Cross.
Death in the Ladies’ Goddess Club is a riveting noir crime thriller with more surprises than even novelist Joan bargained for: blackmail, kidnapping, drug-peddling, a pagan sex cult, undercover cops and a shocking confession.
From the shadows of bohemian and underworld Kings Cross, who will emerge to tell the real story?
All The Way To Summer – Fiona Kidman
A powerful collection of stories exploring love and longing from the award-winning author of This Mortal Boy.
Fiona Kidman’s early stories about New Zealand women’s experiences scandalised readers with their vivid depictions of the heartbreaks and joys of desire, illicit liaisons and unconventional love. Her writing made her a feminist icon in the early 1980s, and she has since continued to tell the realities of women’s lives, her books resonating with many readers over the years and across the world. To mark her 80th birthday, this volume brings together a variety of her previously published stories as well as several that are new or previously uncollected.
Into the Fire – Gregg Hurwitz
The astounding fifth novel from Gregg Hurwitz featuring Evan Smoak — Orphan X aka The Nowhere Man – returns in an enthralling adventure. As a boy, Evan Smoak was taken from his foster home and inducted into a top secret Cold War programme. Code-named Orphan X, he was trained to become a lethal weapon, then dispatched around the world to do whatever was required to keep his country safe. When Evan discovered the mission was rotten to the core, he got out, using his skills to hide in plain sight while helping those who can’t help themselves.
A Springtime Affair – Katie Fforde
It’s the season of new beginnings for Helena and Gilly.
Gilly runs her own B&B business from her much-loved family home, which she doesn’t want to part with – at any price.
But that’s before she meets handsome estate agent Leo. Soon he has her wondering whether it’s finally time to sell up and try something new in life.
Meanwhile, Gilly’s daughter Helena has a budding romance of her own. A talented weaver, she’s becoming very close to her new landlord Jago, who’s offered to help her at an upcoming craft fair that could give her dream career a major boost.
Could their new loves lead to their happily ever after?
House on Endless Waters – Emuna Elon
A lyrical and exquisitely moving novel about a writer who embarks on a transformative journey as he discovers the shocking truth about his mother’s wartime experience
At the behest of his agent, renowned author Yoel Blum reluctantly agrees to visit his birthplace of Amsterdam to meet with his Dutch publisher, despite promising his late mother that he would never return to that city. While touring the Jewish Museum, Yoel stumbles upon a looping reel of photos offering a glimpse of pre-war Dutch Jewish life and is astonished to see the youthful face of his beloved mother staring back at him, posing with her husband, Yoel’s older sister, Nettie . . . and an infant he doesn’t recognise.
This unsettling discovery launches him into a fervent search for the truth, revealing Amsterdam’s dark wartime history and the underground networks which hid Jewish children away from danger—but at a cost. The deeper into the past Yoel digs, the better he understands his mother’s silence, and the more urgent the question that has unconsciously haunted him for a lifetime— Who am I?—becomes. Evocative, insightful, and deeply resonant, House on Endless Waters beautifully illustrates the complex nature of identity and belonging, and the inextricability of past and present.
