Want a book you just can’t put down and don’t leave the couch or bed until it’s finished? We have put together a few incredible books that will make you have all the feels this weekend. Snuggle up!
A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing, by Jessie Tu
Growing up is always hard, but especially when so many think you’re a washed-up has-been at twenty-two.
Gena Chung plays the violin. She was once a child prodigy and is now addicted to sex. She’s struggling a little. Her professional life comprises rehearsals, concerts, auditions and relentless practice: her personal life is spent managing family demands, those of her creative friends, and lots of sex. And then she meets Mark – much older and worldly-wise – who bewitches her. Could this be love? When Jena wins an internship with the New York Philharmonic, she thinks the life she has dreamed of is about to begin. But when Trump is elected, New York changes irrevocably and Jena long with it. She comes to learn that there are many different ways to live and love and that no one has the how-to guide for any of it – not even her indomitable mother.
A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing unflinchingly explores the confusion of having expectations upturned, and the awkwardness and pain of being human in our increasingly dislocated world – and how, in spite of all this, we still try to become the person we want to be. It is a dazzling, original and astounding debut from a young writer with a fierce, intelligent and fearless new voice.
Finding Eadie, by Caroline Beecham
It’s London 1943, and war and dwindling resources are taking their toll on the staff of Partridge Press. The pressure is on to create new books to distract readers from the grim realities of the war but Partridge’s rising star, Alice Cotton, leaves abruptly and cannot be found. Alice’s forced absence is to birth a child, Eadie. Although her mother promises to help her raise the child, she secretly gives away her tiny granddaughter.
With the police unable to help, Alice’s search for Eadie takes her from child welfare organisations and newspapers to more dangerous places as she looks for the infamous baby farmers who thrive in the changing conditions that war has created. As she looks ever more desperately for her daughter, and the identity of Eadie’s father is finally revealed, quick action is necessary to help save them both. Inspired by real events during the Second World War, Finding Eadie is a surprising love story about a woman’s search for her stolen child. It’s also a story about the triumph of three friendships bound by hope, love, secrets and the belief that books have the power to change lives.
The Farm at Peppertree Crossing, by Léonie Kelsall
After a fractured childhood spent in foster homes, city-girl Roni has convinced herself that she has no need of anyone-other than her unborn baby, who she’s determined will feel all the love she’s been denied. Despite facing a bleak future, Roni distrusts the news of a bequest from an unknown aunt, Marian Nelson. But, out of options, she leaves Sydney behind, bound for the 800-acre property on the edge of the wheat fields of South Australia.
However, this is no simple inheritance: Marian seeks to control her legacy from beyond the grave by setting tasks that Roni must complete before she can claim the property and a life that could change her future. With everything at stake, Roni must learn to trust in the truth of Marian’s most important lesson: everyone deserves love.
The Shelf, by Helly Acton
Everyone in Amy’s life seems to be getting married (or so Instagram tells her), and she feels she’s falling behind. So, when her boyfriend surprises her with a mystery holiday, she thinks he’s going to pop the question. But the dream turns into a nightmare when she finds herself on the set of a Big Brother-style reality television show, The Shelf. A funny, feminist and all-too-relatable novel about our obsession with settling down and coupling up, and the battle we all have with accepting ourselves.
Lawson’s Bend, by Nicole Hurley-Moore
For a long-time Lawson’s Bend had held little for Henny. Almost ten years ago she’d got out and vowed never to come back. But sometimes things change . . .
In the hot summer of 2008, Henny Bolton loses her best friend on a night they should have been celebrating their futures. It’s a loss about which she remains grief-stricken.
Right after the accident, Henny flees the small country town and true to her word, she’s not been back.
Stephen Drake never left Lawson’s Bend. He once had ambitions for a different life but staying close to family became more important after that tragic night.
But when Henny’s mother dies suddenly in a fall near the old quarry, and Henny is forced to return to Lawson’s Bend, it’s apparent that questions need to be asked. Was it really an accident?
Her plan was to get out of town again as quickly as possible. But then there is Stephen…
Find Me, by Andre Aciman
In this spellbinding, new exploration of the varieties of love, the author of Call Me by Your Name revisits his characters’ complex lives in the years after their first meeting.
In Find Me, Aciman shows us Elio’s father, Samuel, on a trip from Florence to Rome to visit Elio, now a gifted classical pianist. A chance encounter on the train upends Sami’s visit and changes his life forever.
Elio soon moves to Paris, where he, too, has a consequential affair, while Oliver, a New England college professor with a family, suddenly finds himself contemplating a return trip across the Atlantic.
Aciman is a master of sensibility, of the intimate details and the nuances of emotion that are the substance of passion. Find Me brings us back inside the world of one of our greatest contemporary romances to show us that in fact true love never dies.
Rules for Visitng, by Jessica Francis Kane
A smart, funny and uplifting novel about loneliness and the art of being a good friend.
‘Midway through my fortieth year, I reached a point where the balance of the past and all it contained seemed to outweigh the future, my mind so full of things said and not said, done and undone, I no longer understood how to move forward.’
May is at a crossroads. Although her career as a gardener for the university is flourishing, the rest of her life has narrowed to a parched routine. Her father is elderly, her brother estranged, and she keeps her neighbours at arm’s length. The missing element, she realises, might be friendship. As May sets off on a journey to visit four neglected friends one-by-one, she holds herself (and them) to humorously high standards, while at home she begins to confront the pain of her past and imagine for herself a different kind of future. May’s quest becomes an exploration of the power, and perhaps limits, of modern friendship.
