by Mitch Albom

A moving new novel from the beloved author of Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven

When the Nazis invade his home in Salonika, Greece, a German officer offers eleven-year-old Nico Krispis a chance to save his family. Nico must convince his fellow Jewish residents to board trains heading ‘north’, where safety and protection awaits.

But when the final train is loaded, Nico sees his family being herded into a boxcar. Only then does he realise that he has helped send them, and everyone he knew, to their doom at Auschwitz. Nico escapes but he never tells the truth again.

In The Little Liar, Nico’s story is interweaved with those of his family, friends and even the Nazi officer who changed their lives. Through the war years and the decades that follow, Albom reveals the consequences of their decisions, eventually bringing them back to where it all started.

The Little Liar is a timeless tale of the harm we inflict with our deceits, and the power of love to redeem us.

Amazon: Paperback $24.99, Kindle $16.99

Sutherland Library: 4 copies (current availability), also 3 large print copies (current availability)

Kmart: Doesn’t stock this title

Big W: Doesn’t stock this title

by Kate Quinn

The New York Times bestselling author of The Diamond Eye and The Rose Code returns with a haunting and powerful story of female friendships and secrets in a Washington, DC, boardinghouse during the McCarthy era.

Washington, DC, 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation’s capital where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic room, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship: poised English beauty Fliss, whose facade of perfect wife and mother covers gaping inner wounds; policeman’s daughter Nora, who finds herself entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball star Beatrice, whose career has come to an end along with the women’s baseball league of WWII; and poisonous, gung-ho Arlene, who has thrown herself into McCarthy’s Red Scare.

Grace’s weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own. When a shocking act of violence tears the house apart, the Briar Club women must decide once and for all: who is the true enemy in their midst?

Capturing the paranoia of the McCarthy era and evoking the changing roles for women in postwar America, The Briar Club is an intimate and thrilling novel of secrets and loyalty put to the test.

Amazon: Paperback $17.24, Kindle $11.99

Booktopia: Paperback $20.40

Sutherland Library: Paperback (8 copies, not many holds), eBook (on Hoopla), Large print (2 copies) 

Kmart: Doesn’t stock

Big W: Doesn’t stock

by Patti Callahan Henry

Can a fairytale solve the mystery of her lost sister?

1939: Fourteen-year-old Hazel and five-year-old Flora are evacuated from London to a rural village to escape the horrors of the Second World War. Living with the Aberdeen family in a charming stone cottage, Hazel distracts her young sister with a fairy tale about a magical land, a secret place they can escape to that is all their own: Whisperwood.

But the unthinkable happens when Flora vanishes near the banks of the River Thames. Shattered, Hazel blames herself for her sister’s disappearance, carrying the guilt into adulthood.

Twenty years later, Hazel is back in London, ready to move on from her job at a cosy rare-book shop for a career at Sotheby’s. With a cherished boyfriend and an upcoming Paris getaway, Hazel’s future seems set. But her tidy life is turned upside down when she unwraps a package containing a picture book called Whisperwood and the River of Stars. Hazel never told a soul about the storybook world she created just for Flora. Could this book hold the secrets to Flora’s disappearance? Could it be a sign that her beloved sister is still alive after all these years? Or is something sinister at play?

For fans of Kate Morton and Kristin Hannah, this is a captivating, poignant celebration of sisterhood and the magic of storytelling.

‘A beautiful blend of love and mystery, The Secret Book of Flora Lea is captivating from the first page. Intriguing, atmospheric, rich in detail, it will break your heart and warm it at the same time. Definitely a book for booklovers; you’ll want to race through the pages but linger over the beautiful descriptions and superbly rendered characters. I loved it.’ Belinda Alexandra, author of The French Agent

‘A heartrending, captivating tale of family, first love, and fate’ Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author

‘Two sisters, dual time periods, a magical secret place, an abiding mystery — The Secret Book of Flora Lea is an enchanting story of survival against all odds. Transporting, heartfelt, and atmospheric.’ Christina Baker Kline, New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train

Amazon: Paperback $25.40, Kindle $11.99

Sutherland Library: Paperback (4 copies, out but no holds), eBook (Hoopla – currently available), eAudiobook (currently available)

Booktopia: Paperback $26.95

Kmart: Doesn’t stock 

Big W: Doesn’t stock