by Matthew Reilly

A SECRETARY LIKE NO OTHER IN AN EPIC SPANNING 40 YEARS

All Hanna Fischer ever wanted to do was to study physics under the great Albert Einstein.

But when, as a teenager in 1919, her life is suddenly turned upside-down, she is catapulted into a new and extraordinary life – as a student, a secretary, a sister and a spy.

From racist gangs in Berlin to gangsters in New York City, Nazis in the 1930s and Hitler’s inner circle during the Second World War, Hanna will encounter some of history’s greatest minds and most terrible moments, all while desperately trying to stay alive.

She is a most unique secretary and she will work for many bosses – from shrewd businessmen to vile Nazis, to the greatest boss of them all, Mr Albert Einstein…

Spanning forty years, this is the thrilling tale of a young woman propelled through history’s most dangerous times. But read it carefully, because all may not be as it seems…

Amazon: Paperback $14.00, Kindle $12.99

Sutherland Library: Multiple copies

Kmart: Doesn’t stock

Big W: Paperback $14

by Anthony Doerr

When everything is lost, it’s our stories that survive.

How do we weather the end of things? Cloud Cuckoo Land brings together an unforgettable cast of dreamers and outsiders from past, present and future to offer a vision of survival against all odds.

Constantinople, 1453:

An orphaned seamstress and a cursed boy with a love for animals risk everything on opposite sides of a city wall to protect the people they love.

Idaho, 2020:

An impoverished, idealistic kid seeks revenge on a world that’s crumbling around him. Can he go through with it when a gentle old man stands between him and his plans?

Unknown, Sometime in the Future:

With her tiny community in peril, Konstance is the last hope for the human race. To find a way forward, she must look to the oldest stories of all for guidance.

Bound together by a single ancient text, these tales interweave to form a tapestry of solace and resilience and a celebration of storytelling itself. Like its predecessor All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr’s new novel is a tale of hope and of profound human connection.

Amazon: Paperback $17.24, Kindle $14.99

Sutherland Library: Multiple copies

Kmart: Doesn’t stock

Big W: Doesn’t stock

by Percival Everett

A brilliant reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both harrowing and satirical—told from the enslaved Jim’s point of view.

When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

Brimming with nuanced humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim’s agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first-century American literature.

Amazon: Paperback $14.00, Kindle $4.99

Sutherland Library: eBook (Hoopla) & eAudiobook 

Kmart: Doesn’t stock 

Big W: Doesn’t stock

by Hannah Kent

A brilliant literary debut, inspired by a true story: the final days of a young woman accused of murder in Iceland in 1829.

Set against Iceland’s stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution.

Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. Only Tóti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her. But as Agnes’s death looms, the farmer’s wife and their daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they’ve heard.

Riveting and rich with lyricism, Burial Rites evokes a dramatic existence in a distant time and place, and asks the question, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?

Amazon: Paperback $17.70, Kindle $12.99

Sutherland Library: 2 copies, also eBook, Audiobook, and Hoopla

Kmart: Doesn’t stock

Big W: Doesn’t stock

by Joanna Glen

From the author of the Costa shortlisted debut, The Other Half of Augusta Hope, comes the story of one girl’s journey to find her birth mother, and her realisation that mothers – and family – can be discovered in the most unexpected of places…

London, 1980s. Though she has a comfortable, privileged life, Eva Martínez-Green is deeply unhappy. The only child of an emotionally absent mother and a physically absent father, Eva has grown up in a cold, unloving house. But Eva is convinced that all is not as it seems. Why are there no baby pictures of her? Why do her parents avoid all questions about her early years?

When her parents’ relationship crumbles, Eva begins looking for a different, better life: a proper family, a perfect mother, and, importantly, real love. Her desire to find where she belongs leads Eva on a journey spanning years and continents – and, along the way, she meets women who challenge her idea of what a mother should be, and who will change her life forever…

Amazon: Paperback $17.70, Kindle $8.99

Booktopia: Paperback $20.35

Sutherland Library: Paperback – 3 copies, eBook (on Hoopla), eAudiobook 

Kmart: Doesn’t stock

Big W: Doesn’t stock

by Kristin Harper

Ruby rocks in her favourite chair and tries not to think about the past. This family inn, with views across the grassy dunes to the lighthouse standing against bright blue sky, is all she’s ever known. But Ruby has been keeping a secret all these years… this summer, has the time finally come to share it?

Meg Carter can’t wait to spend the summer with her great-aunt Ruby, helping renovate her charming—if a little old-fashioned—inn by the ocean. But a surprise arrival changes their plans. Simon, grandson of the former owners, is selling his land next door to a luxury resort developer. The plans are certain to ruin the beautiful view of the lighthouse, which has guided lost seafarers home for generations… and put Ruby’s inn out of business for good.

Forget sorting through Ruby’s classic book collection and spring cleaning the bedrooms: there might not ever be any new guests if the plans go ahead. Simon may be tall and handsome, with eyes like green sea glass, but he’s stubborn to boot… and Meg’s discussions with him always end in fireworks.
Then Ruby says she has a secret about Simon to share. But the elderly lady only has time to say “the lighthouse holds the key” before becoming desperately ill.
Distraught, all Meg cares about is her beloved aunt’s health. Ruby is in no state to share her secret now: but what if it could save the inn for good? A tour of the lighthouse, with its glittering glass lamp and red-and-white stripes, brings Meg no closer to the truth… and it’s against her better judgment that she takes long walks on the beach with Simon, and even grows close to his sweet children.
But is she wrong to open her heart to the one person who could hold the answers? And will Meg ever solve the secret of the lighthouse—before it’s too late for the inn, and for Ruby?

Amazon: Paperback $21.99, Kindle $4.99

Booktopia: Paperback $21.99

Sutherland Library: Doesn’t stock 

Kmart: Doesn’t stock 

Big W: Doesn’t stock

All books this month are influenced by WW2 with one about love and mystery set amid fairytales, the swinging Sixties, and war. Another is about truth, war, humanity and loss. And, the last is about the McCarthy era and changing roles for women in postwar America.

Find out about each one below and remember to email your choice.

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

by Clare Leslie Hall

Everyone in the village said nothing good would come of Gabriel’s return. And as Beth looks at the man she loves on trial for murder, she can’t help thinking they were right.

Beth was seventeen when she first met Gabriel. Over that heady, intense summer, he made her think and feel and see differently. She thought it was the start of her great love story. When Gabriel left to become the person his mother expected him to be, she was broken.

It was Frank who picked up the pieces and together they built a home very different from the one she’d imagined with Gabriel. Watching her husband and son, she remembered feeling so sure that, after everything, this was the life she was supposed to be leading.

But when Gabriel comes back, all Beth’s certainty about who she is and what she wants crumbles. Even after ten years, their connection is instant. She knows it’s wrong and she knows people could get hurt. But how can she resist a second chance at first love?

Amazon: Paperback $16.00, Kindle $12.99

Booktopia: Paperback $26.95

QBD Books: Paperback $32.99 (currently 15% off $28.04)

Sutherland Library: 15 copies (currently 31 holds)

Kmart: Doesn’t stock this title

Big W: $16 but listed as ‘Sold Out’

by Cassie Hamer

A family gathering, but not everyone who sits down to dinner will survive it. Poisonous lies, family secrets, addiction and revenge – always a dish best served cold – are all on the menu.

For readers of Sally Hepworth, Jo Dixon and Ali Lowe, this twisty domestic suspense holds you captive from its gripping beginning to its shocking denouement.

Maz Antonio has spent the last two years in prison so is determined to make the first major family gathering in their new home deep in Australian suburbia as perfect as possible. She owes it to everyone after the terrible mistakes she’s made … mistakes for which she will always be trying to atone. This special lunch is her chance to make things right for her husband and children, to show everyone that she can maintain her sobriety, that things can go back to normal. (Whatever normal looks like when you have traumatic, confusing flashbacks of that fateful day where two innocent lives were lost.)

Her sister, Elli, is in. So is her husband’s brother. Her distant father-in-law is gracing them with his presence and her mum Margaret is on the way from Newcastle, bringing a colleague – a virtual stranger she impulsively invited.

But is this man really a stranger? Or could it be that he is intimately connected to the past that Maz has so desperately been trying to put behind her – a past that’s about to explode across the dinner table in the deadliest of ways…

Amazon: Paperback $18.00, Kindle $12.99

Booktopia: Paperback $28.50

Sutherland Library: Paperback (9 copies, no holds), eBook (Borrow Box – checked out) & eAudiobook (Borrow Box – checked out), Large print – on order

Kmart: Doesn’t stock

Big W: Paperback $18.00

by Kristin Hannah

In Kristin Hannah’s Night Road, the consequence of one terrible night changes a group of young people’s lives forever.

Lexi and Mia are inseparable from the moment they start high school. Different in so many ways – Lexi is an orphan and lives with her aunt on a trailer park, while Mia is a golden girl blessed with a loving family and a beautiful home – yet they recognize something in each other that sets them apart from the crowd, and Mia comes to rely heavily on Lexi’s steadfast friendship.

Mia’s beloved – and incredibly good-looking – twin brother Zach finds life much less complicated than his sister. Jude thought she’d never have to worry about her son, that he’d always sail through life, easily achieving whatever he, and his family, wanted and expected – but then he fell in love.

The summer they graduated is a time they will always remember, and one they could never forget. It is a summer of love, best friends, shared confidences and promises. Then one moment, one night, changes them all forever. As hearts are broken, loyalties challenged and hopes dashed, the time has come to leave childhood behind and learn to face the future.

Amazon: Paperback $14.00, Kindle $12.99

Sutherland Library: Paperback (5 copies, 18 holds), Large Print (1 copy, 0 holds)

Booktopia: Paperback $19.90

Kmart: Doesn’t stock this title

Big W: $14 (listed as sold out)