by Ariel Lawhon

Maine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As a midwife and healer, she is privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in Hallowell. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, crime and debacle that unfolds in the close-knit community.

Months earlier, Martha documented the details of an alleged rape committed by two of the town’s most respected gentlemen—one of whom has now been found dead in the ice. But when a local physician undermines her conclusion, declaring the death to be an accident, Martha is forced to investigate the shocking murder on her own.

Over the course of one winter, as the trial nears, and whispers and prejudices mount, Martha doggedly pursues the truth. Her diary soon lands at the center of the scandal, implicating those she loves, and compelling Martha to decide where her own loyalties lie.

Clever, layered, and subversive, Ariel Lawhon’s newest offering introduces an unsung heroine who refused to accept anything less than justice at a time when women were considered best seen and not heard. The Frozen River is a thrilling, tense, and tender story about a remarkable woman who left an unparalleled legacy yet remains nearly forgotten to this day.

Inspired by the life of Martha Ballard, a renowned 18th-century midwife who defied the legal system and wrote herself into history.

Amazon: Kindle Unlimited $0 or $16.99 to buy; Paperback $19.54

Booktopia: Book $20.75, eBook $16.99

No copies at Kmart or Big W (not in store)

Sutherland library: eAudiobook available; Book – 9 copies (6 holds)

by Virginia Evans

WOMEN’S FICTION PRIZE 2026 WINNER

84 Charing Cross Road meets A Man Called Ove in this heartwarming, witty story about the life of an extraordinary woman, told through her letters.

In her letters to family and friends we come to know the life of Sybil Van Antwerp: stubborn, cantankerous, opinionated, always steadfast in her belief in the power of the written word.

But as the clock begins to tick for Sybil, the need for a few post-scripts to the life she’s led becomes apparent. Fixing her difficult relationship with her children. Taking a final chance at romance. Atoning for an old legal case which has come back to haunt her. And finally, reckoning with a devastating loss that she has spent the last thirty years holding close to her chest.

Rebecca Wait, reviewing the novel for the Guardian, called it “skilful and moving”, describing it as “a paean to the art of correspondence” and “an immensely enjoyable read”. A film adaptation is in production, starring Oscar-winning actor Jane Fonda.

Amazon: Paperback $18.00, Kindle $15.99

Booktopia: Paperback $19.99, eBook $15.99

Big W: Doesn’t stock

Kmart: $18.00

Sutherland Library: Book – 37 copies (72 holds), Large Print on order

by Jane Caro

Lyrebirds are brilliant mimics, so if they mimic a woman screaming in terror and begging for her life, they have witnessed a crime. But how does a young, hung over PHD student and a wet behind the ears new detective, convince anyone that a native bird can be a reliable witness to a murder, especially when there is no body and no missing person? And what happens when they turn out to be right?

A sound froze her blood. A woman. A woman screaming in pure terror. Screaming and sobbing—begging—out here, in this desolate place.

Twenty years ago, ornithology student Jessica Weston panicked when she heard a woman screaming for her life in the remote Barrington Tops. Her relief, when she discovers that it is a lyrebird making the sounds, is profound. She is thrilled to have caught his display on video. Then she remembers—lyrebirds are mimics. Whatever the wild creature has heard must have really happened, and happened nearby.

Jessica takes her video to the police. Despite support from newly minted detective, Megan Blaxland, with no missing person reported and no body, her evidence is ridiculed and dismissed.

Twenty years later, a body is unearthed, just where Jessica said it would be.

Horrified they let the case go cold, Jessica, now an associate professor, and Megan, recently retired but brought back to head up the investigation, reunite and join forces. They are determined to find the killer, whatever it takes. What they don’t realise is that they are not just putting their lives in danger, but also the lives of those close to them . . .

Amazon: Kindle $15.99; Paperback $28.75

Booktopia: $28.75. eBook $21.99

Kmart and Big W don’t stock it

Sutherland Library: Book – 18 copies (no holds), eBook, Large Print

by Charlotte McConaghy

A family on a remote island. A mysterious woman washed ashore. A storm gathering force.

Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers. But with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants, packing up the seeds before they are transported to safer ground. Despite the wild beauty of life here, isolation has taken its toll on the Salts. Raff, 18 and suffering his first heartbreak, can only find relief at his punching bag; Fen, 17, has started spending her nights on the beach among the seals; 9-year-old Orly, obsessed with botany, fears the loss of his beloved natural world; and Dominic can’t stop turning back towards the past, and the loss that drove the family to Shearwater in the first place.

Then, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman washes up on shore. As the Salts nurse the woman, Rowan, back to life, their suspicion gives way to affection, and they finally begin to feel like a family again. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting her heart, begins to fall for the Salts, too. But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers the sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realises Dominic is keeping his own dark secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, the characters must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it’s too late-and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together.

A novel of heartstopping twists, dizzying beauty and ferocious love, Wild Dark Shore is a story about the impossible choices we make to protect the people we love, even as the world around us is ending.

Sutherland Library: Paperback 18 copies;  BorrowBox eBook

Amazon: Kindle $15.99; Paperback $18.00

Kmart: Doesn’t Stock

Big W: $18.00

by Belle Burden

How do we go on when a loved one betrays us?

On a chilly day in March of 2020, in the early days of the pandemic, Belle Burden’s husband of twenty years announced, with no prior warning, that he was leaving her.

His decision shocked Belle to her core- she believed he was a happy man, a committed partner, and a devoted father to their three children. She thought he was a man who had settled into the life he had always wanted- a successful career, summers spent at their beloved home on Martha’s Vineyard, lots of tennis.

Overnight, he transformed from her steady companion into a stranger.

As she pieces her life together in the wake of a loss she had never imagined coming, she finds she is much stronger than she ever expected. Belle reflects on her transformation from a shy, quiet girl, nicknamed ‘Belle the Good’ to a powerful, brave, determined woman. A woman who has learned to use her voice to expose the patriarchal structures that have forced women to be discreet and compliant for far too long.

Based on Belle’s popular ‘Modern Love’ essay, Was I Married to a Stranger?, this is the emotional and empowering memoir of self-discovery and what it means to finally be heard.

Sutherland Library: 3 copies (more due soon)

Amazon: Kindle $19.99; Paperback $29.99

Kmart: Doesn’t stock

Big W: Doesn’t stock

by Harlan Coben & Reese Witherspoon

Maggie McCabe is teetering on the brink. A highly skilled and renowned Army combat surgeon, she has always lived life at the edge, where she could make the most impact. And it was all going to plan … until it wasn’t.

Upside down after a devastating series of tragedies leads to her medical license being revoked, Maggie has lost her purpose, but not her nerve or her passion. At her lowest point, she is thrown a lifeline by a former colleague, an elite plastic surgeon whose anonymous clientele demand the best care money can buy, as well as absolute discretion.

Halfway across the globe, sequestered in the lap of luxury and cutting-edge technology, one of the world’s most mysterious men requires unconventional medical assistance. Desperate, and one of the few surgeons in the world skilled enough to take this job, Maggie enters his realm of unspeakable opulence and fulfills her end of the agreement. But when the patient suddenly disappears while still under her care, Maggie must become a fugitive herself—or she will be the next one who is … Gone Before Goodbye.

Sutherland Library: Paperback 22 copies; eBook & eAudiobook

Amazon: Kindle $12.99; Paperback $18.00

Kmart: Doesn’t stock 

Big W: Paperback $18.00 

by Virginia Evans

84 Charing Cross Road meets A Man Called Ove in this heartwarming, witty story about the life of an extraordinary woman, told through her letters.

In her letters to family and friends we come to know the life of Sybil Van Antwerp- stubborn, cantankerous, opinionated, always steadfast in her belief in the power of the written word.

But as the clock begins to tick for Sybil, the need for a few post-scripts to the life she’s led becomes apparent. Fixing her difficult relationship with her children. Taking a final chance at romance. Atoning for an old legal case which has come back to haunt her. And finally, reckoning with a devastating loss that she has spent the last thirty years holding close to her chest.

Sutherland Library: 42 copies, 92 holds

Kmart: Paperback $18:00

Big W: Doesn’t stock

by Samantha Harvey

**WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024**
**THE #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER**

‘A slim, profound study of intimate human fears set against epic vistas’
GUARDIAN

‘Stunning… An uplifting book’
SUNDAY TIMES

Life on our planet as you’ve never seen it before

A team of astronauts in the International Space Station collect meteorological data, conduct scientific experiments and test the limits of the human body. But mostly they observe. Together they watch their silent blue planet, circling it sixteen times, spinning past continents and cycling through seasons, taking in glaciers and deserts, the peaks of mountains and the swells of oceans. Endless shows of spectacular beauty witnessed in a single day.

Yet although separated from the world they cannot escape its constant pull. News reaches them of the death of a mother, and with it comes thoughts of returning home. They look on as a typhoon gathers over an island and people they love, in awe of its magnificence and fearful of its destruction.

The fragility of human life fills their conversations, their fears, their dreams. So far from earth, they have never felt more part – or protective – of it. They begin to ask, what is life without earth? What is earth without humanity?

‘Our unanimity about Orbital recognises its beauty and ambition. It reflects Harvey’s extraordinary intensity of attention to the precious and precarious world we share’ Edmund de Waal, Chair of the 2024 Booker Prize judges

*A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE GUARDIAN, SUNDAY TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES, NEW STATESMAN, SPECTATOR, DAILY MAIL AND MAIL ON SUNDAY*

Sutherland Library: 19 copies, eBook:Hoopla

Kmart: Doesn’t stock

Big W: Paperback $14

by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

One of the most popular Booktok books on Tiktok in 2022

In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.

In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer’s, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.

But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold …

Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful, moving story explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?

Sutherland Library: Book 8 copies, eBook, eAudiobook

Kmart: Paperback $12 

Big W: Paperback $12 

by Megan Miranda

REESE’S BOOK CLUB x HELLO SUNSHINE AUGUST 2019 PICK!

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Littleport, Maine, has always felt like two separate towns: an ideal vacation enclave for the wealthy, whose summer homes line the coastline; and a simple harbor community for the year-round residents whose livelihoods rely on service to the visitors.

Typically, fierce friendships never develop between a local and a summer girl—but that’s just what happens with visitor Sadie Loman and Littleport resident Avery Greer. Each summer for almost a decade, the girls are inseparable—until Sadie is found dead. While the police rule the death a suicide, Avery can’t help but feel there are those in the community, including a local detective and Sadie’s brother, Parker, who blame her. Someone knows more than they’re saying, and Avery is intent on clearing her name, before the facts get twisted against her.

Another thrilling novel from the bestselling author of All the Missing Girls and The Perfect Stranger, Megan Miranda’s The Last House Guest is a smart, twisty read with a strong female protagonist determined to make her own way in the world.

Amazon: Paperback $17.44, Kindle $3.79

Booktopia: Paperback $22.75, eBook $8.99

Sutherland Library: 4 copies, eBook, eAudiobook

Kmart: Doesn’t stock

Big W: Doesn’t stock

by J. Courtney Sullivan

REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK – A novel of family, secrets, ghosts, and homecoming set on the seaside cliffs of Maine, by the New York Times best-selling author of Friends and Strangers

On a secluded bluff overlooking the ocean sits a Victorian house, lavender with gingerbread trim, a home that contains a century’s worth of secrets. By the time Jane Flanagan discovers the house as a teenager, it has long been abandoned. The place is an irresistible mystery to Jane. There are still clothes in the closets, marbles rolling across the floors, and dishes in the cupboards, even though no one has set foot there in decades. The house becomes a hideaway for Jane, a place to escape her volatile mother.

Twenty years later, now a Harvard archivist, she returns home to Maine following a terrible mistake that threatens both her career and her marriage. Jane is horrified to find the Victorian is now barely recognizable. The new owner, Genevieve, a summer person from Beacon Hill, has gutted it, transforming the house into a glossy white monstrosity straight out of a shelter magazine. Strangely, Genevieve is convinced that the house is haunted–perhaps the product of something troubling Genevieve herself has done. She hires Jane to research the history of the place and the women who lived there. The story Jane uncovers–of lovers lost at sea, romantic longing, shattering loss, artistic awakening, historical artifacts stolen and sold, and the long shadow of colonialism–is even older than Maine itself.

Enthralling, richly imagined, filled with psychic mediums and charlatans, spirits and past lives, mothers, marriage, and the legacy of alcoholism, this is a deeply moving novel about the land we inhabit, the women who came before us, and the ways in which none of us will ever truly leave this earth.

Amazon: Hardcover $55.77, Paperback $40.79, Kindle $12.99

Booktopia: Paperback $56.75

Sutherland Library: 9 copies (no holds at time of writing)

Kmart: Doesn’t stock

Big W: Doesn’t stock

by Laura Dave

A gripping mystery about a woman who thinks she’s found the love of her life–until he disappears.

Before Owen Michaels disappears, he smuggles a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her. Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly to whom the note refers–Owen’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey. Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. Bailey, who wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother.

As Hannah’s increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, as the FBI arrests Owen’s boss, as a US marshal and federal agents arrive at her Sausalito home unannounced, Hannah quickly realizes her husband isn’t who he said he was. And that Bailey just may hold the key to figuring out Owen’s true identity–and why he really disappeared. Hannah and Bailey set out to discover the truth. But as they start putting together the pieces of Owen’s past, they soon realize they’re also building a new future–one neither of them could have anticipated. With its breakneck pacing, dizzying plot twists, and evocative family drama, The Last Thing He Told Me is a riveting mystery, certain to shock you with its final, heartbreaking turn.

Amazon: Paperback $23.80, Kindle $7.99

Booktopia: Paperback $19.99

Sutherland Library: 5 copies

Kmart: Doesn’t stock 

Big W: Doesn’t stock

by Kiran Desai

A spellbinding story of two young people whose fates intersect and diverge across continents and years-an epic of love and family, India and America, tradition and modernity, by the Booker Prize-winning author of The Inheritance of Loss.

When Sonia and Sunny first glimpse each other on an overnight train, they are immediately captivated, yet also embarrassed by the fact that their grandparents had once tried to matchmake them, a clumsy meddling that only served to drive Sonia and Sunny apart.

Sonia, an aspiring novelist who recently completed her studies in the snowy mountains of Vermont, has returned to her family in India, fearing she is haunted by a dark spell cast by an artist to whom she had once turned for intimacy and inspiration. Sunny, a struggling journalist resettled in New York City, is attempting to flee his imperious mother and the violence of his warring clan. Uncertain of their future, Sonia and Sunny embark on a search for happiness together as they confront the many alienations of our modern world.

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is the sweeping tale of two young people navigating the many forces that shape their lives- country, class, race, history, and the complicated bonds that link one generation to the next. A love story, a family saga, and a rich novel of ideas, it is the most ambitious and accomplished work yet by one of our greatest novelists.

Amazon: Paperback $26.25, Kindle $17.99

Booktopia: Paperback $29.95

Sutherland Library: 2 copies

Can borrow Jen’s copy 🙂

Kmart: Doesn’t stock

Big W: Doesn’t stock

by Karl Kruszelnicki

How did a shy Polish immigrant kid – Karl Sven Woytek Sas Konkovitch Matthew Kruszelnicki – evolve into the fabulously eccentric Dr Karl?

Shortlist ABIA Biography of the Year 2025

The only child of Holocaust survivors who fled to Australia in 1950, Karl has always forged his own destiny in an idiosyncratic way. Before he became one of the world’s favourite scientific storytellers, he ambled through a convoluted cacophony of a career.

In the 1960s, he got his start as a physicist at the Port Kembla Steelworks and promptly joined the Steel Industries Auto Club, racing modified rally cars on Wollongong’s deserted back roads. In the 1970s, he entered his self-described ‘drug-crazed hippie years’, making a living as a long-haired, dope-smoking taxi driver. After he applied to be a NASA astronaut in the 1980s and ‘failed’, he ended up live broadcasting the first space shuttle launch on Triple J instead. Unexpectedly, that blasted off his media career, and from there it was a stratospheric rise from radio to TV, books, newspapers, speaking, podcasts and the internet.

Karl’s story teaches us that you don’t have to know all the answers, as long as you ask the right questions. He has wandered down more than a dozen career paths, from being a TV weatherman (really) to a professional four-wheel drive tester in the outback (really) to being a roadie for Bo Diddley (really). All of these seemingly random experiences have helped create the Karl we know today.

In this long-awaited memoir, you will learn that it’s okay to not take a linear path through life, and that by following our curiosities and our passions, we can bend the universe to our liking.

Amazon: Hardcover $16.99, Paperback $24.00, Kindle $16.99

Booktopia: Paperback $29.95

Sutherland Library: Paperback – many copies, eBook (BorrowBox & Hoopla)

Kmart: Doesn’t stock

Big W: $24

by Eric Puchner

AN OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK AND AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

‘[A] brilliantly panoramic tale of family ties’ Guardian

‘A sprawling page-turner’ Grazia, Summer Reads

‘Moving, funny and utterly engrossing’ The Times

‘A totally involving and moving literary page-turner’ Clare Chambers

Cece is in love. She has arrived early at her in-laws’ beautiful lake house in Salish, Montana, to finish planning her wedding to Charlie, a cardiac anaesthesiologist with a brilliant future.

When Charlie asks Garrett, his best friend from college, to officiate the ceremony, Cece can’t imagine anyone less appropriate for the task. After all, Garrett, a depressed baggage handler at the local airport, doesn’t believe in marriage.

But as she spends time with him and his gruff mask slips, she grows increasingly uncertain about her future, leading to an impulsive decision that will alter the three friends’ lives forever – the events of that summer reverberating across fifty years and spanning generations.

Amazon: Paperback $19.87, Kindle $16.99

Booktopia: Paperback $27.75

Sutherland Library: 3 copies

Kmart: Doesn’t stock 

Big W: Doesn’t stock

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