Adultery by Paulo Coelho
Linda’s friends recommend medication to mend her unhappiness, but she is fuelled by a desire to feel more, not less. She is an ambitious journalist, a respected wife and devoted mother, but a meeting with a politician, and ex-boyfriend causes her to embark on a relationship that is dangerous, addictive and exciting. International best-selling author Paulo Coelho has written a provocative story about passion, freedom and the far-reaching consequences of life.
Hotel Alpha by Mark Watson
Once the finest hotel in London, Howard York’s dazzling empire, the Hotel Alpha, has struggled to keep pace with the changes occurring over the past three decades. Graham, the Alpha’s concierge, has worked the front desk since the hotel’s doors opened, and Howard’s blind adopted son, Chaz, has almost never ventured outside its walls. But now they must accept that the Hotel Alpha no longer is the sanctuary they have always thought, and Howard’s vision has been built on secrets as well as dreams.
2 A.M. At The Cat’s Pajamas by Marie-Helene Bertino
Nine-year-old Madeleine Altimari is a vivacious aspiring jazz singer, inwardly mourning the recent death of her mother. After facing down some mean-spirited classmates and a galling rejection at school, Madeleine goes in search of Philadelphia’s legendary jazz club, The Cat’s Pajamas. Meanwhile her fifth grade teacher is nervously anticipating a dinner party reunion with her high school crush, and The Cat’s Pajama’s club owner Jack Lorca discovers he may have to close his jazz haunt forever. Over the course of one magical night, these three lost souls discover life’s endless possibilities in music, hope and love.
Colorless Tsukuru and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
In the first week this book was released in Japan, over a million copies were sold of award-winning international author Haruki Murakami. This long-awaited novel is a story of Tsukuru Tazaki, a young man haunted by great loss. He takes a journey into the past that is necessary to mend the present, and encounters love, friendship and heartbreak.
The Golden Age by Joan London
In 1954, thirteen-year-old Frank Gold, a refugee from wartime Hungary, is learning to walk again after contracting polio. At a hospital in Perth he meets Elsa, a fellow patient with whom he forms a forbidden, passionate bond. From Australian novelist Joan London comes a story of nostalgia, growth and yearning for connection.
Courting Trouble by Kathy Lette
Lawyer Tilly is sacked from her barrister’s chambers in the morning, and discovers her husband in bed with her former best friend in the afternoon. She escapes the day from hell and goes to her mother, Roxy, an outrageous solicitor who has a radical plan to set up an all-female law firm who will fight only for women who have been attacked, ripped off or cheated by men. In court, Roxy finds herself against Jack Cassidy, a smooth and sarcastic Casanova from law school. Then an unexpected case comes up and tempts Tilly into taking the law into her own hands.
Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes
From award-winning author Lauren Beukes comes a disturbing thriller that explores the dead American Dream. Detective Gabriella Versado is accustomed to violent death in Detroit, but the part-human part-animal corpses that have started appearing are unnaturally chilling. Meanwhile, her teenage daughter has started her own fight to hunt online paedophiles, but it goes horribly wrong. An ambitious blogger is seeks to find his big break in the discovery of unusual and macabre art, and homeless TK’s fragile self-constructed world is threatened by something evil.
The Heist by Daniel Silva
In this action-packed story of intrigue, murder, and theft in Italy, art restorer Gabriel Allon is called to help an urgent summons from the Italian police when his friend, an eccentric London art dealer is held as a suspect on a chilling murder case in Lake Como. Gabriel must track down a stolen masterpiece by Caravaggio, and his search leads him into a labyrinth of international terror and financial warfare based on the black art trade.
The President’s Lunch by Jenny Bond
During the Great Depression, Irish McKintosh’s future looks bleak until a chance meeting with America’s First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, pushes her into the shining inner circle of the White House. Faced with change and torn between two men, Iris is struck by the complicated and charismatic President Roosevelt, who forces her to question everything she has believed in. This is a compelling story of politics, power and love in one of the significant periods of history.
What Milo Saw by Virginia Macgregor
Nine-year-old Milo Moon has retinitis pigmentosa and will one day be blind, but for now he notices things that others don’t through his pinhole of vision. He tries to tell the grown-ups that something is wrong at his gran’s nursing home. Nobody listens, so Milo (and Hamlet, his pet pig) work to expose the home and the sinister Nurse Thornhill.
The Kings’s Curse by Philippa Gregory
From the bestselling author of The Other Boleyn Girl and The White Princess comes the riveting story of Margaret Pole, daughter of George, Duke of Clarence, one of the few surviving members of the Plantagenet dynasty after the Wars of the Roses. Plantagenet, once carried proudly by Margaret like a crown upon her head, is now, at the end of the 15th century, the most dangerous name in England.
The Eye of the Sheep by Sofie Laguna
Narrated by the fresh observations of young Jimmy Flick in the western suburbs of 1980s Melbourne, The Eye of the Sheep is a story of loss, attachment, fatherhood and redemption. Jimmy is a problematic child, and his mother Paula is the only one who can manage him, and make the world an accessible place for Jimmy’s overloaded senses. Suddenly Jimmy must navigate the world on his own, and this dark but compassionate novel gives insight into family violence and trauma with empathy and insight.
