Recent Books

Outside (September 2022)

By Ragnar Jonasson

September 19, 2022

Ina deadly Icelandic snow storm, four friends seek shelter in an abandoned hunting lodge.  Miles from help, and knowing they will die out in the cold, they break in, hoping to wait out the storm until morning.

But nothing prepares them for what’s inside …

With no other option, they are forced to spend a long, terrifying night in the cabin: watching as intently and silently as they themselves are being watched.

As the night darkens, old secrets spill into the light – and tensions rise between the four friends.  Soon it’s clear that what they discovered in the cabin is far from the only mystery lurking there.

Nor the only thing to be afraid of …

Before Your Memory Fades (September 2022)

By Toshikazu Kawaguchi

September 19, 2022

The third novel in Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s sensational ‘Before the Coffee Gets Cold’ series.

On the hillside of Mount Hakodate in northern Japan.  Cafe Donna Donna is fabled for its dazzling views of Hakodate port.  But that’s not all.  Cafe Donna Donna offers its customers the extraordinary experience of travelling through time and Nagare and Kuzu are back to guide four new customers.

There are rules to follow : you can only meet people who have visited the cafe, you must stay seated in your chair and most importantly, you must return to the present before the coffee gets cold.

In Before Your Memory Fades, we meet: the daughter who resents her deceased parents for leaving her orphaned; the comedian who aches for his beloved and their shared dreams; the sister whose grief has become all-consuming; and the man who realized his love for his childhood friend.

Heartwarming and poignant.  Kawaguchi explores how holding on to the past can affect our future, and asks the reader: would you travel in time if your actions couldn’t change the present?

By the Green of the Spring (September 2022)

By Paddy Richardson

September 19, 2022

Otto Bader, Pansy Williams and Clem Bright live in the small mining town of Blackball on the West Coast, shaped by stories and the dream of a better, more equal society to come.

But the First World War erupts and Otto, being of German descent, is torn from his family and the love of his life, Pansy, to endure the war interned as an enemy alien on Somes Island in Wellington Harbour.  His suffering with the other internees, the culture of brutality and abuse of power by those in charge, is both chilling and truthful, and all the more poignant by taking place within sight of the capital city.  Both his present and his future appear to be stolen from him.

Pansy, pregnant, marries good, kind Clem, who then betrays his socialist principles by enlisting.

Love, loss and abandonment haunt both Otto and Pansy, with reverberations far into the future.  Lena is their child.  Spirited, clever and perceptive, she tells her own story of growing up in the close-knit Bright family and the changes that occur when Clem returns from the war damaged both physically and psychologically.

Lena’s journey to adulthood is beautifully portrayed as she observes the people who make up her family and develops into an educated and creative young woman.  Blackball is where she belongs and it is the place she recalls when she paints her memories.

Girl, Forgotten (September 2022)

By Karin Slaughter

September 19, 2022

A girl with a secret …

Longbill Beach, 1982.  Emily Vaughn gets ready for prom night, the highlight of any high school experience.  But Emily has a secret.  And by the end of the evening, she will be dead.

A murder that remains a mystery …

Forty years later, Emily’s murder remains unsolved.  Her friends closed ranks, her family retreated inwards, the community moved on.  But all that’s about to change.

One final chance to uncover a killer …

Andrea Oliver arrives in town with a simple assignment: to protect a judge receiving death threats.  But her assignment is a cover.  Because, in reality, Andrea is here to find justice for Emily – and to uncover the truth before the killer decides to silence her too …

City of Vengeance (August 2022)

By D. V. Bishop

August 8, 2022

Florence.  Winter, 1536.  A prominent Jewish moneylender is murdered in his home, a death with wide implications in a city powered by immense wealth.

Cesare Aldo, a former soldier and now an officer of the Renaissance city’s most feared criminal court, is given four days to solve the murder: catch the killer before the feast of Epiphany – or suffer the consequences.

During his investigations Aldo uncovers a plot to overthrow the volatile ruler of Florence, Alessandro de’ Medici.  If the Duke falls, it will endanger the whole city.  But a rival officer of the court is determined to expose details about Aldo’s private life that could lead to his ruin.  Can Aldo stop the conspiracy before anyone else dies, or will his own secrets destroy him first?

Crossroads (August 2022)

By Jonathan Franzen

August 8, 2022

It’s 23 December 1971, and heavy weather is forecast for Chicago.  Ross Hildebrandt, the associate pastor of a liberal suburban church, is on the brink of breaking free of a marriage he finds joyless – unless his wife, Marion, who has her own secret life, beats him to it.  Their eldest child, Clem, is coming home from college on fire with moral absolutism, having taken an action that will shatter his father.  Clem’s sister, Becky, long the social queen of her high-school class, has sharply veered into the counterculture, while their brilliant younger brother Perry, who’s been selling drugs to seventh-graders, has resolved to be a better person.  Each of the Hildebrandts seeks a freedom that each of the others threatens to complicate.

Picture You Dead (August 2022)

By Peter James

August 8, 2022

A Detective Superintendent Roy Grace Novel

Harry and Freya, an ordinary couple, dreamed for years of finding something priceless buried amongst the tat in a car boot sale.  It was a dream they knew in their hearts would never come true – until one day it does…

They buy a drab portrait for twenty pounds purely for its beautiful frame, planning to cut the painting out.  Then, studying it back at home, they notice that there appears to be another picture beneath, of a stunning landscape.  Could it be a long-lost masterpiece from the 1770’s?  If so, it could be worth millions.

One collector is certain it is genuine.  Someone who stops at nothing to get what he wants.

Detective Superintendent Roy Grace finds himself plunged into the unfamiliar and rarefied world of fine art.  Outwardly it appears respectable, gentlemanly, above reproach.  But beneath the veneer, he rapidly finds that greed, deception and violence walk hand in hand.  And Harry and Freya are about to discover that their dream is turning into their worst nightmare.

The Heretic (August 2022)

By Liam McIlvanney

August 8, 2022

Glasgow, 1975

A Deadly Fire

An arson attack on a Glasgow warehouse causes the deaths of a young mother and child.  Police suspect it’s the latest act in a brutal gang warfare that’s tearing the city apart – one that DI Duncan McCormack has been tasked with stopping.

A Brutal Murder

Five years ago he was walking on water as the cop who tracked down a notorious serial killer.  But he made powerful enemies and when a mutilated body is found in a Tradeston slum, McCormack is assigned a case that no one wants.  The dead man is wearing a masonic ring, though, and Duncan realizes the victim is not the down-and-out his boss had first assumed.

A Catastrophic Explosion

As McCormack looks into both crimes, the investigations are disrupted by a shocking event.  A bomb rips though a pub packed with people – and a cop is killed in the blast.  With one of his own unit now dead, McCormack is in the firing line.

But he’s starting to see a thread – one that connects all three attacks…

The Book of Form and Emptiness (August 2022)

By Ruth Ozeki

August 8, 2022

After his father dies, Benny Oh finds he can hear objects talking: teapots, marbles and sharpened pencils, babbling in anger or distress.  His mother, struggling to support their household alone, starts collecting things to give her comfort.  Overwhelmed by the clamour of all the stuff, Benny seeks refuge in the beautiful silence of the public library.

There, the objects speak only in whispers.  These, he meets a homeless poet and a mesmerising young performance artist.  There, a book reaches out to him.  Not just any book: his own book.  And a very important conversation begins.

The Book of Form and Emptiness is about grief, resilience, creativity and psychological difference.  It is about the importance of reading and an observation of the mess consumer culture has got us into.  It is an affirmation of the power of community.  It is funny, kind, wise, urgent and completely irresistible.  If you let it – if you listen – it could change your life.

Greta & Valdin (August 2022)

By Rebecca K Reilly

August 8, 2022

Valdin is still in love with his ex-boyfriend Xabi, who used to drive around Auckland in a ute but now drives around Buenos Aires in one.  Greta is in love with her fellow English tutor Holly, who doesn’t know how to pronounce Greta’s surname, Valdisavljevic, properly.

From their Auckland apartment, brother and sister must navigate the intricate paths of modern romance as well as weather the small storms of their eccentric Maori-Russian-Catalonian family.  This beguiling and hilarious novel by Adam Foundation Prize winner Rebecca K Reilly owns as much to Shakespeare as it does to Tinder.  Set in a world that is deeply familiar (but also a bit sexier and more stylish than the real one), Greta & Valdin will speak to anyone who has had their heart broken, or had decided that they don’t want to be a physicist anymore, or has wondered about all the things they don’t know about their family.