May Picks

Pomare, J.P. (2018) Call me Evie. Hachette. Seventeen-year-old Kate (now called Evie) is hiding out with Jim in the isolated New Zealand beach town of Maketu. Is he keeping her safe or is there a more sinister motive? Something terrible has happened in Melbourne but Evie's fractured memories are getting in the way. Pomare uses her… Continue reading May Picks

April Picks

Swanson, Peter (2019) Before She Knew Him. W. Morrow.  Hen and Lloyd are newly settled in the suburbs of Boston. When their next door neighbours, Mira and Matthew, invite them to dinner Hen spies a disturbingly familiar object in Matthew's office. It looks like something connected to an unresolved killing. The more Hen observes Matthew… Continue reading April Picks

March Picks

Barton, Fiona (2019) The Suspect. Bantam. Two eighteen year old girls go missing in Thailand, then turn up dead after a suspicious fire. Their families are frantic. Newspaper reporter Kate Waters (The Widow, and The Child) is the first with the exclusive but as the mystery unfolds her own son is thrust into the spotlight. In a… Continue reading March Picks

February Picks

Plomin, Robert (2018) Blue print: How DNA makes us who we are. Allen Lane. All aspects of our personality are profoundly shaped by our inherited DNA. Plomin launches a rethink from a psychological perspective on who we are, arguing from the stance that nurture, whether at home, school or in our broader environment, is not… Continue reading February Picks

January Picks

Norton, Graham (2018) A Keeper. Hodder & Stoughton. Elizabeth Keane returns to Ireland after her mother Patricia's death to sell her childhood home. While searching through her mother's belongings she finds some letters than send her off to solve the 40 year mystery of her paternity, leading to a little stone house in the shadows of… Continue reading January Picks

Best Picks 2018

As a big reader of fiction I am always surprised that when I come to do this annual summary of the year's best reads that the most memorable titles are always non-fiction.  I am pleased to present my best picks for 2018. Enjoy! 1. Kassabova, Kapka (2017) Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe. Breathtaking… Continue reading Best Picks 2018

December Picks

Askew, Claire (2018) All the Hidden Truths. Hodder & Stoughton. Ryan Summers walks into Three Rivers College and kills 13 young women, then kills himself. The Edinburgh school shooting is told from the viewpoints of three women DI Helen Birch, put in charge of the case on her first day in her new job, Moira, Ryan's… Continue reading December Picks

November Picks

Harper, Jane (2018) The Lost Man. Macmillan. Nathan and Bub Bright meet at the stockman's grave, on the border of their vast cattle properties in outback Queensland. The body of their middle brother Cameron is lying beside the grave. Something had been troubling Cameron - did he walk to his death?  This novel meets somewhere… Continue reading November Picks

October Picks

Harari, Yuval Noah (2018) 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. Spiegel & Grau. Building on the ideas explored in Sapiens and Homo Deus Harari offers, through themed essays, advice on how to prepare for a very different future. He looks at the big questions - political, technological, social and existential issues of the 21st century, and… Continue reading October Picks

September Picks

Mawer, Simon (2018) Prague Spring. Little Brown. In the summer of 1968, the year of Prague Spring, students James and Ellie set out to hitchhike across Europe. They decide on a whim to visit Czechoslovakia where Alexander Dubcek’s “socialism with a human face” is being proclaimed. Meanwhile cynical diplomat Sam is monitoring the unravelling situation through… Continue reading September Picks