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**Could you find your perfect man by looking at his book shelf?** 'Frankie, think about it. Literature is your life. You've been trawling Tinder looking for well-read intellectuals, but it's not working. Let's shake things up! Just use your favourite books to find a man.' Frankie Rose is desperate for love. Or a relationship. Or just a date with a semi-normal person. It’s not that she hasn’t tried – Frankie is the queen of online dating. But she has had enough. With the help of her best friend and colleague Cat, Frankie decides to embark on the ultimate dating experiment. Inspired by her surroundings at The Little Brunswick Bookshop where she works, Frankie places her hope in her favou...
Words are messy. Love is messier. A hilarious, insightful new novel from the creators of Books on the Rail Meet Beatrix Babbage – 29-year-old dog-earer of books and accidental destroyer of weddings. After ruining her best friend's nuptials, Bea relocates to the other side of the country in search of a fresh start, including meeting new people, living life to the fullest and finally pulling off balayage. But after a few months, life is more stagnant than ever. Bea’s job is dead-end. Her romantic life? Non-existent. And her only friends are her books, her barista and her cleaning lady. ?Then Bea stumbles across a second-hand novel, inscribed with notes. Besotted with the poetic inscriptions, Bea is determined to find the author ... and along the way, she finds herself entangled in one hell of a love quadrangle. Funny, poignant and insightful, While You Were Reading reveals that there’s no such thing as perfection, the value of true friendship and, most importantly, the power of not living in fiction, but still reading it … Often. A love story for book lovers that celebrates much more than romance.
“Thoughtful, probing...a worthy successor to the famous histories of Fairbank and Spence [that] will be read by all students and scholars of modern China.” —William C. Kirby, coauthor of Can China Lead? It is tempting to attribute the rise of China to Deng Xiaoping and to recent changes in economic policy. But China has a long history of creative adaptation. In the eighteenth century, the Qing Empire dominated a third of the world’s population. Then, as the Opium Wars and the Taiping Rebellion ripped the country apart, China found itself verging on free fall. More recently, after Mao, China managed a surprising recovery, rapidly undergoing profound economic and social change. A dynam...
An unputdownable thriller for fans of Liane Moriarty and Caroline Overington. If you were gripped watching The Cry, you'll be hooked on Six Minutes. 'Impossible to put down and full of twists and turns you won't see coming! I loved this fabulous debut novel.' Liane Moriarty, bestselling author of Nine Perfect Strangers '...a suspenseful suburban thriller that steals your time and won't give it back.' Crime Book of the Month, Readings.com How can a child disappear from under the care of four playgroup mums? One Thursday morning, Lexie Parker dashes to the shop for biscuits, leaving Bella in the safe care of the other mums in the playgroup. Six minutes later, Bella is gone. Police and media de...
Read the chilling and completely heartwrenching story of a mother's worst nightmare: her child being stolen--and what happens when he returns--from the author of The Family Across the Street. Six years ago Megan waits at the school gates for her six-year-old son, Daniel. As the playground empties, panic bubbles inside her. Daniel is nowhere to be found. Her darling son is missing. Six years later After years of sleepless nights and endless days of missing her son, Megan finally gets the call she has been dreaming about. Daniel has walked into a police station in a remote town just a few miles away. Megan is overjoyed--her son is finally coming home. She has kept Daniel's room, with his Cooki...
Now an Amazon Original series starring Sigourney Weaver, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart is the internationally bestselling novel by Holly Ringland. Perfect for fans of Where the Crawdads Sing and Kate Morton. 'A magical coming-of-age novel' - Good Housekeeping On the Australian coast, miles away from the nearest town, nine-year-old Alice Hart lives in fear of her father's dark moods. She is sheltered only by the love of her mother, Agnes, and Agnes' beautiful garden. When tragedy changes Alice's life irrevocably, she is sent to Thornfield, a native flower farm run by the grandmother she has never known. Thornfield gives refuge to women who, like Alice, are lost or broken, and it is there that Alice learns to use the language of flowers to say the things she cannot voice. But as she grows older, Alice realizes that there are things that even the flowers cannot help her say. Family secrets are buried deeper than the flowers' roots and, if she is to have the freedom she craves, she must find the courage to unearth the most powerful story she knows: her own. 'Rich, vibrant and alive . . . Holly Ringland is a writer to watch out for' - Jenn Ashworth, author of Ghosted
Dave Glasheen's life began spiralling out of control after he lost his family's vast fortune in the stock market crash of 1987. After a series of catastrophes, he needed to take drastic measures to restore himself. Opting out of the rat race, he cast himself away to a deserted island off the north-east tip of Australia, as far off the grid as was humanly possible. He has lived there ever since. One annual supermarket shop, a sketchy internet connection, and enough ingredients for a home brew satisfy Dave's material needs. He catches fish, traps rainwater and cooks on an open fire. For company he tames dingoes, meets with friends from the Aboriginal community 40 kilometres away, and entertains drop-ins such as Russell Crowe sailing past on his honeymoon. Then there's Dave's running feud with Boxhead, an antisocial saltwater crocodile who just won't leave him in peace. Between heartbreak and hair-raising adventures, Dave has found happiness on Restoration Island. Brimming with humour, eccentricity and hard-earned wisdom, The Millionaire Castaway will give you a whole new view on life.
Two French storytellers and a runaway girl travel through fairytale lands, Italian theatres, and the battlefields of France in search of a place to belong as Napoleon's Empire falls, from the author of Josephine's Garden. '... a vividly imagined and unforgettable tale of love, hope and friendship. Above all, though, this a novel about stories...' Better Reading Remi Victoire is the golden child among all the theatre orphans; he dreams of a life on a Paris stage. But when this future is stolen from him, Remi and his faithful friend Pascal turn their backs on Paris forever. With Saskia, a runaway orphan girl, Remi and Pascal form a performing troupe, travelling through the fairytale lands that...
The Widow of Walcha is a shocking true story about death, love and lies in the small NSW town of Walcha. Shortlisted, 2023 Danger Awards, Nonfiction category All farmer Mathew Dunbar ever wanted was to find love and have a family of his own. That's why, just months after meeting Natasha Darcy, the much-loved grazier didn't hesitate to sign over his multi-million-dollar estate to her. When Mathew died in an apparent suicide soon afterwards, in a stranger-than-fiction twist, Natasha's estranged husband - who she was once charged with trying to kill - was the first paramedic on the scene after the murder. Journalist and author Emma Partridge travelled to the cool and misty town of Walcha in the...
Shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2019. Tobi and Ella's childhood in East Berlin is shrouded in mystery. Now adults living in London, their past is full of unanswered questions. Both remember their family's daring and terrifying attempt to escape. But what happened next? Where did their parents disappear to, and why? What happened to Heiko, their little brother? And was there ever a painting of three blue horses? In contemporary Germany, Aaron works for a Stasi archive, making his way through old files, reconstructing the tragic history of thousands of families. But one file in particular catches his eye; and soon unravelling the secrets at its heart becomes an obsession. When Ella finds a stash of her mother's notebooks, she and Tobi embark on a search that will take them back to Berlin. Her fate clashes with Aaron's, and they piece together the details of Ella's past... and a family torn apart. Devastating and beautifully written, funny and life-affirming, Confession with Blue Horses explores intimate family life and its strength in the most difficult of circumstances.