The Other Half of Happiness by Ayisha Malik
Sofia Khan is just married. But no-one told her life was going to be this way ...
Her living situation is in dire straits, her husband Conall is distant, and his annoyingly attractive colleague is ringing all sorts of alarm bells.
When her mother forces them into a belated wedding ceremony (elopement: you can run, but you can't hide), Sofia wonders if it might be a chance to bring them together. But when it forces Conall to confess his darkest secret, it might just tear them apart. Buy the book here in Australia and here in the UK.
Into the Water by Paula Hawkins
In the last days before her death, Nel called her sister. Jules didn’t pick up the phone, ignoring her plea for help.
Now Nel is dead. They say she jumped. And Jules has been dragged back to the one place she hoped she had escaped for good, to care for the teenage girl her sister left behind.
But Jules is afraid. So afraid. Of her long-buried memories, of the old Mill House, of knowing that Nel would never have jumped.
And most of all she’s afraid of the water, and the place they call the Drowning Pool . . . Buy the book here in Australia and here in the UK.
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
Eleanor Oliphant has learned how to survive – but not how to live. Eleanor Oliphant leads a simple life. She wears the same clothes to work every day, eats the same meal deal for lunch every day and buys the same two bottles of vodka to drink every weekend.
Eleanor Oliphant is happy. Nothing is missing from her carefully timetabled life. Except, sometimes, everything.
One simple act of kindness is about to shatter the walls Eleanor has built around herself. Now she must learn how to navigate the world that everyone else seems to take for granted – while searching for the courage to face the dark corners she's avoided all her life.
Change can be good. Change can be bad. But surely any change is better than … fine? Buy the book here in Australia and here in the UK.
Anything Is Possible by Elizabeth Strout
Here are two sisters: One trades self-respect for a wealthy husband while the other finds in the pages of a book a kindred spirit who changes her life. The janitor at the local school has his faith tested in an encounter with an isolated man he has come to help; a grown daughter longs for mother love even as she comes to accept her mother’s happiness in a foreign country; and the adult Lucy Barton (the heroine of My Name Is Lucy Barton, the author’s celebrated New York Times bestseller) returns to visit her siblings after seventeen years of absence. Buy the book here in Australia and here in the UK.
The Light We Lost by Jill Santopolo
Two people. One choice. What if? ‘You taught me to look for beauty. In darkness, in destruction, you always found light. I don't know what beauty I'll find here, what light. But I'll try. I'll do it for you.' 11th September 2001. Lucy and Gabe meet at Columbia University on a day that will change their lives – and the world – forever. And as the city burns behind them, they kiss for the very first time. Over the next thirteen years they are torn apart, then brought back together, time and time again. It's a journey of dreams, of desires, of jealousy, of forgiveness – and above all, love. And as Lucy is faced with a decision she thought she'd never have to make, she wonders whether their love is a matter of destiny, or chance. What if they should have been living a different life all along? Buy the book here in Australia and here in the UK.
I’d Die For You and Other Lost Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald
All eighteen short fictions collected here were lost in one sense or another: physically lost, coming to light only recently; lost in the turbulence of Fitzgerald's later life; lost to readers because his editors sometimes did not understand what he was trying to write. Buy the book here in Australia and here in the UK.
The End of The Day by Claire North
You might meet him in a hospital, in a warzone, or at the scene of traffic accident.
Then again, you might meet him at the North Pole - he gets everywhere, our Charlie.
Would you shake him by the hand, take the gift he offers, or would you pay no attention to the words he says?
Sometimes he is sent as a courtesy, sometimes as a warning. He never knows which. Buy the book here in Australia and here in the UK.
New Boy by Tracy Chevalier (Hogarth Shakespeare)
Arriving at his fourth school in six years, diplomat’s son Osei Kokote knows he needs an ally if he is to survive his first day – so he’s lucky to hit it off with Dee, the most popular girl in school. But one student can’t stand to witness this budding relationship: Ian decides to destroy the friendship between the black boy and the golden girl. By the end of the day, the school and its key players – teachers and pupils alike – will never be the same again.
The tragedy of Othello is transposed to a 1970s’ suburban Washington schoolyard, where kids fall in and out of love with each other before lunchtime, and practise a casual racism picked up from their parents and teachers. Buy the book here in Australia and here in the UK.
