Sutherland Shire Libraries News

 The 2016 Stella Prize longlist has been announced! The short list will be announced on 10 March, and the winner will be announced in Sydney on 19 April.

The Stella Prize is presented for the best work of fiction or non- fiction by an Australian woman published in the previous calendar year.

The Women’s Pages by Debra Adelaide
Ellis, an ordinary suburban young woman of the 1960s, is troubled by secrets and gaps in her past that become more puzzling as her creator, Dove, writes her story fifty years later. Having read Wuthering Heights to her dying mother, Dove finds she cannot shake off the influence of that singular novel: it has infected her like a disease. Instead of returning to her normal life she follows the story it has inspired to discover more about Ellis, who has emerged from the pages of fiction herself - or has she? - to become a modern successful career woman. The Women's Pages is about the choices and compromises women must make, their griefs and losses, and their need to fill in the absent spaces where other women - especially those who become mothers - should have been. And it is about the mysterious process of creativity, about the way stories are shaped and fiction is formed. Right up to its astonishing conclusion, The Women's Pages asserts the power of the reader's imagination, which can make the deepest desires and strangest dreams come true.

The Other Side of the World by Stephanie Bishop
Cambridge, 1963. Charlotte is struggling. With motherhood, with the changes marriage and parenthood bring, with losing the time and the energy to paint. Her husband, Henry, wants things to be as they were and can't face the thought of another English winter. A brochure slipped through the letterbox slot brings him the answer: Australia brings out the best in you. Despite wanting to stay in the place that she knows, Charlotte is too worn out to fight. Before she has a chance to realise what it will mean, she is travelling to the other side of the world. Arriving in Perth, the southern sun shines a harsh light on both Henry and Charlotte and slowly reveals that their new life is not the answer either was hoping for. Charlotte is left wondering if there is anywhere she belongs and how far she will go to find her way home.

Panthers and the Museum of Fire by Jen Craig
Panthers and the Museum of Fire is a novella about walking, memory and writing. The narrator walks from Glebe to a central Sydney cafe to return a manuscript by a recently-dead writer. While she walks, the reader enters the narrator's entire world: life with family and neighbours, narrow misses with cars, her singular friendships, dinner conversations and work. We learn of her adolescent desire for maturity and acceptance through a brush with religion, her anorexia, the exercise of that power when she was powerless in every other aspect of her life.


Six Bedrooms by Tegan Bennett Daylight
Six Bedrooms is about growing up; about discovering sex; and about coming of age. Full of glorious angst, embarrassment and small achievements. Hot afternoons on school ovals, the terrifying promise of losing your virginity, sneaking booze from your mother's pantry, the painful sophistication and squalor of your first share house, cancer, losing a parent. Tegan Bennett Daylight's powerful collection captures the dangerous, tilting terrain of becoming adult. Over these ten stories, we find acute portrayals of loss and risk, of sexual longing and wreckage, blunders and betrayals. Threaded through the collection is the experience of troubled, destructive Tasha, whose life unravels in unexpected ways, and who we come to love for her defiance, her wit and her vulnerability. Stunningly written, and shot through with humor and menace, Six Bedrooms is a mesmerizing collection of moments from adolescence through adulthood, a mix of all the potent ingredients that make up a life.

Hope Farm by Peggy Frew (Scribe)
'Hope Farm' is the masterful second novel from award winning author Peggy Frew, and is a devastatingly beautiful story about the broken bonds of childhood and the enduring cost of holding back the truth.
"It is the winter of 1985. Hope Farm sticks out of the raffed landscape like a decaying tooth, its weatherboard walls sagging into the undergrowth. Silver's mother, Ishtar, has fallen for the charismatic Miller, and the three of them have moved to the rural hippie commune to make a new start. At Hope, Silver finds unexpected friendship and at last, a place to call home. But it is also here that, at just thirteen, she is thrust into an unrelenting adult world - and the walls begin to come tumbling down, with deadly consequences.


A Few Days in the Country: And Other Stories by Elizabeth Harrower
"One day, Alice said, 'Eric Lane wants to take me to - ' For the first time, her mother attended, standing still. Eric was brought to the house, and Eric and Alice were married before there was time to say 'knife'. How did it happen? She tried to trace it back. She was watching her mother performing for Eric, and then (she always paused here in her mind), somehow, she woke up married and in another house." Internationally acclaimed for her five brilliant novels, Elizabeth Harrower is also the author of a small body of short fiction. A Few Days in the Country brings together for the first time her stories published in Australian journals in the 1960s and 1970s, along with those from her archives - including 'Alice', published for the first time earlier this year in the New Yorker. Essential reading for Harrower fans, these finely turned pieces show a broader range than the novels, ranging from caustic satires to gentler explorations of friendship.

A Guide to Berlin by Gail Jones
'A Guide to Berlin' is the name of a short story written by Vladimir Nabokov in 1925, when he was a young man of 26, living in Berlin. A group of six international travellers, two Italians, two Japanese, an American and an Australian, meet in empty apartments in Berlin to share stories and memories. Each is enthralled in some way to the work of Vladimir Nabokov, and each is finding their way in deep winter in a haunted city. A moment of devastating violence shatters the group, and changes the direction of everyone's story. Brave and brilliant, A Guide to Berlin traces the strength and fragility of our connections through biographies and secrets.

The World Without Us by Mireille Juchau
 After a fire destroys her family's commune home, Evangeline is forced to start afresh in the north coast rainforest town with her child, and partner, Stefan Muller. Years later, while tending the bees on their farm, Stefan discovers a car wreck, and not far off, human remains. While the locals speculate on who has gone missing from the transient hinterland town, Stefan's daughters Tess and Meg, have a more urgent mystery. Where does their mother go each day, pushing an empty pram and returning wet, muddy and dishevelled?

A Short History of Richard Kline by Amanda Lohrey
I woke with a gasp. And lay in the dark, open-mouthed, holding my breath. That feeling... that feeling was indescribable. For a moment I had felt as if I were falling... falling into bliss". All his life, Richard Kline has been haunted by a sense that something is lacking. He envies the ease with which others slip into contented suburban life or the pursuit of wealth. As he moves into middle age, Richard grows angry, cynical, depressed. But then a strange event, a profound epiphany, awakens him to a different way of life. He finds himself on a quest, almost against his will, to resolve the 'divine discontent' he has suffered since childhood. From pharmaceuticals to New Age therapies to finding a guru, Richard's journey dramatises the search for meaning in today's world. This audacious novel is an exploration of masculinity, the mystical, and our very human yearning for something more. It is hypnotic, nuanced and Amanda Lohrey's finest offering yet - a pilgrim's progress for the here and now.

Anchor Point by Alice Robinson
As her parents clash over unwashed dishes and unlit fires, ten year old Laura works hard to keep the household running. When her mother disappears into the bush, Laura finds a farewell note and makes an impulsive decision that alters the course of her family's life.


The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood
Two women awaken from a drugged sleep to find themselves imprisoned in a broken-down property in the middle of a desert. Strangers to each other, they have no idea where they are or how they came to be there with eight other girls, forced to wear strange uniforms, their heads shaved, guarded by two inept yet vicious armed jailers and a 'nurse'. The girls all have something in common, but what is it? What crime has brought them here from the city? Who is the mysterious security company responsible for this desolate place with its brutal rules, its total isolation from the contemporary world? Doing hard labour under a sweltering sun, the prisoners soon learn what links them: in each girl's past is a sexual scandal with a powerful man. They pray for rescue - but when the food starts running out it becomes clear that the jailers have also become the jailed. The girls can only rescue themselves.

Small Acts of Disappearance: Essays on Hunger by Fiona Wright
Small Acts of Disappearance describes the author’s affliction with an eating disorder which begins in university, and escalates into life-threatening anorexia over the next ten years. Fiona Wright is a highly regarded poet and critic, and her account of her illness is informed by a keen sense of its contradictions and deceptions, and by an awareness of the empowering effects of hunger, which is unsparing in its consideration of the author’s motives and actions. The essays offer perspectives on the eating disorder at different stages in Wright’s life: at university, where she finds herself in a radically different social world to the one she grew up in, in Sri Lanka as a fledgling journalist, in Germany as a young writer, in her hospital treatments back in Sydney.

See me / Nicholas Sparks
Colin Hancock is giving his second chance his best shot. At twenty-eight, he's focused only on walking in a straight line - getting his teaching degree and avoiding all the places and people that proved destructive in his past. The last thing he's looking for is a relationship. But when Maria Sanchez, a hardworking lawyer and daughter of Mexican immigrants, crosses his path one rainswept night in North Carolina, the foundations of his carefully structured life are completely upended. Before the couple has a chance to envision what a life together might be, ominous reminders of events in Maria's past begin to surface. And as the threat of violence begins to shadow her every step, she and Colin will be tested in increasingly terrifying ways. Will their respective demons destroy the tentative bonds they've forged, or will their love protect them, even in the darkest hour?

A Summer at Sea / Fforde, Katie
Emily is happy with her life just as it is.
She has a career as a midwife that she loves. She enjoys living on her own as a single woman. But she’s also feels it’s time for a change and a spot of some sea air.
So when her best friend Rebecca asks whether she’d like to spend the summer cooking on a ‘puffer’ boat just off the Scottish coast, she jumps at the chance.
But she barely has time to get to grips with the galley before she finds herself with a lot on her plate.
Rebecca is heavily pregnant and is thrilled to have her friend on board doing most of the work. Then there’s Emily’s competitive and jealous kitchen assistant who thinks she should be head-cook, not Emily.
And there’s Alasdair, the handsome local doctor who Emily is desperately trying not to notice.
Because if she falls in love with him, as he appears to be falling for her, will she ever want her old life back again?

You and me always by Jill Mansell
On the morning of Lily's twenty-fifth birthday, it's time to open the very last letter written to her by her beloved mother, who died when she was eight. Learning more about the first and only real love of her mum's life is a revelation. On the same day, Lily also meets Eddie Tessler, a man fleeing fame who just might have the ability to change her world in unimaginable ways. But her childhood friend Dan has his own reasons for not wanting Lily to get too carried away by Eddie's attentions. Before long, secrets begin to emerge and Lily's friends and family become involved. In the beautiful Cotswold village of Stanton Langley, nothing will ever be the same again...


The marriage of opposites by Alice Hoffman
This is a forbidden love story set on the tropical island of St Thomas about one of history's most captivating 'invisible' women: Rachel Pissaro, the rebellious, headstrong Jewish mother of impressionist painter Camille Pissaro - who in 1825 defied her insular religious community to follow her heart. Inspired by a true story, this sweeping romance follows the course of one woman's dramatic life. Rachel's mother never forgave Rachel for not being a boy. The daughter of a merchant, Rachel is married off as a teenager to a local widower whose business will help her father's; she finds herself suddenly running a household and stepmother to three children. When her husband dies unexpectedly, his 22-year-old nephew, Frederick, arrives from France to settle the estate, only to fall passionately in love with both Rachel and the glorious island of her birth.Their love sparks a scandal in the little town - one that has reverberations halfway across the globe. One of the children of this defiant, passionate union is Jacobo Camille Pissaro, a serious and stubborn little boy who, inspired by his mother's iron will and faith in her own heart, will grow up to become the Father of Impressionism.

Summers with Juliette / Emily Madden
Almost twenty years ago, on a beautiful coastal cliff, Juliette Cole, Anna Kendall and Sera Di Maggio linked pinkies and made a vow to be there for each other no matter what might happen in their lives. Now, Juliette is calling in on the promise--terminally ill, she wants her two friends to come back to Ellesmore to help her through her last summer. The trouble is Anna and Sera haven't spoken in years, and Anna hasn't returned home since she and her mother were run out of town in disgrace. But Anna and Sera do have one thing in common: they want Juliette to fight her cancer by any means possible. When they realise the only way may be to find a man called Noah, they reluctantly agree to put aside their differences and search for him.


Kakadu sunset / Annie Seaton
In the ancient lands of Kakadu, it's not just the crocodiles you should be afraid of...Helicopter pilot Ellie Porter loves her job. Soaring above the glorious Kakadu National Park, she feels freed from the heavy losses of her beloved family farm and the questions around her father's suicide. But when a search-and-rescue mission on the boundary of the older property reveals unusual excavation works, Ellie vows to investigate.The last thing she needs is her bad-tempered co-pilot, Kane McClaren, interfering. The son of the current owners of the farm, her attraction to him is a distraction she can't afford, especially when someone threatens to put a stop to her inquiries - but any means necessary.Ellie will have to trust Kane if she is to have any hope of uncovering the truth of what is really going on. Between Ellie's damage and Kane's secrets, can they find a way to open up to each other before the shadowy forces shut her up...for good?

Summer harvest / Georgina Penney
English dog trainer Beth Poole is having trouble getting her life back together after beating a life-threatening illness and divorcing her husband. When her Aussie-soap-obsessed grandma sends her to Australia to recover, it seems a great opportunity for some rest and relaxation while she figures out what's next. 'But when Beth arrives in Australia things get off to a rocky start. To begin with, she's on the wrong coast and there are deadly creatures everywhere. And if that weren't enough, her neighbours are driving her crazy. She's staying in the beautiful Margaret River wine region, right next door to a family-owned vineyard. It should be perfect, but the boisterous Hardy clan just don't seem able to leave her alone. The usually reserved Beth is soon reluctantly embroiled in their family disputes and romantic entanglements. And eldest son Clayton Hardy is proving surprisingly persistent. 'The more Beth gets to know Clayton and the Hardys, the more she sees what she wants for her future. But as the end of summer approaches, her past comes back to haunt her and will test her newfound relationships to the limit.'

It started with a kiss by Lisa Heidke
Friday Jones is distraught when Liam, her husband of nearly twenty years and the father of their teenage daughters, tells her their marriage is over...Still heartbroken many months later, Friday is deeply flattered when a funny, handsome man takes an interest in her. From their very first kiss, Friday finds it difficult to control her attraction for him despite numerous warning signals...When Friday's best friend, Rosie, discovers Friday is risking further emotional pain she convinces her to end the relationship and join a dating website...But not long after Friday dives into the world of online romance she takes a couple of wrong turns. Could one of her flings have become a little too obsessed with her? And has the time come to step back and take a good look at where she's going in life?..Funny, poignant and inspiring, 'It Started with a Kiss' is a story about love, desire and how sometimes heartbreak can lead to a much happier life.

Grand Slam/ Kathryn Ledson
Erica Jewell can't worry about hunky hired gun, Jack Jones, and his commitment-phobic ways. She's flat out managing Dega Oil's sponsorship of the Australian Open tennis, and doing a pretty good job of it. That is until a devastating oil rig explosion sends Dega's reputation and share price plummeting.





All the stars in the heavens : a novel / Adriana Trigiani
Born in the golden age of Hollywood, All the Stars in the Heavens captures the luster, drama, power, and secrets that could only thrive in the studio system viewed through the lives of an unforgettable cast of players creating magic on the screen and behind the scenes.In this spectacular saga as radiant, thrilling, and beguiling as Hollywood itself, Adriana Trigiani takes us back to Tinsel Town's golden age an era as brutal as it was resplendent and into the complex and glamorous world of a young actress hungry for fame and success. With meticulous, beautiful detail, Trigiani paints a rich, historical landscape of 1930s Los Angeles, where European and American artisans flocked to pursue the ultimate dream: to tell stories on the silver screen.The movie business is booming in 1935 when twenty-one-year-old Loretta Young meets thirty-four-year-old Clark Gable on the set of The Call of the Wild. Though he's already married, Gable falls for the stunning and vivacious young actress instantly.Far from the glittering lights of Hollywood, Sister Alda Ducci has been forced to leave her convent and begin a new journey that leads her to Loretta. Becoming Miss Young's secretary, the innocent and pious young Alda must navigate the wild terrain of Hollywood with fierce determination and a moral code that derives from her Italian roots. Over the course of decades, she and Loretta encounter scandal and adventure, choose love and passion, and forge an enduring bond of love and loyalty that will be put to the test when they eventually face the greatest obstacle of their lives.

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Here are just three new titles available from OneClick audiobooks.

Bloodline by Mark Billingham

 Narrated by Paul Thornley
"Another fine addition to Billingham's formidably assured body of work." DAILY MAIL

When a dead body is found in a North London flat, it seems like a straightforward domestic murder until a bloodstained sliver of X-ray is found clutched in the dead woman's fist - and it quickly becomes clear that this case is anything but ordinary. DI Thorne is dealing with one of the most twisted killers he has ever hunted...

"An efficient and fast-paced police procedural, technically superb from its gripping opening to its climax." GUARDIAN



Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson

Narrated by James Yaegashi

Magic as you have never seen it before from the international bestseller.

Warbreaker is the story of two sisters Vivienna and Siri, who happen to be princesses. Theirs is a world where those who die in glory return as immortal gods; a world transformed by BioChromatic magic, a power based on an essence known as breath. By using breath and drawing upon the color in everyday objects, all manner of miracles and mischief can be performed.

“Epic fantasy heavyweight Sanderson pens a powerful stand-alone tale of unpredictable loyalties, dark intrigue and dangerous magic. . . . " PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro

Narrated by Multiple Narrators

Nocturnes is a thought-provoking short story collection.

In a sublime story cycle, Kazuo Ishiguro explores ideas of love, music and the passing of time. From the piazzas of Italy to the Malvern Hills, a London flat to the 'hush-hush floor' of an exclusive Hollywood hotel, the characters we encounter range from young dreamers to cafe musicians to faded stars, all of them at some moment of reckoning.

Gentle, intimate and witty, this quintet is marked by a haunting theme: the struggle to keep alive a sense of life's romance, even as one gets older, relationships flounder and youthful hopes recede.

"A lovely, clever book about the passage of time and the soaring notes that makes its journey worthwhile." INDEPENDENT

Find more books: bit.ly/1SacGBo

Check out  new fiction and non-fiction, including a children's book, a new novel by an award winning author, a memoir and more....

Iris and the Tiger / Hall, Leanne
Twelve-year-old Iris has been sent to Spain on a mission: to make sure her elderly and unusual aunt, Ursula, leaves her fortune – and her sprawling estate – to Iris's scheming parents.

But from the moment Iris arrives at Bosque de Nubes, she realises something isn't quite right. There is an odd feeling around the house, where time moves slowly and Iris's eyes play tricks on her. While outside, in the wild and untamed forest, a mysterious animal moves through the shadows.

Just what is Aunt Ursula hiding?

But when Iris discovers a painting named Iris and the Tiger, she sets out to uncover the animal's real identity – putting her life in terrible danger.

The high mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel
In Lisbon in 1904, a young man named Tomás discovers an old journal. It hints at the existence of an extraordinary artifact that—if he can find it—would redefine history. Traveling in one of Europe’s earliest automobiles, he sets out in search of this strange treasure.

Thirty-five years later, a Portuguese pathologist devoted to the murder mysteries of Agatha Christie finds himself at the center of a mystery of his own and drawn into the consequences of Tomás’s quest.

Fifty years on, a Canadian senator takes refuge in his ancestral village in northern Portugal, grieving the loss of his beloved wife. But he arrives with an unusual companion: a chimpanzee. And there the century-old quest will come to an unexpected conclusion.

The high places by  Fiona McFarlane
The dazzling stories in this collection find those moments when people confront the strangeness and mystery of their lives. The revelations of intimidating old friends on holiday. An accident on a dark country road. A marine biologist in conversation with the ghost of Charles Darwin. The sudden arrival of American parachutists in a Queensland country town. A lottery win. A farmer troubled by miracles in the middle of a drought . . . The people in The High Places are jolted into seeing themselves from a fresh and often disconcerting perspective.

Ranging around the world from a remote Pacific island to outback Australia to the tourist haunts of Greece, these stories are written with extraordinary invention, great emotional insight and wry humour. Each one of them is as rich and rewarding as literature can be.

Amazing fantastic incredible : a marvelous memoir / Stan Lee and Peter David and Colleen Doran
In this gorgeously illustrated, full-color graphic memoir, Stan Lee--comic book legend and cocreator of Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Avengers, the Incredible Hulk, and a legion of other Marvel superheroes--shares his iconic legacy and the story of how modern comics came to be. Stan Lee is a man who needs no introduction. The most legendary name in the history of comic books, he has been the leading creative force behind Marvel Comics, and has brought to life--and into the mainstream--some of the world's best-known heroes and most infamous villains throughout his career. His stories--filled with superheroes struggling with personal hang-ups and bad guys who possessed previously unseen psychological complexity--added wit and subtlety to a field previously locked into flat portrayals of good vs. evil. Lee put the human in superhuman and in doing so, created a new mythology for the twentieth century. In this beautifully illustrated graphic memoir--illustrated by celebrated artist Colleen Doran--Lee tells the story of his life with the same inimitable wit, energy, and offbeat spirit that he brought to the world of comics. Moving from his impoverished childhood in Manhattan to his early days writing comics, through his military training films during World War II and the rise of the Marvel empire in the 1960s to the current resurgence in movies, Amazing Fantastic Incredible documents the life of a man and the legacy of an industry and career.

Evil life : the true story of the Calabrian Mafia in Australia / Clive Small and Tom Gilling
As powerful today as it ever was, the Calabrian Mafia's involvement in organised crime in Australia is long and deep. Key Mafia families are linked to international crime syndicates around the world, shifting massive stashes of drugs and money through increasingly complex networks. With powerful and uncomporomising clarity, Evil Life shows that Australia is a major part of the global drug network. It also demonstrates how cultural ties built on decades of Italian migration have been used to create modern and highly sophisticated crime syndicates. The dark side of the Italian diaspora is revealed in all its unexpected detail.



The call of the outback : the remarkable story of Ernestine Hill, nomad, adventurer and trailblazer /
Marianne van Velzen
Long before Robin Davidson wrote Tracks, the extraordinary Ernestine Hill was dubbed 'The Wild Woman of the Outback' for her intrepid travels through the remotest reaches of Australia...After the birth of her illegitimate son, Ernestine Hill abandoned her comfortable urban life as a journalist for a nomadic one, writing about this country's vast interior and introducing the outback to the popular imagination of Australians...Throughout the 1930s Ernestine's hugely popular outback stories appeared in newspapers around the country and in journals like Walkabout. She still remains famous for her bestselling books The Great Australian Loneliness, The Territory, Flying Doctor Calling and My Love Must Wait...Call of the Outback provides a vivid portrait of Ernestine, from the early brilliance she showed as a child in Brisbane to her later life. In particular it evokes Ernestine's larger-than-life personality, the extraordinary characters she met and the exotic landscapes she explored.

The mulberry bush by Charles McCarry
I became a spy because my father before me was a spy. Although I am, for the time being, hiding something from you.
In a rose garden in Buenos Aires, a young American spy meets the beautiful daughter of a famous Argentinian revolutionary. They fall in love.
But he is no ordinary spy - and she is no ordinary woman.
For he has a hidden agenda: to avenge his father, who died penniless and friendless on the streets of Washington.
In Luz, he seems to have found an ally for his secret mission. But, as his fate becomes further entwined with hers, he soon finds himself caught in a perilous web of passions, loyalties and lies that stretches back to the darkest days of the Cold War.

What remains by Tim Weaver
 When all has been lost what is there left to find? Colm Healy used to be one of the Met's best detectives. Until, haunted by the unsolved murders of a mother and her twin daughters, his life was left in ruins. His failure to find an elusive killer - or even a motive for such a merciless crime - consumed him, his career and his family. Missing persons investigator David Raker is the only friend Healy has left. The only one who understands that redemption rests on solving these murders. As they reopen the investigation together, Raker learns the hard way how this case breeds obsession - and how an unsolvable puzzle can break even the best detective. Their search will take them down a trail of darkness, unravelling a thread of tragedy spanning years, and will force them to sacrifice everything they have left...

Hidden by Emma Kavanagh
He's Watching.

A gunman is stalking the wards of a local hospital. He's unidentified and dangerous, and has to be located. Urgently. Police Firearms Officer Aden McCarthy is tasked with tracking him down. Still troubled by the shooting of a schoolboy, Aden is determined to make amends by finding the gunman - before it's too late.

She's Waiting.

 To psychologist Imogen, hospital should be a place of healing and safety - both for her, and her young niece who's been recently admitted. She's heard about the gunman, but he has little to do with her. Or has he? As time ticks down, no one knows who the gunman's next target will be. But he's there. Hiding in plain sight. Far closer than anyone thinks...

Wolf winter / Cecilia Ekbäck
Swedish Lapland: 1717; a group of disparate settlers struggles to forge a new life in the shadow of the grim mountain Blackasen whose dark mythology lies at odds with the repressive, almost feudal control exerted by the church. Into this setting, Maija, her husband and two daughters arrive, yearning to forget the traumas that caused them to abandon their native Finland and start anew. Not long after their arrival, their teenage daughter Frederika stumbles across the savagely mutilated body of a fellow settler, Eriksson, in a picturesque glade. The locals are quick to dismiss the culprit as wolf or bear. Maija, however, is unconvinced and compelled by the ghosts of her past she determines to investigate a murder. As the seasons change and a harsh winter known as a 'Wolf Winter' descends, Maija begins a dangerous quest to unearth the secrets that both her neighbours and the church have conspired to bury. Now as the snow begins to fall, she will come to know the full cost of survival demanded from those who would live in the shadow of Blackasen - and the terrible truth about those who have paid the price.
 A banquet of consequences by Elizabeth George
When noted feminist writer and speaker Clare Abbott is poisoned after a debate at Cambridge University, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers has the chance she needs to redeem herself with her superior officers. Barbara desperately needs this chance after skipping out on her job to go to Italy in aid of friends, after using a tabloid to manipulate New Scotland Yard, after heading out on her own to hire a sly private investigator. The result of this has been a forced signature on paperwork 'requesting' a transfer. So Barbara needs a case to get herself back onto the right track. With DI Lynley working the case in London and DS Winston Nkata working with Barbara in Dorset, suspects emerge and a twisted personality behind a ruthless killing is revealed.

 Darkest place by Jaye Ford
Carly Townsend is starting over after a decade of tragedy and pain. In a new town and a new apartment she's determined to leave the memories and failures of her past behind.

However that dream is shattered in the dead of night when she is woken by the shadow of a man next to her bed, silently watching her. And it happens week after week.

Yet there is no way an intruder could have entered the apartment. It's on the fourth floor, the doors are locked and there is no evidence that anyone has been inside.

With the police doubting her story, and her psychologist suggesting it's all just a dream, Carly is on her own. And being alone isn't so appealing when you're scared to go to sleep . . .