Popular fiction

THE MOUNTAIN BETWEEN US

by Charles Martin (Hachette, $22)

Six years after it was first published, this has been re-released because it’s now a movie starring

Kate Winslet and Idris Elba. It’s become my recommendation for the summer and is without a doubt one of my favourite reads this year. I was obsessed with the story and, for the first time in a long time, even found myself talking out loud in parts. It’s the story of two strangers who accept a charter flight home, in an attempt to beat a storm that cancelled their original flights. When the plane crashes over snowy mountains, Ben and Ashley have to survive with nothing but mountains, snow and trees for miles. It is enchanting, if a little convenient in parts, and I’m pretty sure given the choice between the book and the film, this will be the better of the two.

THE RULES OF MAGIC

by Alice Hoffman (Simon & Schuster, $38)

If the name Alice Hoffman sounds familiar, it’s because some 20 years ago she famously wrote the book Practical Magic, which became a film starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman. While I was expecting a tale of witches and spells in The Rules of Magic, instead it’s a little dreamlike and far-fetched but, in its own way, quite magical. Set in 1960, siblings Franny, Jet and Vincent discover a journal from the 1600s detailing family secrets and the reason why they’re cursed by love. Each of the siblings then heads along a path of discovery and we’re left with a story of family, love and, of course, what led up to Practical Magic.