popular fiction
THE BOOK NINJA
by Ali Berg & Michelle Kalus
(Simon & Schuster, $35)
Forget Tinder, this novel delivers a unique, refreshing take on the dating world. Frankie tries to change her desperately single day-today life by leaving some of her favourite books on buses and trains in Melbourne with a note on the seventh to last page. She hopes to find “the man of her dreams“. At the same time, Frankie also meets Sunny, a seemingly perfect potential candidate. But he has one flaw — his love of Young Adult fiction. Predictable? Of course! But a rather delightful and heartwarming read with entertaining sub-plots. If you’re after a feel-good read, with some hilarious awkwardness within very relatable characters, this is the one.
SECOND SIGHT
by Aoife Clifford
(Simon & Schuster, $35)
There are stories within this story, where Eliza Carmody returns to her hometown after being banished 20 years earlier. Witnessing an accident sparks a chain of events that change the course of Eliza’s life just as she’s working as a lawyer on a prominent local bushfire case. When bones are found at The Castle, a place Eliza and her friends hung around as teenagers, she begins to question what she knows and her past starts to unravel as she takes it upon herself to solve more than just the case she returned for. Although there is a lot going on here, Clifford makes the story easy to follow and creates a compelling psychological thriller, one of my favourite recent reads.
THE PEACOCK SUMMER
by Hannah Richell
(Hachette, $30)
It feels like I’ve read this book before, even though I haven’t, and I’m still thinking about whether the familiarity is an asset or makes it seem unoriginal. It’s the story of Lillian and her granddaughter Maggie who return to “Cloudesley” to look after the manor and her ailing, elderly grandmother. The dual narrative moves between Maggie’s life, returning to the town where she feels outlawed, and Lillian’s flashbacks to her isolated and lonely life married to Charles Oberon, 60 years ago. Lillian’s life changed when Charles invited an artist to paint the unused nursery and suddenly there was hope. Here the secrets of the past collide with the secrets of today. The novel’s strength is in its characters, flawed yet brave, making this a hard book to put down.
YOUR SECOND LIFE BEGINS WHEN YOU REALISE YOU ONLY HAVE ONE
by Raphaelle Giordano
(Penguin Random House, $37)
Camille should be happy but can’t work out why she isn’t. That is until she meets Claude, an unconventional therapist who just happens to answer the door after Camille is in a small car accident. Claude encourages Camille to undertake a number of tasks, or mini-life projects as he calls them, some as simple as cleaning the house, just to feel satisfaction that can, in turn, breed happiness. It’s a mixed bag, with little depth in either the storyline or characters but it does possess a strong lesson in being responsible for our own happiness.