The Secrets of Strangers by Charity Norman

$32.99 NZD

Category: NZ Fiction

Five strangers, one cafe - and the day that everything changed. A regular weekday morning veers drastically off-course for five strangers whose paths cross in a London cafe - their lives never to be the same again when an apparently crazed gunman holds them hostage. But there is more to the situation th an first meets the eye and as the captives grapple with their own inner demons, the line between right and wrong starts to blur. Will the secrets they keep stop them from escaping with their lives? A compelling, tense and heartfelt drama from the writer of the bestselling See You In September. ...Show more

The Sentinel (Jack Reacher #25) by Lee Child and Andrew Child

$29.99 NZD

$37.00 (18% off)

Category: Crime and Thriller | Reading Level: very good

The edge-of-your-seat, heart-in-mouth new Jack Reacher thriller for 2020 - his 25th adventure.   Jack Reacher gets off the bus in a sleepy no-name town outside Nashville, Tennessee. He plans to grab a cup of coffee and move right along. Not going to happen. The town has been shut down by a cyber attack. At the centre of it all, whetherhe likes it or not, is Rusty Rutherford. He's an average IT guy, but he knows more than he thinks. As the bad guys move in on Rusty, Reacher moves in on them . . . And now Rusty knows he's protected, he's never going to leave the big man's side. Reacher might just have to stick around and find out what the hell's gone wrong . . . and then put it right, like only he can.   ...Show more

Girl A by Abigail Dean

$29.99 NZD

$32.99 (9% off)

Category: Crime and Thriller

For readers of Room and Sharp Objects, a propulsive and psychologically immersive novel about a young girl who escapes captivity--but not the secrets that shadow the rest of her life. "'Girl A,' she said. 'The girl who escaped. If anyone was going to make it, it was going to be you.'" Lex Gracie doesn 't want to think about her family. She doesn't want to think about growing up in her parents' House of Horrors. And she doesn't want to think about her identity as Girl A: the girl who escaped, the eldest sister who freed her older brother and four younger siblings. It's been easy enough to avoid her parents--her father never made it out of the House of Horrors he created, and her mother spent the rest of her life behind bars. But when her mother dies in prison and leaves Lex and her siblings the family home, she can't run from her past any longer. Together with her sister, Evie, Lex intends to turn the House of Horrors into a force for good. But first she must come to terms with her siblings - and with the childhood they shared. What begins as a propulsive tale of escape and survival becomes a gripping psychological family story about the shifting alliances and betrayals of sibling relationships--about the secrets our siblings keep, from themselves and each other. Who have each of these siblings become? How do their memories defy or galvanize Lex's own? As Lex pins each sibling down to agree to her family's final act, she discovers how potent the spell of their shared family mythology is, and who among them remains in its thrall and who has truly broken free.   ...Show more

War Lord (#13 The Last Kingdom) by Bernard Cornwell

$29.99 NZD

$35.00 (14% off)

Category: Historical | Series: The\Last Kingdom Ser.

THE FINAL BATTLE AWAITS... The epic conclusion to the globally bestselling historical series, coming October 2020. England is under attack. Chaos reigns. Northumbria, the last kingdom, is threatened by armies from all sides, by land and sea - and only one man stands in their way. Torn between loyalty and sworn oaths, the warrior king Lord Uhtred of Bebbanburg faces his greatest ever battle - and prepares for his ultimate fate... ...Show more

The Push by Ashley Audrain

$29.99 NZD

$37.00 (18% off)

Category: Contemporary

What happens when your experience of motherhood is nothing at all what you hoped for, but everything you always feared? Blythe Connor doesn't want history to repeat itself. Violet is her first child and she will give her daughter all the love she deserves. All the love that her own mother withheld. B ut firstborns are never easy. And Violet is demanding and fretful. She never smiles. Soon Blythe believes she can do no right - that something's very wrong. Either with her daughter, or herself. Her husband, Fox, says she's imagining it. But Violet's different with him. And he can't understand what Blythe suffered as a child. No one can. Blythe wants to be a good mother. But what if that's not enough for Violet? Or her marriage? What if she can't see the darkness coming? Mother and daughter. Angel or monster? We don't get to choose our inheritance - or who we are...  The Push is a heart-pounding exploration of motherhood, obsession and the terrible price of unconditional love. _____ ...Show more

Lana's War by Anita Abriel

$37.99 NZD

Category: Historical

Paris 1943. Lana Antanov is rushing to see her husband, Frederic, and tell him the news that she is pregnant. But as she arrives the convent where Frederic teaches music, she watches in horror as a Gestapo officer executes Frederic for hiding a Jewish girl in a piano. Overcome with grief, Lana loses the baby. A few months later, Lana is approached by a member of the French Resistance to work as a spy on the French Riviera and help save Jews from execution. As a 'White Russian' daughter of a Russian countess, Lana is the ideal choice to infiltrate the emigre community of Russian aristocrats who socialise with German officers. But Lana has a very personal motive for taking on this mission - the Gestapo officer in charge intent on exterminating all the Jews, Alois Brunner, is the man who shot Frederic. Lana's cover story makes her the mistress of a wealthy Swiss playboy, the darkly handsome and charismatic Guy Pascal, and her base his villa on the Riviera. Together they make a ruthlessly effective team. The information they gather at parties and the casino at Monte Carlo helps thwart several raids and enables countless Jews to escape to Morocco by boat. But Lana has not counted on becoming attached to a young Jewish girl named Odette or to fall helplessly in love with Guy. As the Nazis close in, her desire to protect the ones she loves threatens to put them all at risk. 'Filled with danger and romance, Lana's War is the story of a courageous woman waging her own battle against the Nazis ... Cinematic in scope, this novel will keep readers turning pages with twists and turns that lead to an unforgettable ending.' Renee Rosen, bestselling author of Park Avenue Summer   'Lana is a heroine to root for, and her story of loss and love is inspiring and life-affirming. I was completely engrossed in this lush, transportive novel.' Allison Pataki, New York Times bestselling author of The Queen's Fortune ...Show more

Trust (#3 Martin Scarsden) by Chris Hammer

$29.99 NZD

$36.99 (18% off)

Category: Crime and Thriller | Series: Martin Scarsden

The gripping new Martin Scarsden novel. She breathes deeply, trying to quell the rising sense of panic. A detective came to her home, drugged her and kidnapped her. She tries to make sense of it, to imagine alternatives, but only one conclusion is possible: it's the past, come to claim her.  Martin Sc arsden's new life seems perfect, right up until the moment it's shattered by a voicemail: a single scream, abruptly cut off, from his partner Mandalay Blonde. Racing home, he finds an unconscious man sprawled on the floor and Mandy gone. Someone has abducted her. But who, and why? So starts a twisting tale of intrigue and danger, as Martin probes the past of the woman he loves, a woman who has buried her former life so deep she has never mentioned it. And for the first time, Mandy finds denial impossible, now the body of a mystery man has been discovered, a man whose name she doesn't know, a man she was engaged to marry when he died. It's time to face her demons once and for all; it's time she learned how to trust. Set in a Sydney riven with corruption and nepotism, privilege and power, Trust is the third riveting novel from award-winning and internationally acclaimed writer Chris Hammer. 'The best Australian crime novel since Peter Temple's The Broken Shore.' - The Times on Silver   ...Show more

The Imitator by Rebecca Starford

$32.99 NZD

Category: Crime and Thriller

A page-turning World War Two spy thriller, based on true events.   'The Imitator gripped me to the end: I devoured it … What a rare treat to find a novel that offers both white-knuckled suspense and evocative, beautiful prose. I loved it.' - Hannah Kent, author of Burial Rites and The Good People'We tr ade in secrets here, Evelyn. There's no shame in having a few of your own. Our only concern is for who might discover them.'Out of place at boarding school, scholarship girl Evelyn Varley realises that the only way for her to fit in is to be like everyone else. She hides her true self and what she really thinks behind the manners and attitudes of those around her. By the time she graduates from Oxford University in 1939, ambitious and brilliant Evelyn has perfected her performance.War is looming. Evelyn soon finds herself recruited to MI5, and the elite counterintelligence department of Bennett White, the enigmatic spy-runner. Recognising Evelyn's mercurial potential, White schools her in observation and subterfuge and assigns her the dangerous task of infiltrating an underground group of Nazi sympathisers working to form an alliance with Germany.But befriending people to betray them isn't easy, no matter how dark their intent. Evelyn is drawn deeper into a duplicity of her own making, where truth and lies intertwine, and her increasing distrust of everyone, including herself, begins to test her better judgement. When a close friend becomes dangerously ensnared in her mission, Evelyn's loyalty is pushed to breaking point, forcing her to make an impossible decision.A powerfully insightful and luminous portrait of courage and loyalty, and the sacrifices made in their name. ...Show more

Because of You by Dawn French

$37.00 NZD

Category: Contemporary

Because of You, Dawn’s first novel in five years, tells the story of two very different women whose lives become entwined when they both give birth in the same hospital ward on New Year's Eve. A tale of mothers and daughters, love and loss, mistakes and regret, it is above all a book about what makes us who we are. Dawn says, “This novel dared me to write it, so I did. I have left parts of my heart in these pages. (Not my actual heart. That would be messy...)” Publisher Louise Moore added “Dawn’s fourth novel is a very contemporary story, whose cleverly drawn characters are challenged by themselves, each other and surprising twists and turns of fate. It is a triumphant novel about mothers and daughters, modern families and unconditional love. Dawn’s warmth and curiosity for people shine off every page – this is hallmark Dawn French, her best novel yet!” We have been reliably informed by those in the inner circle who have read it, that Dawn is right on form and her many fans will not be disappointed with this heartfelt family drama that starts in a maternity ward on New Year’s Eve 1999 where 2 women unknown to each other are about to give birth to baby girls and continues to follow these women for nearly 20 years. In true Dawn style there is tragedy, comedy and connectivity in equal parts. You’ll cry, you’ll cheer but you won’t be disappointed.   ...Show more

Eight Detectives by Alex Pavesi

$29.99 NZD

$37.00 (18% off)

Category: Crime and Thriller

'When did you last read a genuinely original thriller? The wait is over.' A. J. Finn, bestselling author of The Woman in the Window 'I couldn't put Eight Detectives down . . . I genuinely wanted to applaud at the end' Alex North, bestselling author of The Whisper Man All murder mysteries follow a simple set of rules. Grant McAllister, an author of crime fiction and professor of mathematics, once sat down and worked them all out. But that was thirty years ago. Now he's living a life of seclusion on a quiet Mediterranean island - until Julia Hart, a sharp, ambitious editor, knocks on his door. His early work is being republished and together the two of them must revisit those old stories: an author, hiding from his past, and an editor, keen to understand it. But as she reads, Julia is unsettled to realise that there are things in the stories that don't make sense. Intricate clues that seem to reference a real murder, one that's remained unsolved for thirty years. If Julia wants answers, she must triumph in a battle of wits with a dangerously clever adversary. But she must tread carefully: she knows there's a mystery, but she doesn't yet realise there's already been a murder . . . ...Show more

The Tally Stick by Carl Nixon

$36.00 NZD

Category: Contemporary | Reading Level: near fine

A compulsive and chilling novel about subjugation, survival and the meaning of family. The car containing the four sleeping children left the earth. From the top of the wooded bluff, where the rain-slick road had curved so treacherously, down to the swollen river at the base of the cliff, was easily six ty feet. There was no moon that night, only low, leaden cloud clogging the sky. As if suspended, the car hung in the air for a fraction - of a fraction - of a moment . . . John Chamberlain has brought his family to New Zealand from the UK. Before he starts his new job, he takes them on a driving holiday. The car skids over the road and hurtles off a cliff. The year is 1978. In 2010 the remains of John's older son have been discovered in a remote part of the West Coast, showing he lived for four years after the family disappeared. Found alongside him are his father's watch and what turns out to be a tally stick, a piece of wood scored across, marking items of debt. How had he survived and then died? Where was the rest of his family? And what did the tally stick signify? ...Show more

Jerningham by Cristina Sanders

$37.00 NZD

Category: NZ Fiction

"Edward Jerningham Wakefield was the wild-child of the Wakefield family that set up the New Zealand Company to bring the first settlers to this country. His story is told through the eyes of bookkeeper Arthur Lugg, who is tasked by Colonel William Wakefield to keep tabs on his brilliant but unstable nep hew. As trouble brews between settlers, government, missionaries and Māori over land and souls and rights, Jerningham is at the heart of it, blurring the line between friendship and exploitation and spinning the hapless Lugg in his wake. Alive with historical detail, Jerningham tells a vivid story of Wellington's colonial beginnings and of a charismatic young man's rise and inevitable fall"--Back cover. ...Show more