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 Eric Lustbader

On the eve of Russian General Boris Karpov’s wedding, Jason Bourne receives an enigmatic message from his old friend and fellow spymaster. In Moscow, what should be a joyous occasion turns bloody and lethal. Now Bourne is the only one who can decipher Karpov’s cryptogram. He discovers that Karpov was willing to betray his Sovereign to warn Bourne of a crippling disaster about to be visited on the world. Bourne has only four days to discover the nature of the disaster and stop it.

The trail Karpov has been following leads Bourne to Cairo and the doorstep of Ivan Borz, the elusive international arms dealer infamous for hiding behind a never-ending series of false identities, a man Bourne has been hunting ever since he abducted former Treadstone director Soraya Moore and her two-year-old daughter, and brutally murdered her husband.

In war-torn Syria and then Cyprus Bourne moves ever closer to discovering the astonishing truth, and ever closer to his own death.

The clock is ticking, and Bourne has less than four days to solve Karpov’s riddle—and hunt down Borz—if he hopes to prevent a cataclysmic international war…

 Graham Swift

From the Booker Award winner: a luminous, profoundly moving work of fiction that begins with an afternoon tryst in 1924 between a servant girl and the young man of the neighboring house, but then opens to reveal the whole life of a remarkable woman.

Twenty-two year old Jane Fairchild, orphaned at birth, has worked as a maid at one English country estate since she was sixteen. And for almost all of those years she has been the secret lover to Paul Sheringham, the scion of the estate next door. On an unseasonably warm March afternoon, Jane and Paul will make love for the last time–though not, as Jane believes, because Paul is about to be married–and the events of the day will alter Jane’s life forever. As the narrative moves back and forth from 1924 to the end of the century, what we know and understand about Jane–about the way she loves, thinks, feels, sees, remembers–deepens with every beautifully wrought moment. Her story is one of profound self-discovery and through her, Graham Swift has created an emotionally soaring and deeply affecting work of fiction.

 Elin Hilderbrand

Three romantic rivals. One crowded house. Plenty of room for jealousy.

Laurel Thorpe, Belinda Rowe, and Scarlett Oliver share only two things; a love for the man they all married, Deacon Thorpe–a celebrity chef with an insatiable appetite for life–and a passionate dislike of one another. All three are remarkable, spirited women, but they couldn’t be more different. Laurel: Deacon’s high school sweetheart and an effortlessly beautiful social worker; Belinda: a high-maintenance Hollywood diva; and Scarlett: a sexy southern belle floating by on her family money and her fabulous looks. They’ve established a delicate understanding over the years–they avoid each other at all costs.

But their fragile detente threatens to come crashing down after Deacon’s tragic death on his favorite place on earth: a ramshackle Nantucket summer cottage. Deacon’s final wish was for his makeshift family to assemble on his beloved Nantucket to say good-bye. Begrudgingly, Laurel, Belinda, and Scarlett gather on the island as once again, as in each of their marriages, they’re left to pick up Deacon’s mess. Now they’re trapped in the crowded cottage where they all made their own memories–a house that they now share in more ways than one–along with the children they raised with Deacon, and his best friend. Laurel, Belinda, and Scarlett each had an unbreakable bond with Deacon–and they all have secrets to hide.

Before the weekend is over, there are enough accusations, lies, tears, and drama to turn even the best of friends–let alone three women who married the same man–into adversaries. As his unlikely family says good-bye to the man who brought them together–for better or worse–will they be able to put aside their differences long enough to raise a glass in Deacon’s honor?

 Elise McCune

A ruined castle deep in the rainforest holds a secret that unites three generations of women: two sisters who find themselves in love with the same man as the Second World War rages and, decades later, a young woman determined to uncover the secrets in her grandmother’s hidden past.

Growing up together in a mysterious castle in northern Queensland, Rose and Vivien Blake are both sisters and close friends. But during the Second World War their relationship becomes strained when they each fall in love with the same dashing but enigmatic American soldier. Rose’s daughter, Linda, has long sensed a secret in her mother’s past, but Rose has always resisted Linda’s questions, preferring to focus on the present. Years later Rose’s granddaughter, Stella, also becomes fascinated by the shroud of secrecy surrounding her grandmother’s life. Intent on unravelling the truth, she visits the now-ruined castle Rose and Vivien grew up in to see if it she can find out more.

Captivating and compelling, Castle of Dreams is about love, secrets, lies – and the perils of delving into the past . . .

 Charles Cumming

Thomas Kell thought he was done with spying. A former MI6 officer, he devoted his life to the Service, but it has left him with nothing but grief and a simmering anger against the Kremlin. Then Kell is offered an unexpected chance at revenge. Taking the law into his own hands, he embarks on a mission to recruit a top Russian spy who is in possession of a terrifying secret. As Kell tracks his man from Moscow to London, he finds himself in a high stakes game of cat and mouse in which it becomes increasingly difficult to know who is playing whom.

As the mission reaches boiling point, the threat of a catastrophic terrorist attack looms over Britain. Kell is faced with an impossible choice. Loyalty to MI6 – or to his own conscience?

Bruce Beresford

In the 1980s, director Bruce Beresford and producer Sue Milliken were mid-career in a world that welcomed film makers. They worked together on a number of projects, some of which never made it to the first day of filming, and stayed in touch by fax machine. As well as taking care of professional business, the faxes are chock full of industry gossip and news, ruminations on books they had read or films that they had seen. It’s a fun, fascinating, informative and ultimately charming read.

 Sylvain Balteau

Sylvain Balteau works as a village vet in the Pyrenees. Equally at home with a sick hamster as with a pregnant Charolais cow, he is permanently on call, immersed in the dramas of his patients and their owners.

Since 2007 he has kept diary, revealing the hidden side of a vet’s life and the richness of his surroundings: a piglet that has become a disadvantaged person’s only reason for living; a cat that arrives on Christmas Eve to be destroyed and leaves the next day in full health; the mare dying peacefully under a tree; the farmer’s wife on the verge of a heart attack who insists that the vet see her sick cow first . . .

Through his work with their animals, Sylvain gains a privileged insight into the people who live with them. In this profound and unsentimental book, he discovers that, in order to love animals, you can’t help but love people as well.

 Karimi Kooshyar

In Journey of a Thousand Storms Dr Kooshyar Karimi, author of Leila’s Secret, tells his gripping personal story of surviving prison in Iran and life as a refugee before finding success in Australia.
Kooshyar Karimi had two careers in Iran, one as a doctor and one as an award-winning translator. Until he was kidnapped by the Intelligence Service.
Behind his professional success, Kooshyar was a rebel on several fronts. Marginalised since boyhood as a Jew in a fundamentalist Islamic state, he was a member of a political group that opposed the government. He’d also been using his medical skills illegally, to save unmarried pregnant women from death by stoning.

Snatched from the street by the secret service, he was jailed and tortured and then forced to spy for the regime, before finally escaping to Turkey. There he faced a whole new struggle to keep his family safe while awaiting refugee status from the UN. He was forbidden to work and at the mercy of corrupt police, con men and red tape. Then life became more dangerous still, when the Intelligence Service tracked him down and used his mother, back in Iran, as blackmail.

Kooshyar’s inspiring story of how he managed to forge a new life in Australia is heightened by his largeness of heart, strength of character, and insight into human behaviour, from the unfathomably evil to the selflessly kind. With the skill of a natural storyteller, Journey of a Thousand Storms recounts a life of endurance, compassion
and gritty determination.

 Graeme Innes

Blind from birth, Graeme Innes was blessed. Blessed because he had a family who refused to view his blindness as a handicap and who instilled in him a belief in his own abilities. Blessed because he had the determination to persevere when obstacles were put in his way. And now, after a long and successful career – from lawyer to company director to Human Rights Commissioner – he has written his story. Finding a Way shares his memories of love and support, of challenges and failures, and of overcoming the discrimination so many people with disabilities face. He writes of the importance of family, the value of courage and the unique experience of a life without one sense but with heightened awareness of the others. Alongside his life story, Innes shares ideas on advocacy for people with disabilities and outlines what remains to be done to fully include people with disabilities in Australian society. This fascinating and moving book offers a new perspective on supporting diversity in our community.

 Helen Garner

Spanning fifteen years of work, Everywhere I Look is a book full of unexpected moments, sudden shafts of light, piercing intuition, flashes of anger and incidental humour. It takes us from backstage at the ballet to the trial of a woman for the murder of her newborn baby. It moves effortlessly from the significance of moving house to the pleasure of re-reading Pride and Prejudice.

Everywhere I Look includes Garner’s famous and controversial essay on the insults of age, her deeply moving tribute to her mother and extracts from her diaries, which have been part of her working life for as long as she has been a writer. Everywhere I Look glows with insight. It is filled with the wisdom of life.