Life and death decisions

Lachlan McIver
After Lachlan McIver’s father suffers a sudden, fatal heart attack it sends him into a spiral of grief and outrage. This tragedy inspires him to become a doctor and he eventually finds his calling – providing care for communities in some of the most remote and neglected parts of the world.

In this no-holds-barred memoir, Lachlan recounts his experiences treating patients and tackling health problems across dozens of countries, from rural communities around Australia and the islands of the South Pacific, through natural disasters and civil war zones, to the headquarters of the World Health Organization and Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) in Switzerland.

Lachlan is forced to confront not only the frustrations of trying to provide medical care in extremely under-resourced environments, but broader crises such as health inequities, climate change and drug-resistant infections. He also faces his own personal battles, including with depression, alcohol abuse and bankruptcy.

This is a deeply human look at the personal cost of our broken global health system, and how we must work together to change it for the better. It’s what we need right now.

Tamam Shud

the Somerton man mystery

Kerry Greenwood
In 1948 a man was found dead on an Adelaide beach. Well-dressed and unmarked, he had a half-smoked cigarette by his side, but no identity documents. Six decades on we don’t know who he was, how he got there or how he died. Somerton Man remains one of Australia’s most mysterious cold cases.

Yet it is the bizarre details of this case that make it the stuff of a spy novel. The missing labels from all his clothing. The tiny piece of paper with the words Tamam Shud found folded into a tiny bundle in his fob pocket. A mysterious code found etched inside the very book of Persian poetry from which this note was torn.

Brimming with facts that are stranger than fiction, the case has intrigued novelist Kerry Greenwood for almost her whole life. She goes on a journey into her own past to try to solve this crime, uncovering a new way of writing about true crime – and herself – as she goes.

Stories of hope

(The Tattooist of Auschwitz #Companion)

Heather Morris
Heather Morris takes us on an inspirational journey through some of the defining experiences of her life, including her profound friendship with Lale Sokolov, the tattooist at Auschwitz-Birkenau and the inspiration for her bestselling novel.

Heather Morris will explore her extraordinary talents as a listener – a skill she employed when she first met Lale. It was this ability that led Lale to entrust Heather with his story, which she told as the novel The Tattooist of Auschwitz and its bestselling follow up, Cilka’s Journey. Now she shares her inspiring writing journey, exploring how she learned to really listen to the stories people told her, some of which she has shared with millions of readers in her fiction.

An essential companion to The Tattooist of Auschwitz and an inspiring manual for life, Stories of Hope will examine and explore Heather’s extraordinary writing journey, in the form of a series of tales of the remarkable people she has met, the incredible stories they have shared with her, and the lessons they hold for us all.

The carnival is over

(Mick Goodenough #2)

Greg Woodland
1971—Hal is seventeen, with dreams of escaping from Moorabool to a life in the city. But right now he’s on a good behaviour bond and stuck in a job he hates, paying off the car he ‘borrowed’ and crashed. Hal’s packing-room job makes him a target for workplace bullies and the friendship of the older, more worldly Christine is all that makes each day bearable. So when she doesn’t turn up for work, he’s on the alert.

So is Sergeant Mick Goodenough. But he already knows what’s happened to Christine: the same thing that happened to the newly elected deputy mayor. When another gruesome ‘accident’ occurs in Moorabool, Goodenough suspects there’s something sinister going on behind the scenes at the abattoir.

Mick and Hal are both determined to dig up the truth. Before long each of them is going to find himself in mortal danger and running for his life.

Desperation in death

(In Death #55)

J.D. Robb
New York, 2061: The place called the Pleasure Academy is a living nightmare where abducted girls are trapped, trained for a life of abject service while their souls are slowly but surely destroyed. Dorian, a thirteen-year-old runaway who’d been imprisoned there, might never have made it out if not for her fellow inmate Mina, who’d hatched the escape plan. Mina was the more daring of the two—but they’d been equally desperate.

Unfortunately, they didn’t get away fast enough. Now Dorian is injured, terrified, and wandering the streets of New York, and Mina lies dead near the waterfront while Lt. Eve Dallas looks over the scene.

Mina’s expensive, elegant clothes and beauty products convince Dallas that she was being groomed, literally and figuratively, for sex trafficking—and that whoever is investing in this high-overhead operation expects windfall profits. Her billionaire husband, Roarke, may be able to help, considering his ties to the city’s ultra-rich. But Roarke is also worried about the effect this case is having on Dallas, as it brings a rage to the surface she can barely control. No matter what, she must keep her head clear–because above all, she is desperate for justice and to take down those who prey on and torment the innocent.

No country for girls

Emma Styles
GOLD. THEFT. MURDER.
A ROAD TRIP TO DIE FOR.

‘It’s not exactly how I imagined the week starting. An accessory to murder. On the run in the victim’s vehicle . . .’

Charlie and Nao are strangers from different sides of the tracks. They should never have met, but one devastating incident binds them together forever.
A man is dead and now they are unwilling accomplices in his murder there’s only one thing to do: hit the road in the victim’s twin cab ute, with a bag of stolen gold stashed under the passenger seat.
Suddenly outlaws, Nao and Charlie must make their way across Australia’s remote outback using only their wits to survive. They’ll do whatever it takes to evade capture and escape with their lives . . .

Thelma & Louise for a new generation, No Country for Girls is a gritty, twisty road-trip thriller that follows two young women on the run across the harsh, unforgiving landscape of Australia.

The girl in the castle

James Patterson
My name is Hannah Dory and I need you to believe me.

NOW: Hannah is brought to Belman Psych, told she is suffering from hallucinations and delusions. Hannah knows the truth: she must return to the past and save her sister. Could Jordan, the abnormal psych student who seems to truly care, be the answer she’s looking for?

1347: Hannah and her village are starving to death in a brutal winter. Hannah seeks out food and salvation in the baron’s castle. If she is caught stealing, she will surely hang. But if she and her friends succeed, she’ll save everyone she holds dear.

NOW: Jordan isn’t sure what to believe, and Hannah has even bigger problems: if she doesn’t make it back, her sister will die, but if she keeps going back, she might never escape.

The happiest little town

Barbara Hannay
Happiness has a way of catching up with you, even when you’ve given up trying to find it. Tilly doesn’t believe she can ever be happy again. Fourteen-year-old Tilly’s world is torn apart when her single mother dies suddenly and she is sent a million miles from everything she has ever known to a small country town and a guardian who’s a total stranger.

Kate is sure she will be happy just as soon as she achieves her dream. In the picturesque mountains of Far North Queensland, Kate is trying to move on from a failed marriage by renovating a van and making plans for an exciting travel escape. The fresh start she so desperately craves is within reach when an unexpected responsibility lands on her doorstep.

Olivia thinks she’s found ‘happy enough’ until an accident changes everything.

Ageing former celebrity actress Olivia is used to winning all the best roles in her local theatre group, but when she’s injured while making a grand stage exit, she is relegated to the wings. Now she’s determined that she won’t bow out quietly and be left alone with the demons of her past.

When these lost souls come together under the roof of the Burralea Amateur Theatre group, the countdown to opening night has already begun. Engaging with a diverse cast of colourful characters, the three generations of women find unlikely friendship – and more than one welcome surprise.

The French agent

Belinda Alexandra
A world in chaos. Two very different women. And the mystery of the man who may connect them. The stunning new novel from beloved Australian storyteller Belinda Alexandra.

Paris 1946: Sabine Brouillette is a war crimes investigator with the French secret service. She lost her family, including her young son, when her Resistance circuit was betrayed near the end of the war. New evidence comes to light that the traitor was a British double agent who went by the codename ‘the Black Fox’. Now her quest for revenge has a single focus: find the Black Fox and kill him.

Sydney 1946: Landscape designer Diana White has been waiting six years for her husband, Casper, to return from the war in Europe. Her son, Freddy, was only a baby when his British-born father joined the RAF. But Casper is a changed man when he returns from the convalescent hospital in England where he has spent the past year under mysterious circumstances. No longer the easygoing personality Diana fell in love with, he is now darker and more secretive.

Soon Sabine and Diana find themselves on a collision course – one seeking vengeance, the other willing to go to any lengths to protect her family.

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