There is nothing like sitting down with a cup of tea and enjoying that rare moment to yourself. We invite you to join the Central West Mums Book Club which is kindly sponsored by Collins Booksellers Orange.
To join you will need to:
A heartbreaking and joyous work of wonder about the hum that connects us all.
Now 25, Marlowe is finally living her own life abroad, pursuing her studies of a rare species of butterfly secure in the knowledge Harper’s happiness is complete, having found love with boyfriend, Louis. But then she receives the devastating call that Harper’s heart is failing. She needs a heart transplant but is denied one by the medical establishment because she is living with a disability. Marlowe rushes to her childhood home in Hong Kong to be by Harper’s side and soon has to answer the question – what lengths would you go to save your sister?
When Things Are Alive They Hum poses profound questions about the nature of love and existence, the ways grief changes us, and how we confront the hand fate has dealt us. Intensely moving, exquisitely written and literally humming with wonder, it is a novel that celebrates life in all its guises, and what comes after.
(This is due for release in August – I have just read a preview copy and can’t recommend it highly enough!)
It began with a crunch of leaves and earth. So early, so cold, the branches shone with ice. I’d returned to collect the songbirds. They are worth more than their weight in gold.’
Yiannis is a poacher, trapping the tiny protected songbirds that stop in Cyprus as they migrate each year from Africa to Europe, and selling them on the black market. He dreams of finding a new way of life, and of marrying Nisha, who works for Petra and her daughter Angela. Nisha is raising Angela, mothering her own child back in Sri Lanka by the screen of a phone.
When Nisha disappears, Yiannis is convinced he is responsible, paralysed by heartbreak and fear. Petra is forced to care for her child again, and when little Angela insists that they find Nisha, she begins to see that Nisha hasn’t simply run away, and that no one else will bother to look for her.
With infinite tenderness and skill, Christy Lefteri has crafted a powerful story about the unseen who walk among us, cleaning our homes and caring for our children – what it is to migrate in search of freedom, only to find yourself trapped. Songbirds is a triumphant exploration of loss, the strength of the human spirit and the unbreakable bonds of courage, and of love.
Sarah is a smart, young lawyer working endless hours when she falls head over heels for Daniel – handsome, passionate and part of the kind of large, chaotically loving family Sarah longed for as the only child of a single mother.
When Daniel introduces her to a charismatic young couple, Rabbi Menachem Lev and his wife, Chani, despite herself, Sarah is drawn in by their progressive beachside synagogue and the song, feasting and friendship that come with it. By the time she and Daniel move to the Jamison Valley with the other believers, Sarah can’t imagine life without the joy, meaning and love they’ve discovered.
Four years on, youthful fervour has given way to something darker. As the community celebrates the wedding of a beautiful young convert and a much older divorcee, a series of terrifying truths emerges that tear Sarah’s world apart, and cause her to question everything – her faith, her marriage and her future.
Intelligent, unusual and gripping, The Covered Wife is the debut novel of Sydney author Lisa Emanuel. This captivating story takes us from a seemingly perfect marriage deep into a closed community, and asks ‘Where would you draw the line?’
Philomena McCarthy has defied the odds and become a promising young officer with the Metropolitan Police despite being the daughter of a notorious London gangster. Called to the scene of a domestic assault one day, she rescues a bloodied young woman, Tempe Brown , the mistress of a decorated detective. The incident is hushed up, but Phil has unwittingly made a dangerous enemy with powerful friends.
Determined to protect each other, the two women strike up a tentative friendship. Tempe is thoughtful and sweet and makes herself indispensable to Phil, but sinister things keep happening and something isn’t quite right about the stories Tempe tells. When a journalist with links to Phil’s father and to the detective is found floating in the Thames, Phil doesn’t know where to turn, who to blame or who she can trust.
This exhilarating thriller from the bestselling author – whose books have sold more than 6 million copies – is Michael Robotham’s finest page-turner yet.
