Tamzin's bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 15 May 2025 21:37:37 -0700 60 Tamzin's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Consider Yourself Kissed 218460289 A literary love story told through ten years in the life of one woman as she tries to build a longed-for family without also losing herself -- an entertaining portrayal of the true, grown-up meaning of "happily ever after."

“Ringingly original and just absurdly good.� –Catherine Newman

“A love story like no other.� –Liane Moriarty

“A love song to women everywhere.� –Annabel Monaghan

“Deeply appealing.� –Meg Wolitzer

When she first meets Adam, Coralie is new to London and feeling adrift. But Adam is clever, witty, and (he insists) a quarter inch taller than the average male. His charming four-year-old daughter only adds to his appeal.
But ten years on, something important is missing from the life Coralie and Adam have built. Or maybe, having gained everything she dreamed of, Coralie has lost something else she once herself.
Set against an eventful British decade that included the soap opera of five prime ministers plus the chaos of the pandemic, Consider Yourself Kissed puts the subjects of love and family on a grand stage, showing how the intimate dramas in our homes inescapably compete for energy and attention with the shared public dramas of our times.
Told over ten years of one woman’s life, Consider Yourself Kissed is an unforgettable literary love story that effortlessly balances sweetness with bite, the public with the personal, and humor with heart.]]> 336 Jessica Stanley Tamzin 0 to-read 3.82 2025 Consider Yourself Kissed
author: Jessica Stanley
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/15
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]]> Nesting 214175077 An extraordinary and urgent debut by a prize-winning Irish writer, Nesting introduces an unforgettable new voice in fiction.

On a bright spring afternoon in Dublin, Ciara Fay makes a split-second decision that will change everything. Grabbing an armful of clothes from the washing line, Ciara straps her two young daughters into her car and drives away. Head spinning, all she knows for certain is that home is no longer safe.

This was meant to be an escape. But with dwindling savings, no job, and her family across the sea, Ciara finds herself adrift, facing a broken housing system and the voice of her own demons. As summer passes and winter closes in, she must navigate raising her children in a hotel room, searching for a new home and dealing with her husband Ryan’s relentless campaign to get her to come back. Because leaving is one thing, but staying away is another.

What will it take for Ciara to rebuild her life? Can she ever truly break away from Ryan’s control � and what will be the cost?

Tense, beautiful, and underpinned by an unassailable love, hope and resilience, this is the story of one woman’s bid to start over.]]> 400 Roisín O’Donnell 1643755706 Tamzin 0 to-read 4.27 2025 Nesting
author: Roisín O’Donnell
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/15
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]]> Intermezzo 208931300 An exquisitely moving story about grief, love, and family—but especially love—from the global phenomenon Sally Rooney.

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.

Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent, and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.

Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.

For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair, and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.]]> 454 Sally Rooney 0374602638 Tamzin 4 3.86 2024 Intermezzo
author: Sally Rooney
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/05/11
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]]> <![CDATA[Profiles in Hope: Fifteen Australians tell their stories of surviving suicide and finding the way back to a better life]]> 210493625 Sixteen Australians tell their stories of surviving suicide and finding the way back to a better life.

Every day, nine Australians take their own lives. Eighteen years ago, John Brogden came very close to adding his name to these statistics. But John survived and, since his recovery, he has become a passionate voice for mental health and suicide prevention. He is now the President of Lifeline International.

Personally and professionally, John knows how urgent it is to talk openly about suicide, and to provide those in despair with a way back when they are at their lowest point. Giving hope to those who think there is no other way out is critical. John is living proof there is a way to survive and thrive.

Now, in Profiles in Hope, John is shattering the wall of silence and shame around suicide. And, to help him, he has gathered together some incredible Australians to tell their stories. With contributions from well-known people, such as Jacquie Lambie, Layne Beachley, Preston Campbell and Ian Thorpe, alongside powerful stories of ordinary Aussies who came through to the other side, these deeply personal accounts of survival, recovery and lives of purpose are a balm to vulnerability, and a beacon of light to those struggling. This book is for those at risk and the people who love them and don't know how to help.

Searingly honest and ultimately life-affirming, these are stories of solace and hope and a lifeline for dark times.]]> 336 John Brogden 0733651992 Tamzin 0 4.16 Profiles in Hope: Fifteen Australians tell their stories of surviving suicide and finding the way back to a better life
author: John Brogden
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.16
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]]> He Would Never 226231534
Five families on an annual camping trip, a mothers' group of fourteen years, children starting to look like adults, a father with his own mysterious agenda . . .

He Would Never is a searing page-turner about the bonds we forge in the furnace of early motherhood, the trust we place in other adults, and the chaos that erupts when one man refuses to play by the rules.


Praise for He Would Never

'A compelling, suspenseful tale imbued with warmth, humour and heart' LIANE MORIARTY]]> 349 Holly Wainwright 1761567780 Tamzin 0 to-read 4.28 He Would Never
author: Holly Wainwright
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.28
book published:
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date added: 2025/05/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir]]> 203708995 400 Griffin Dunne 0593652827 Tamzin 0 to-read 4.01 2024 The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir
author: Griffin Dunne
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Dry (Aaron Falk, #1) 27824826 A small town hides big secrets in this atmospheric, page-turning debut mystery by award-winning author Jane Harper.

In the grip of the worst drought in a century, the farming community of Kiewarra is facing life and death choices daily when three members of a local family are found brutally slain.

Federal Police investigator Aaron Falk reluctantly returns to his hometown for the funeral of his childhood friend, loath to face the townsfolk who turned their backs on him twenty years earlier.

But as questions mount, Falk is forced to probe deeper into the deaths of the Hadler family. Because Falk and Luke Hadler shared a secret. A secret Falk thought was long buried. A secret Luke's death now threatens to bring to the surface in this small Australian town, as old wounds bleed into new ones.

]]> 336 Jane Harper Tamzin 0 to-read 4.04 2016 The Dry (Aaron Falk, #1)
author: Jane Harper
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/24
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]]> The Lost Man 39863488
Dark, suspenseful, and deeply atmospheric, The Lost Man is the highly anticipated next book from the bestselling and award-winning Jane Harper, author of The Dry and Force of Nature.]]> 340 Jane Harper 1250105684 Tamzin 0 4.12 2018 The Lost Man
author: Jane Harper
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/24
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]]> <![CDATA[Unsettled: A Journey Through Time and Place]]> 221488492 What does it mean to be on land taken from others?
‘What does it mean to be on land that was taken from other people? Now that we know how the taking was done, what do we do with that knowledge?�


Kate Grenville is no stranger to the past. Her success and fame as a writer exploded when she published The Secret River in 2005, a bestseller based on the story of her convict ancestor, an early settler on the Hawkesbury River.


More than two decades on, and following the defeat of the Voice referendum, Grenville is still grappling with what it means to descend from people who were, as she puts it, “on the sharp edge of the moving blade that was colonisation�.


So she decides to go on a kind of pilgrimage, back through the places her family stories happened, and put the stories and the First People back into the same frame, on the same country, to try to think about those questions. This gripping book is the result of that journey.]]> 235 Kate Grenville 1743824009 Tamzin 0 to-read 4.19 Unsettled: A Journey Through Time and Place
author: Kate Grenville
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.19
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date added: 2025/04/24
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]]> Cool Water 198826705 HOLLY RINGLAND

'Most novels leave us with learnings, but very few refine your character. I left more astute, more empathic, and somehow wiser after I read these pages.' HILDE HINTON

Frank feared a reckoning, but what he feared more was that all the men in his family were cursed.

Frank Herbert's family has gathered at Tinaroo Dam for his daughter Lily's wedding - the first time he's been back since the death of his father, Joe, a year earlier. Like Frank, the dam is at an all-time low and as the water recedes, objects begin to emerge - abstract and disquieting.

Joe's father Victor - Frank's grandfather - was the butcher of Tinaroo during the dam's construction, but Joe refused to speak of him. Joe was not a talker, but he could roar. And he could smash things. What sorrow was his fury, and this place, concealing? And can Frank find a way into a future of his own making?

Moving between the weekend of the wedding and the explosive year in the 1950s that would shape the Herbert men's destiny, Cool Water is an unforgettable novel about fathers and sons, what it means to be a good man, and the damage that can ripple through generations.

A breathtaking story brimming with insight and emotional power by Miles Franklin-shortlisted author Myfanwy Jones.

'Myfanwy Jones has become one of my favourite authors and Cool Water should make her one for any Australian reader. This is a generational novel imbued with grace and grit.' A.S. PATRIĆ

'Cool Water leaves an enduring imprint. A vivid and profound novel that conjures old hurts from the depths and brings them to the light. I loved this novel.' KATE MILDENHALL

'Confident craftsmanship, achingly evocative imagery and depth of perception' SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

'Crystal-clear prose . . . [An] accomplished novel' SATURDAY PAPER ]]> 240 Myfanwy Jones 0733650015 Tamzin 0 3.61 2024 Cool Water
author: Myfanwy Jones
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/23
date added: 2025/04/23
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]]> The Children Act 21965107
Fiona Maye is a High Court judge in London presiding over cases in family court. She is fiercely intelligent, well respected, and deeply immersed in the nuances of her particular field of law. Often the outcome of a case seems simple from the outside, the course of action to ensure a child's welfare obvious. But the law requires more rigor than mere pragmatism, and Fiona is an expert in considering the sensitivities of culture and religion when handing down her verdicts.

But Fiona's professional success belies domestic strife. Her husband, Jack, asks her to consider an open marriage and, after an argument, moves out of their house. His departure leaves her adrift, wondering whether it was not love she had lost so much as a modern form of respectability; whether it was not contempt and ostracism she really fears. She decides to throw herself into her work, especially a complex case involving a seventeen-year-old boy whose parents will not permit a lifesaving blood transfusion because it conflicts with their beliefs as Jehovah's Witnesses. But Jack doesn't leave her thoughts, and the pressure to resolve the case - as well as her crumbling marriage - tests Fiona in ways that will keep readers thoroughly enthralled until the last stunning page.]]> 221 Ian McEwan 0385539703 Tamzin 0 3.69 2014 The Children Act
author: Ian McEwan
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/23
date added: 2025/04/23
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]]> Always Home, Always Homesick 223268360 'In my brief breath of life, might I find a way to fit light to paper?'

In a land of ethereal beauty, within a culture soaked in myth, a young woman discovers the story that will change her life.

In 2003, seventeen-year-old Australian exchange student Hannah Kent arrives at Keflavík Airport in the middle of the Icelandic winter.

That night she sleeps off her jet lag and bewilderment in the National Archives of Iceland, unaware that, years later, she will return to the same building to write Burial Rites, the haunting story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, the last woman executed in Iceland. The novel will go on to launch the author's stellar literary career and capture the hearts of readers across the globe.

Always Home, Always Homesick is Hannah Kent's exquisite love letter to a land that has forged a nation of storytellers, her ode to the transcendent power of creativity, and her invitation to us all to join her in the realms of mystery, spirit and wonder.]]> 272 Hannah Kent 1035066270 Tamzin 0 to-read 4.59 2025 Always Home, Always Homesick
author: Hannah Kent
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.59
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/23
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]]> Mother Tongue 222759184 What if being true to yourself means hurting everyone around you?


Brynn is a claustrophobic suburban mother on the brink . . .

Eric, her husband, is transforming in dark and dangerous ways . . .

Their daughter, Jenny, can't fathom the storm barrelling towards her . . .

When Brynn awakes from a coma speaking fluent French, she seizes the opportunity to start a new life in Paris, a seismic personal transformation that leaves a slew of shattered lives in its wake.

Darkly funny and profoundly insightful, Mother Tongue challenges our expectations of motherhood and our beliefs about women's lives. It is at once an exhilarating tale of escape and a warning about the cost of renewal.


Praise for Mother Tongue:

'A mother's love is supposed to be immutable. What happens when you lose your language, maybe your mind? This is a story with guts that will charm and alarm in equal measure. Naima Brown is one of our most interesting storytellers and Mother Tongue should go straight to the top of your to-be-read pile.' HAYLEY SCRIVENOR

'Darkly funny, surprising and ridiculously fresh, Mother Tongue is a searing portrait of the ways motherhood transforms us but also doesn't. It is a daring exploration of identity, full of suspense and bubbling with tension. Brown takes us to places most novels don't have the guts to.' JESSIE STEPHENS

'Mother Tongue is the perfect blend of page-turning drama and sharp feminist wit. Naima Brown brilliantly exposes the double standards placed on mothers, all while keeping you fully entertained from start to finish.'
DEE SALMIN, host of triple j The Hook Up]]> 381 Naima Brown 1761685015 Tamzin 0 to-read 3.89 Mother Tongue
author: Naima Brown
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.89
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/17
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]]> The Rainy Season 6303821
Sharing fractured pasts and uncertain futures, Ella begins to feel at home in a landscape scarred by war and betrayal. Hope is gradually returning to Vietnam. Hearts and minds are opening, and Ella finds herself falling in love with handsome French photographer Ariel. But will the heavy tropical rains be enough to wash away the ghosts of the past?

]]> 336 Myfanwy Jones 0670072125 Tamzin 0 to-read 3.45 2009 The Rainy Season
author: Myfanwy Jones
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/10
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]]> <![CDATA[The Thursday Murder Club (Thursday Murder Club, #1)]]> 46000520
But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.

Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it's too late?

Alternate cover edition can be found here .]]> 382 Richard Osman Tamzin 3 3.86 2020 The Thursday Murder Club (Thursday Murder Club, #1)
author: Richard Osman
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/03
date added: 2025/03/29
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]]> You Are Here 201465867
Michael is coming undone. Adrift after his wife's departure, he has begun taking himself on long, solitary walks across the English countryside. Becoming ever more reclusive, he’ll do anything to avoid his empty house.

Marnie, on the other hand, is stuck. Hiding alone in her London flat, she avoids old friends and any reminders of her rotten, selfish ex-husband. Curled up with a good book, she’s battling the long afternoons of a life that feels like it’s passing her by.

When a persistent mutual friend and some very unpredictable weather conspire to toss Michael and Marnie together on the most epic of ten-day hikes, neither of them can think of anything worse. Until, of course, they discover exactly what they’ve been looking for.

Michael and Marnie are on the precipice of a bright future . . . if they can survive the journey.]]> 368 David Nicholls 0063394057 Tamzin 3 3.97 2024 You Are Here
author: David Nicholls
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/08
date added: 2025/03/29
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]]> Careering 59072930 any job. Writing her blog around double shifts at the pub is neither fulfilling her creatively nor paying the bills.

Harri might just be Imogen's fairy godmother. She's moving from the glossy pages of Panache magazine to launch a fierce feminist site, The Know. And she thinks Imogen's most outrageous sexual content will help generate the clicks she needs. But Imogen's fairy-tale ending soon sours as she finds herself putting more and more of herself into writing for a company that doesn't care if she sinks or swims.

Neither woman is aware of the crucial thing they have in common. Harri, at the other end of her career, has also been bitten and betrayed by the industry she has given herself to. Will she wake up to the way she's being exploited before her protégé realizes that not everything is copy? Can either woman reconcile their love for work with the fact that work will never love them back?]]> 384 Daisy Buchanan 0751580201 Tamzin 2 3.32 2022 Careering
author: Daisy Buchanan
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2022
rating: 2
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date added: 2025/03/29
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]]> The Rachel Incident 63094957
Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it’s love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever. Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them.

When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne, James helps her devise a reading at their local bookstore, with the goal that she might seduce him afterwards. But Fred has other desires. So begins a series of secrets and compromises that intertwine the fates of James, Rachel, Fred, and Fred’s glamorous, well-connected, bourgeois wife. Aching with unrequited love, shot through with delicious, sparkling humor, The Rachel Incident is a triumph.]]> 304 Caroline O'Donoghue 0593535707 Tamzin 4 4.06 2023 The Rachel Incident
author: Caroline O'Donoghue
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/03/29
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]]> <![CDATA[The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife]]> 204158999 For readers of Remarkably Bright Creatures and A Man Called Ove, a warm, life-affirming debut about a zany case of mistaken identity that allows a lonely old man one last chance to be part of a family.

‘Would you mind terribly, old boy, if I borrowed the rest of your life? I promise I’ll take excellent care of it.'

Frederick Fife was born with an extra helping of kindness in his heart. If he borrowed your car, he’d return it washed with a full tank of gas. The problem is there’s nobody left in Fred’s life to borrow from. At eighty-two, he’s desperately lonely, broke, and on the brink of homelessness. But Fred’s luck changes when, in a bizarre case of mistaken identity, he takes the place of grumpy Bernard Greer at the local nursing home. Now he has warm meals in his belly and a roof over his head—as long as his poker face is in better shape than his prostate and that his look-alike never turns up.

Denise Simms is stuck breathing the same disappointing air again and again. A middle-aged mom and caregiver at Bernard's facility, her crumbling marriage and daughter's health concerns are suffocating her joy for life. Wounded by her two-faced husband, she vows never to let a man deceive her again.

As Fred walks in Bernard’s shoes, he leaves a trail of kindness behind him, fueling Denise's suspicions about his true identity. When unexpected truths are revealed, Fred and Denise rediscover their sense of purpose and learn how to return a broken life to mint condition.

Bittersweet and remarkably perceptive, The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife is a hilarious, feel-good, clever novel about grief, forgiveness, redemption, and finding family.]]> 336 Anna Johnston 0063397293 Tamzin 3 4.28 2024 The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife
author: Anna Johnston
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/29
date added: 2025/03/29
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]]> Margo's Got Money Troubles 199534613
“[An] enormously entertaining and lovable book.� —Nick Hornby, New York Times Book Review

A bold, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartwarming story about one young woman’s attempt to navigate adulthood, new motherhood, and her meager bank account in our increasingly online world—from the PEN/Faulkner finalist and critically acclaimed author of The Knockout Queen.

As the child of a Hooters waitress and an ex-pro wrestler, Margo Millet's always known she’d have to make it on her own. So she enrolls at her local junior college, even though she can’t imagine how she’ll ever make a living. She’s still figuring things out and never planned to have an affair with her English professor—and while the affair is brief, it isn’t brief enough to keep her from getting pregnant. Despite everyone’s advice, she decides to keep the baby, mostly out of naiveté and a yearning for something bigger.

Now, at twenty, Margo is alone with an infant, unemployed, and on the verge of eviction. She needs a cash infusion—fast. When her estranged father, Jinx, shows up on her doorstep and asks to move in with her, she agrees in exchange for help with childcare. Then Margo begins to form a plan: she’ll start an OnlyFans as an experiment, and soon finds herself adapting some of Jinx’s advice from the world of wrestling. Like how to craft a compelling character and make your audience fall in love with you. Before she knows it, she’s turned it into a runaway success. Could this be the answer to all of Margo’s problems, or does internet fame come with too high a price?

Blisteringly funny and filled with sharp insight, Margo’s Got Money Troubles is a tender tale starring an endearing young heroine who’s struggling to wrest money and power from a world that has little interest in giving it to her. It’s a playful and honest examination of the art of storytelling and controlling your own narrative, and an empowering portrait of coming into your own, both online and off.

“A wholly original novel. . . . Thorpe is both poetic and profound in the way she brings her remarkable story to an end.� —The Associated Press]]> 304 Rufi Thorpe 0063356589 Tamzin 5 3.86 2024 Margo's Got Money Troubles
author: Rufi Thorpe
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/24
date added: 2025/02/24
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You will be hooked from the first paragraph, extraordinarily human
]]> <![CDATA[All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation]]> 223405886 What if your most beautiful love story turned into your biggest nightmare? An essential, universally resonant new memoir from the #1 bestselling author of Eat Pray Love and Big Magic.

Twenty years ago, Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love inspired millions of readers to embark upon their own journeys of self-discovery. A decade later, Big Magic empowered countless others to live their most creative lives. Now comes another landmark book—about love and loss, addiction and recovery, grief and liberation.

In 2000, a friend sent Liz to see a new hairdresser named Rayya Elias. An intense and unlikely curiosity sparked between these two apparent opposites: Rayya, an East Village badass who lived boldly on her own terms but feared she was a failed artist; Liz, a married people-pleaser with a surprisingly unfettered sense of creativity. Over the years, they became friends, then best friends, then inseparable. When tragedy entered their lives, the truth was finally laid bare: The two were in love. Unacknowledged: they were also a pair of addicts, on a collision course toward catastrophe.

What if the love of your life—and the person you most trusted in the world—became a danger to your sanity and wellbeing? What if the dear friend who taught you so much about your self-destructive tendencies became the unstable partner with whom you disastrously reenacted every one of them? And what if your most devastating heartbreak opened a pathway to your greatest awakening?

All the Way to the River is for everyone who has ever been captive to love � or to any other passion, substance, or craving—and who yearns, at long last, for peace and freedom.]]> 400 Elizabeth Gilbert 0593540980 Tamzin 0 to-read 4.50 All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation
author: Elizabeth Gilbert
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.50
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]]> The Girls from Corona del Mar 18518285 Mia and Lorrie Ann are lifelong friends: hard-hearted Mia and untouchably beautiful, kind Lorrie Ann. While Mia struggles with a mother who drinks, a pregnancy at fifteen, and younger brothers she loves but can't quite be good to, Lorrie Ann is luminous, surrounded by her close-knit family, immune to the mistakes that mar her best friend's life. Until a sudden loss catapults Lorrie Ann into tragedy: things fall apart, and then fall apart further-and there is nothing Mia can do to help. And as good, kind, brave Lorrie Ann stops being so good, Mia begins to question just who this woman is and what that question means about them both. A staggeringly arresting, honest novel of love, motherhood, loyalty, and the myth of the perfect friendship that moves us to ask ourselves just how well we know those we love, what we owe our children, and who we are without our friends.]]> 256 Rufi Thorpe 0385351968 Tamzin 0 to-read 3.59 2014 The Girls from Corona del Mar
author: Rufi Thorpe
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/22
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]]> The Happy Couple 63834978 An intimate, sharply funny novel about a couple heading toward their wedding, and the three friends who may draw them apart

Meet Celine and Luke--for all intents and purposes the happy couple. Luke (a serial cheater) and Celine (more inter­ested in piano than in domestic life) plan to marry in a year. Archie (the best man) should be moving on from his love for Luke and up the corporate ladder, but he finds himself utterly stuck. Phoebe (the bridesmaid and Celine’s sister) just wants to get to the bottom of Luke’s frequent unexplained disappearances. And Vivian (a wedding guest), as the only one with any emotional distance, observes her friends like ants in a colony. As the wedding approaches and these five lives intersect, each will find themselves looking for a path to their happily ever after--but does it lie at the end of an aisle?]]> 240 Naoise Dolan Tamzin 4 3.34 2023 The Happy Couple
author: Naoise Dolan
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.34
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/02/16
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]]> Edenglassie 136335272 320 Melissa Lucashenko 0702266124 Tamzin 0 currently-reading 4.11 2023 Edenglassie
author: Melissa Lucashenko
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/25
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The Life Impossible 198281740
“What looks like magic is simply a part of life we don’t understand yet…�

When retired math teacher Grace Winters is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook and no plan.

Among the rugged hills and golden beaches of the island, Grace searches for answers about her friend’s life, and how it ended. What she uncovers is stranger than she could have dreamed. But to dive into this impossible truth, Grace must first come to terms with her past.

Filled with wonder and wild adventure, this is a story of hope and the life-changing power of a new beginning.]]> 324 Matt Haig 0593489276 Tamzin 3 3.45 2024 The Life Impossible
author: Matt Haig
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/25
date added: 2025/01/25
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]]> She Too 123190378
At age twenty-eight, Romola Cross is already jaded by her work as a criminal defence lawyer in Sydney. In the aftermath of her father's death, she decides to reinvent herself, and blindly accepts a position at prestigious Melbourne law firm Bassett Brown. She soon finds herself in a place where the clients are household names, and the stakes are higher than she could have possibly imagined.

Patrick Payne is the only son of famed property tycoon Malcolm Payne. After years spent in his father's shadow, Patrick is trying his luck in politics. But when Patrick's girlfriend Hana is found dead in his home, the media accuse him of being an abusive partner, drawing comparisons with the death of his teenage sweetheart many years earlier. At the insistence of his father, Patrick sues for defamation.
With his reputation in tatters, Patrick becomes Romola's first client. Under the watchful eye of a narcissistic supervising partner, Romola sets out to defend his reputation. Drawn into the Paynes' life of privilege, and torn by conflicting family and client loyalties, Romola confronts the question of how to prove Patrick is a good man without sacrificing all that she holds dear.
This whip-smart legal thriller is a thought-provoking commentary on the intersection between law and celebrity. She Too takes an unflinching look at the illusory nature of truth, guilt and innocence - and their manipulation by the media, the wealthy, and each one of us, depending on what we want to believe.]]> 373 Eve Thomson 1760687626 Tamzin 5 3.73 2023 She Too
author: Eve Thomson
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/25
date added: 2025/01/25
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]]> The Season 214273049

She’s a passionate Western Bulldogs fan (with an imperfect grasp of the rules) who loves the epic theatre of AFL football. But her devotion to the under-16s offers her something else. This is her chance to connect with her youngest grandchild, to be close to him before he rushes headlong into manhood. To witness his triumphs and defeats, to fear for his safety in battle, to gasp and to cheer for his team as it fights for a place in the finals.


With her sharp eye, her generous wit and her warm humour, Garner documents this pivotal moment, both as part of the story and as silent witness. The Season is an unexpected and exuberant a celebration of the nobility, grace and grit of team spirit, a reflection on the nature of masculinity, and a tribute to the game’s power to thrill us.]]> 0 Helen Garner 1922791814 Tamzin 0 to-read 4.12 2024 The Season
author: Helen Garner
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/10
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]]> 17 Years Later 149116142 Is the truth sometimes best left buried?

A crime masterpiece by bestselling author J. P. Pomare

The violent slaughter of the wealthy Primrose family while they slept shocked the nation of New Zealand and scarred the small idyllic rural town of Cambridge forever.

All of the evidence pointed to their young live-in chef, Bill Ruatara, who was swiftly charged with murder and brought to justice. The brutal crime is now infamous, and Bill a figure of contempt who deserves to rot in jail for life.

Seventeen years later, prison psychologist TK Phillips is fighting for an appeal. He is convinced Bill did not receive a fair trial. When celebrity true-crime podcaster Sloane Abbott takes a sudden interest, it's not long before she uncovers new evidence that could set fire to the prosecution's case.

As TK and Sloane dig deeper into the past, they become tangled in a complex web of danger and deceit. With Bill's innocence far from assured and their own lives at stake, will they risk everything to unearth the truth, or leave it buried for good?]]> 404 J.P. Pomare 0733649653 Tamzin 0 to-read 4.32 2024 17 Years Later
author: J.P. Pomare
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/07
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]]> I Hope This Finds You Well 200987323 In this wildly funny and heartwarming office comedy, an admin worker accidentally gains access to her colleagues� private emails and DMs and decides to use this intel to save her job—a laugh-till-you-cry debut novel you’ll be eager to share with your entire list of contacts, perfect for fans of Anxious People and Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine.

As far as Jolene is concerned, her interactions with her colleagues should start and end with her official duties as an admin for Supershops, Inc. Unfortunately, her irritating, incompetent coworkers don’t seem to understand the importance of boundaries. Her secret to survival? She vents her grievances in petty email postscripts, then changes the text colour to white so no one can see. That is, until one of her secret messages is exposed. Her punishment: sensitivity training (led by the suspiciously friendly HR guy, Cliff) and rigorous email restrictions.

When an IT mix-up grants her access to her entire department’s private emails and DMs, Jolene knows she should report it, but who could resist reading what their coworkers are really saying? And when she discovers layoffs are coming, she realizes this might just be the key to saving her job. The plan is simple: gain her boss’s favour, convince HR she’s Supershops material and beat out the competition.

But as Jolene is drawn further into her coworker’s private worlds and secrets, her carefully constructed walls begin to crumble—especially around Cliff, who she definitely cannot have feelings for. Soon she will need to decide if she’s ready to leave the comfort of her cubicle, even if it means coming clean to her colleagues.

Crackling with laugh-out-loud dialogue and relatable observations, I Hope This Finds You Well is a fresh and surprisingly tender comedy about loneliness and love beyond our computer screens. This sparkling debut novel will open your heart to the everyday eccentricities of work culture and the undeniable human connection that comes with it.]]> 338 Natalie Sue 0063320363 Tamzin 3 3.74 2024 I Hope This Finds You Well
author: Natalie Sue
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/11/28
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]]> Here One Moment 208516656 If you knew your future, would you try to fight fate?

Aside from a delay, there will be no problems. The flight will be smooth, it will land safely. Everyone who gets on the plane will get off. But almost all of them will be forever changed.

Because on this ordinary, short, domestic flight, something extraordinary happens. People learn how and when they are going to die. For some, their death is far in the future—age 103!—and they laugh. But for six passengers, their predicted deaths are not far away at all.

How do they know this? There were ostensibly more interesting people on the flight (the bride and groom, the jittery, possibly famous woman, the giant Hemsworth-esque guy who looks like an off-duty superhero, the frazzled, gorgeous flight attendant) but none would become as famous as “The Death Lady.�

Not a single passenger or crew member will later recall noticing her board the plane. She wasn’t exceptionally old or young, rude or polite. She wasn’t drunk or nervous or pregnant. Her appearance and demeanor were unremarkable. But what she did on that flight was truly remarkable.

A few months later, one passenger dies exactly as she predicted. Then two more passengers die, again, as she said they would. Soon no one is thinking this is simply an entertaining story at a cocktail party.

If you were told you only had a certain amount of time left to live, would you do things differently? Would you try to dodge your destiny?

Liane Moriarty’s Here One Moment is a brilliantly constructed tale that looks at free will and destiny, grief and love, and the endless struggle to maintain certainty and control in an uncertain world. A modern-day Jane Austen who humorously skewers social mores while spinning a web of mystery, Moriarty asks profound questions in her newest I-can’t-wait-to-find-out-what-happens novel.]]> 512 Liane Moriarty 0593798600 Tamzin 5 3.98 2024 Here One Moment
author: Liane Moriarty
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/28
date added: 2024/11/28
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Excellent story & the audiobook was
]]> Blue Sisters 195430687 Three estranged siblings return to their family home in New York after their beloved sister's death in this unforgettable story of grief, identity, and the complexities of family.

The three Blue sisters are exceptional—and exceptionally different. Avery, the eldest and a recovering heroin addict turned strait-laced lawyer, lives with her wife in London; Bonnie, a former boxer, works as a bouncer in Los Angeles following a devastating defeat; and Lucky, the youngest, models in Paris while trying to outrun her hard-partying ways. They also had a fourth sister, Nicky, whose unexpected death left Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky reeling. A year later, as they each navigate grief, addiction, and ambition, they find they must return to New York to stop the sale of the apartment they were raised in.

But coming home is never as easy as it seems. As the sisters reckon with the disappointments of their childhood and the loss of the only person who held them together, they realize the greatest secrets they've been keeping might not have been from each other, but from themselves.]]> 342 Coco Mellors 0593723767 Tamzin 0 currently-reading 3.93 2024 Blue Sisters
author: Coco Mellors
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/28
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]]> Love Objects 56273444
Nic's closest relationship is with her niece Lena. The two of them meet for lunch every Sunday to gossip about the rest of the family and bitch about work (they're both checkout chicks: Lena just for now, Nic until they prise her staff discount card from her cold, dead hands).

One Sunday, Nic fails to turn up to lunch and when Lena calls she gets a disconnection message. Arriving at the house she hasn't visited in years ('Too far for you to come, hon. Let's meet in the middle.') she finds her aunt unconscious under an avalanche of stuff.

Lena is devastated that her beloved aunt has been living in such squalor all this time. While Nic is in hospital, she gets to work cleaning things up for her. Her first impulse is to call in the bulldozers and start searching Gumtree for a roomy caravan. But with the help of her reluctantly recruited brother, Will, she gets the job done.

This heroic effort is not appreciated by the plastered up, crutch-wielding Nic. She returns to an empty, alien place unrecognisable as her home and the unbearable pity of her family who have no idea what they've destroyed. How can she live in this place without safety and peace? And how can she ever forgive the niece who has betrayed her?]]> 400 Emily Maguire 1760878332 Tamzin 0 to-read 3.73 2021 Love Objects
author: Emily Maguire
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/23
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]]> The Women 127305853
Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances "Frankie" McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.

As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over-whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets—and becomes one of—the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.

But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.

The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm's way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.]]> 471 Kristin Hannah 1250178630 Tamzin 0 to-read 4.58 2024 The Women
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/19
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]]> Long Island (Eilis Lacey, #2) 199798868 New York Times bestselling author comes a spectacularly moving and intense novel of secrecy, misunderstanding, and love, the story of Eilis Lacey, the complex and enigmatic heroine of Brooklyn, Tóibín’s most popular work, twenty years later.

Eilis Lacey is Irish, married to Tony Fiorello, a plumber and one of four Italian American brothers, all of whom live in neighboring houses on a cul-de-sac in Lindenhurst, Long Island, with their wives and children and Tony’s parents, a huge extended family that lives and works, eats and plays together. It is the spring of 1976 and Eilis, now in her forties with two teenage children, has no one to rely on in this still-new country. Though her ties to Ireland remain stronger than those that hold her to her new land and home, she has not returned in decades.

One day, when Tony is at his job and Eilis is in her home office doing her accounting, an Irishman comes to the door asking for her by name. He tells her that his wife is pregnant with Tony’s child and that when the baby is born, he will not raise it but instead deposit it on Eilis’s doorstep. It is what Eilis does—and what she refuses to do—in response to this stunning news that makes Tóibín’s novel so riveting.

Long Island is about longings unfulfilled, even unrecognized. The silences in Eilis� life are thunderous and dangerous, and there’s no one more deft than Tóibín at giving them language. This is a gorgeous story of a woman alone in a marriage and the deepest bonds she rekindles on her return to the place and people she left behind, to ways of living and loving she thought she’d lost.]]> 294 Colm Tóibín 1476785112 Tamzin 1 3.67 2024 Long Island (Eilis Lacey, #2)
author: Colm Tóibín
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2024
rating: 1
read at: 2024/11/09
date added: 2024/11/09
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]]> Between You and Me 78912955 Between You and Meis a riveting portrayal of female friendship, and the frayed boundary between loyalty and desire.

Mari and Elisabeth have been at the centre of each other’s lives for years. Close friends since university, they’re now drifting through their mid-twenties, working casual jobs and living in run-down share houses. When they meet Jack, a charming academic historian twenty years their senior, they’re attracted to the sophisticated, intellectual world in which he seems to move.As the summer gathers heat, Jack is drawn into their lives, and an unconventional relationship � halfway between friendship and love triangle � develops. But soon things grow more complicated, and as secrets and betrayals detonate, the fallout sets the course for the rest of their lives.

In Mari and Elisabeth, Joanna Horton has created two unforgettable women, whose choices on the cusp of adulthood will resonate with anyone who has ever had to navigate where friendship, intimacy and love intersect when trying to make a life of one’s own.

PRAISE for Between You and Me

'A novel that deftly explores the uncomfortable grey areas of power, privilege and control.Between You and Meis a compulsive read about how the choices we make (and those made for us) ripple into the future. At once unsettling and totally captivating.� –Natasha Sholl, author ofFound, Wanting

‘I absolutely loved it. The characters felt both deeply familiar and also intriguingly complex and unknowable. An engaging and evocative read that I can't stop thinking about.’–Eliza Henry-Jones, author of Salt and Skin]]> 341 Joanna Horton 1761150820 Tamzin 4 3.71 2023 Between You and Me
author: Joanna Horton
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/25
date added: 2024/10/25
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I love a good Aussie read, & while the plot might seem predictable, the character development is a stand out, its a train wreck but I couldn’t stop reading
]]> Beatrix & Fred 135947686
Her life needs to change. Then she crosses paths with an old woman who seems to be stalking her, and that’s exactly what happens. Eighty-something Fred is smart, earthy, funny and not the harmless elderly lady she appears to be. She is, in fact, quite literally something else. But what?

When something happens to Ray, Fred decides to reveal herself. And Beatrix realises she has some agonising choices to make.

Beatrix and Fred is an off-kilter love story wrapped in a satisfying layer of moral complexity and tied up with a ribbon of sheer fun. Warm, witty, more than slightly weird—it takes the age-old question of what it is to be human beyond humanity itself.]]> 381 Emily Spurr 1922790419 Tamzin 0 to-read 3.55 2023 Beatrix & Fred
author: Emily Spurr
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/12
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]]> The Opposite of Success 169702871
Council employee Lorrie Hope has a great partner, two adorable kids and absolutely no idea what to do with her life. This Friday, she's hoping for change- it's launch day for her big work project, and she's applied for a promotion she's not entirely sure she wants. Meanwhile, her best friend, Alex, is stuck in a mess involving Lorrie's rakish ex, Ruben-or, more accurately, his wife. Oh, and Ruben's boss happens to be the mining magnate Sebastian Glup, who is sponsoring Lorrie's project...

As the day spirals from bad to worse to frankly unhinged, Lorrie and Alex must reconsider what they can expect from life, love and middle management. The Opposite of Success is a riotously funny debut novel about work, motherhood, friendship-and the meaning of failure itself.]]> 272 Eleanor Elliott Thomas 1922790389 Tamzin 0 to-read 3.03 2023 The Opposite of Success
author: Eleanor Elliott Thomas
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.03
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/12
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]]> Evenings and Weekends 181109993 For fans of Sally Rooney and Torrey Peters, a taut and profoundly moving debut that follows a cast of intricately linked characters during a heatwave in London as simmering tensions and secrets come to a head over one life-changing weekend.

London, 2019. It’s the hottest June on record, and a whale is stuck in the Thames River. In the streets of the city, four old acquaintances want more from life than they’ve been given. On the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, their paths will intersect at a party that will change their lives forever�

Maggie, a once-hopeful artist turned waitress, is pregnant and preparing to move back to her hometown with her boyfriend and father-to-be Ed, leaving the city she loves and the life she imagined for herself.

Ed, coasting through life as a barely competent bike courier, is ready for a new start with Maggie and their baby, if only to finally leave behind his secret past of hooking up with strange men in train station bathrooms—and his secret past with Maggie’s best friend, Phil.

Phil, who sleepwalks through his office job and lives for the weekends, is on the brink of achieving his first real relationship with his roommate Keith. The two live in an illegal warehouse commune with other quirky creatives and idealists—the site of the party to end all parties.

As the temperature continues to climb, Maggie, Ed, and Phil will have to confront their shared pasts, current desires, and limits of their future lives together before the weekend is over.

Strikingly heartfelt, sexually charged, and disarmingly comic, Oisín McKenna’s addictive, page-turning debut is a mesmerizing dive into the soul of a city and a critical look at the political, emotional, and financial hurdles facing young adults trying to build lives there and often living for their evenings and weekends.]]> 352 Oisín McKenna 0063319977 Tamzin 0 to-read 3.77 2024 Evenings and Weekends
author: Oisín McKenna
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/12
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]]> None of This Is True 62334530
A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for her series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.

Josie’s life appears to be strange and complicated, and although Alix finds her unsettling, she can’t quite resist the temptation to keep making the podcast. Slowly she starts to realise that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets, and before she knows it, Josie has inveigled her way into Alix’s life—and into her home.

But, as quickly as she arrived, Josie disappears. Only then does Alix discover that Josie has left a terrible and terrifying legacy in her wake, and that Alix has become the subject of her own true crime podcast, with her life and her family’s lives under mortal threat.

Who is Josie Fair? And what has she done?]]> 390 Lisa Jewell 1982179007 Tamzin 0 to-read 4.08 2023 None of This Is True
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/12
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]]> Funny Story 194802722 A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

Daphne always loved the way her fiancé, Peter, told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it... right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra.

Which is how Daphne begins her new story: stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.

Scruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads—Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned-up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?

But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex... right?]]> 400 Emily Henry Tamzin 0 to-read 4.21 2024 Funny Story
author: Emily Henry
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/12
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]]> Yellowface 62047984
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? This piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller. That is what June believes, and The New York Times bestseller list agrees.

But June cannot escape Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens her stolen success. As she races to protect her secret she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.]]> 319 R.F. Kuang 000853277X Tamzin 5 3.69 2023 Yellowface
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2023
rating: 5
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Completely gripping, so modern, I loved it
]]> The Albatross 104307525 'The albatross is just about the rarest thing in golf - two shots on a par 5. A hole-in-one, anywhere on the course, is just a random event, a fluke. It's not your own doing. But an albatross . . . It's a thing of beauty. One. Two. It must be very deliberate, very thoughtful, one superb shot followed by another. You can say it's got to take a degree of belief. You've got to really want it, and aim for it, and try for it.'

When Primrose makes an unplanned detour into a dilapidated suburban golf course called Whistles, she has no idea that the past will come rushing back at her, bringing every detail of her life into stark focus.

At 36, her marriage is teetering from illness and infidelity. A visit from her commanding brother-in-law looms ominously on the horizon. And by a twist of fate, Peter, the boy she loved twenty years ago, is now living across the street.

Primrose cannot escape the increasing demands to make a choice, between her first love and her marriage, duty and desire, fear and freedom. Slowly, the grounds of Whistles, and a sport she proves to be terrible at, become her meditation and cure.

From a sparkling new Australian voice, The Albatross is a big-hearted, beautifully written and utterly engaging novel about first love, second chances and the most elusive shot in golf.


Praise for The Albatross

'The Albatross is a sinewy, compelling vine of a novel, twining into unanticipated crevices and captivating the reader until the very last page. Brilliant. This is a spectacularly good book; funny, tense, observant, and equipped with a truly memorable heroine.' Annabel Crabb

'Nina Wan's shining debut has captivated both my mind and heart. It is such an important novel that should be widely read. It has been days since I have finished this book but Primrose Li remains alive to me and I know she will live on in many more readers to come.' Hannah Bent, bestselling author of When Things Are Alive They Hum

'The first thing you want to do when you finish The Albatross is find the nearest rooftop and shout, "Primrose!" It's an understatement to call her the narrator of this smart, beguiling novel. Its warmth and humour are her warmth and humour, as are its disquieting undertones... [This is] is a study in the art of the swerve - into Primrose's marriage, into her past, into brilliant discussions of potential and belonging and the everyday question of being happy, or not. There are secrets beneath all this, and the final mix is that rare book that manages to be both surprising and subtle - a quality that's utterly Primrosian.' VPLA Unpublished Manuscript Prize judges report]]> Nina Wan 1761266616 Tamzin 4 3.41 2023 The Albatross
author: Nina Wan
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2023
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/10/07
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]]> The Glass House 61291331
Frustrated and alone, when a childhood friend crosses her path, Julia turns to Davina for comfort and support. But quite soon Julia begins to doubt Davina’s motivations. Why is Davina taking a determined interest in all the things that Julia hoped she had left behind? Soon Julia starts having troubling dreams, and with four decades of possessions to be managed and dispersed, she uncovers long-forgotten, deeply unsettling memories.]]> 304 Brooke Dunnell 1760991791 Tamzin 4 3.57 The Glass House
author: Brooke Dunnell
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.57
book published:
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/10/07
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]]> We All Want Impossible Things 60410002 Who knows you better than your best friend? Who knows your secrets, your fears, your desires, your strange imperfect self? Edi and Ash have been best friends for over forty years. Since childhood they have seen each other through life's milestones: stealing vodka from their parents, the Madonna phase, REM concerts, unexpected wakes, marriages, infertility, children. As Ash notes, 'Edi's memory is like the back-up hard drive for mine.'

So when Edi is diagnosed with terminal cancer, Ash's world reshapes around the rhythms of Edi's care, from chipped ice and watermelon cubes to music therapy; from snack smuggling to impromptu excursions into the frozen winter night. Because life is about squeezing the joy out of every moment, about building a powerhouse of memories, about learning when to hold on, and when to let go.
]]> 224 Catherine Newman 0063230895 Tamzin 0 to-read 3.95 2022 We All Want Impossible Things
author: Catherine Newman
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/24
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]]> Sandwich 200028726 From the beloved author of We All Want Impossible Things, a moving, hilarious story of a family summer vacation full of secrets, lunch, and learning to let go.

For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and—thanks to the cottage’s ancient plumbing—septic too.

This year’s vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past—except, perhaps, for Rocky’s hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. (Hello, menopause!) Her body is changing—her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers.

It's one precious week: everything is in balance; everything is in flux. And when Rocky comes face to face with her family’s history and future, she is forced to accept that she can no longer hide her secrets from the people she loves.]]> 240 Catherine Newman 0063345161 Tamzin 0 to-read 3.54 2024 Sandwich
author: Catherine Newman
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/24
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]]> <![CDATA[A Boy Miner: Tales from the Australian Underground]]> 48717508 280 Brett J. Jenkins 0995408661 Tamzin 5
Merged review:

I loved reading this book, its well written, its relatable, its funny, insightful, thought provoking & a look into the world of underground mining and the fifo lifestyle that you know of but not to this detail. Other reviewers have said it better but for me all I could think was I want to run a bookshop so I can tell everyone to read this book!]]> 4.60 A Boy Miner: Tales from the Australian Underground
author: Brett J. Jenkins
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.60
book published:
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/09/22
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I loved reading this book, its well written, its relatable, its funny, insightful, thought provoking & a look into the world of underground mining and the fifo lifestyle that you know of but not to this detail. Other reviewers have said it better but for me all I could think was I want to run a bookshop so I can tell everyone to read this book!

Merged review:

I loved reading this book, its well written, its relatable, its funny, insightful, thought provoking & a look into the world of underground mining and the fifo lifestyle that you know of but not to this detail. Other reviewers have said it better but for me all I could think was I want to run a bookshop so I can tell everyone to read this book!
]]> Coleman Hill 129527470
In 1916, Celia Coleman and Lucy Grimes flee the racism and poverty of their homes in the post–Civil War South for the “Promised Land� of the North. But soon they learn that even in Vauxhall, New Jersey, black women are mainly hired for domestic work, money is scarce, children don’t progress in school, and black men die young. Within a few short years, both women’s husbands are dead. Left to navigate this unwelcoming place alone, Celia and Lucy turn to one another for support in raising their children far from home. They become one another’s closest confidantes and, encouraged by their mothers� friendship, their children’s lives become enmeshed as well. However, with this closeness comes complication. As the children grow into adolescence, two are caught in an impulsive act of impropriety, and Celia and Lucy find themselves at irreconcilable odds over who’s to blame. The ensuing fallout has dire consequences that reverberate through the next two generations of their families. A stunning biomythography—a word coined by the late great writer Audre Lorde� Coleman Hill draws from the author’s own family legend, historical record, and fervent imagination to create an unforgettable new history.]]> 320 Kim Coleman Foote 1638931143 Tamzin 0 to-read 3.77 2023 Coleman Hill
author: Kim Coleman Foote
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/20
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]]> The Ministry of Time 199798179 A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all: Welcome to The Ministry of Time, the exhilarating debut novel by Kaliane Bradley.

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats� from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.

She is tasked with working as a “bridge�: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as �1847� or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machines,� “Spotify,� and “the collapse of the British Empire.� But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts.

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future.

An exquisitely original and feverishly fun fusion of genres and ideas, The Ministry of Time asks: What does it mean to defy history, when history is living in your house? Kaliane Bradley’s answer is a blazing, unforgettable testament to what we owe each other in a changing world.]]> 339 Kaliane Bradley 1668045141 Tamzin 5 3.54 2024 The Ministry of Time
author: Kaliane Bradley
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/09/11
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Slow burn to start with a racey finish, loved it
]]> Slow Dance 198530925
They were just friends. Best friends. Allies. They spent entire summers sitting on Shiloh’s porch steps, dreaming about the future. They were both going to get out of north Omaha—Shiloh would go to college and become an actress, and Cary would join the Navy. They promised each other that their friendship would never change.

Well, Shiloh did go to college, and Cary did join the Navy. And yet, somehow, everything changed.

Now Shiloh’s thirty-three, and it’s been fourteen years since she talked to Cary. She’s been married and divorced. She has two kids. And she’s back living in the same house she grew up in. Her life is nothing like she planned.

When she’s invited to an old friend’s wedding, all Shiloh can think about is whether Cary will be there—and whether she hopes he will be. Would Cary even want to talk to her? After everything?

The answer is yes. And yes. And yes.

Slow Dance is the story of two kids who fell in love before they knew enough about love to recognize it. Two friends who lost everything. Two adults who just feel lost.

It’s the story of Shiloh and Cary, who everyone thought would end up together, trying to find their way back to the start.]]> 400 Rainbow Rowell 0063380196 Tamzin 0 to-read 3.63 2024 Slow Dance
author: Rainbow Rowell
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/24
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]]> The Fancies 62921028
A story about stories - those we tell, those we believe and those we make into a reality - whether they are true, murky or not true at all.

Port Kingerton: the insular cray-fishing town at the butt-end of South Australia, where everyone knows everyone. And everyone knows too that when Abigail Fancy left town at seventeen, she hung out the window of her boyfriend's Corolla, middle fingers held high, swearing she'd never come back. And she hasn't, until now.

At her parents' house Abigail finds a party (read: town meeting) in full swing over something iffy found on the beach - a thigh bone. And although iffy things aren't uncommon in Port Kingerton, Abigail's surprise arrival forces a family - and an entire town - to unpack a twenty-four-year-old secret that rocked this tiny place to its core: that time they found something much iffier ...

Through Abigail, her grandfather Old Dick Fancy's unreliable memories and the collective voices of the town itself, Port Kingerton unravels as old wounds are picked open, skeletons fall from closets and unlikely bonds are forged. But will Abigail finally change the past ...?

Fresh, punchy, expertly crafted and deliciously wry - the author of The Other Side of Beautiful returns with a tour de force of a small-town mystery where a homecoming lifts the veil on a time when a town failed to stand up for its girls.]]> 400 Kim Lock 1867251620 Tamzin 5 3.47 The Fancies
author: Kim Lock
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.47
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rating: 5
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date added: 2024/08/22
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]]> The Wedding People 198902277 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250899576.

A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help her start anew.

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan—which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.]]> 384 Alison Espach Tamzin 0 to-read 4.10 2024 The Wedding People
author: Alison Espach
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/13
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]]> Brown Girls 57717412
We live in the dregs of Queens, New York, where airplanes fly so low that we are certain they will crush us...

This remarkable story brings you deep into the lives of a group of friends--young women of color growing up in Queens, New York City's most vibrant and eclectic borough. Here, streets echo with languages from all over the globe, subways rumble above dollar stores, trees bloom and topple across sidewalks, and the briny scent of the ocean wafts from Rockaway Beach. Here, girls like Nadira, Gabby, Naz, Trish, Angelique, and many others, attempt to reconcile their immigrant backgrounds with the American culture they come of age in. Here, they become friends for life--or so they vow.

Exuberant and wild, they sing Mariah Carey at the tops of their lungs and roam the streets of The City That Never Sleeps, pine for crushes who pay them no mind--and break the hearts of those who do--all the while trying to heed their mothers' commands to be dutiful daughters, obedient young women. As they age, however, their paths diverge and rifts form between them, as some choose to remain on familiar streets, while others find themselves ascending in the world, drawn to the allure of other skylines, careers, and lovers, beckoned by existences foreign and seemingly at odds with their humble roots.

In musical, evocative prose, Brown Girls illustrates a collective portrait of childhood, motherhood, and beyond, and is an unflinching exploration of race, class, and marginalization in America. It is an account of the forces that bind friends to one another, their families, and communities, and is a powerful depiction of women of color attempting to forge their place in the world. For even as the dueling forces of ambition and loyalty, freedom and marriage, reinvention and stability threaten to divide them, it is to each other--and to Queens--that the girls ultimately return.]]> 209 Daphne Palasi Andreades 0593243420 Tamzin 0 to-read 3.90 2022 Brown Girls
author: Daphne Palasi Andreades
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> The Echoes 202908611 A story about the weight of the past and the promise of the future set between rural Australia and London - from the bestselling author of The Bass Rock

Max didn’t believe in an afterlife. Until he died. Now, as a reluctant ghost trying to work out why he remains, he watches his girlfriend Hannah lost in grief in the flat they shared and begins to realise how much of her life was invisible to him.

In the weeks and months before Max’s death, Hannah is haunted by the secrets she left Australia to escape. A relationship with Max seems to offer the potential of a different story, but the past refuses to stay hidden. It finds expression in the untold stories of the people she grew up with, the details of their lives she never knew and the events that broke her family apart and led her to Max.

Both a celebration and autopsy of a relationship, The Echoes is a novel about stories and who has the right to tell them, asking what of our past can we shrug off and what is fixed forever.]]> 304 Evie Wyld 1529926998 Tamzin 0 to-read 3.80 2024 The Echoes
author: Evie Wyld
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Pomegranate Soup (Babylon Café #1)]]> 513617
From the kitchen of an old pastry shop on Main Mall, the sisters set about creating a Persian oasis. Soon sensuous wafts of cardamom, cinnamon, and saffron float through the streets–an exotic aroma that announces the opening of the Babylon Café, and a shock to a town that generally subsists on boiled cabbage and Guinness served at the local tavern. And it is an affront to the senses of Ballinacroagh’s uncrowned king, Thomas McGuire. After trying to buy the old pastry shop for years and failing, Thomas is enraged to find it occupied–and by foreigners, no less.

But the mysterious, spicy fragrances work their magic on the townsfolk, and soon, business is booming. Marjan is thrilled with the demand for her red lentil soup, abgusht stew, and rosewater baklava–and with the transformation in her sisters. Young Layla finds first love, and even tense, haunted Bahar seems to be less nervous.

And in the stand-up-comedian-turned-priest Father Fergal Mahoney, the gentle, lonely widow Estelle Delmonico, and the headstrong hairdresser Fiona Athey, the sisters find a merry band of supporters against the close-minded opposition of less welcoming villagers stuck in their ways. But the idyll is soon broken when the past rushes back to threaten the Amnipours once more, and the lives they left behind in revolution-era Iran bleed into the present.

Infused with the textures and scents, trials and triumph,s of two distinct cultures, Pomegranate Soup is an infectious novel of magical realism. This richly detailed story, highlighted with delicious recipes, is a delectable journey into the heart of Persian cooking and Irish living.]]> 237 Marsha Mehran 0812972481 Tamzin 5 3.62 2005 Pomegranate Soup (Babylon Café #1)
author: Marsha Mehran
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/29
date added: 2024/07/29
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]]> The Stationery Shop 42201995
Then Mr. Fakhri, with a keen instinct for a budding romance, introduces Roya to his other favorite customer—handsome Bahman, who has a burning passion for justice and a love for Rumi’s poetry—and she loses her heart at once. Their romance blossoms, and the little stationery shop remains their favorite place in all of Tehran.

A few short months later, on the eve of their marriage, Roya agrees to meet Bahman at the town square when violence erupts—a result of the coup d’etat that forever changes their country’s future. In the chaos, Bahman never shows. For weeks, Roya tries desperately to contact him, but her efforts are fruitless. With a sorrowful heart, she moves on—to college in California, to another man, to a life in New England—until, more than sixty years later, an accident of fate leads her back to Bahman and offers her a chance to ask him the questions that have haunted her for more than half a century: Why did you leave? Where did you go? How is it that you were able to forget me?

A poignant, heartfelt new novel by the award-nominated author of Together Tea—extolled by the Wall Street Journal as a “moving tale of lost love� and by Shelf Awareness as “a powerful, heartbreaking story”—explores loss, reconciliation, and the quirks of fate.]]> 312 Marjan Kamali 1982107480 Tamzin 0 to-read 4.22 2019 The Stationery Shop
author: Marjan Kamali
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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]]> The Lion Women of Tehran 199235739 An “evocative read and a powerful portrait of friendship, feminism, and political activism� (People) set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran—from nationally bestselling author Marjan Kamali.

In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams for a friend to alleviate her isolation.

Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions of becoming “lion women.�

But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls� high school in Iran, Ellie’s memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie’s privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.

Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences.

“Reminiscent of The Kite Runner and My Brilliant Friend, The Lion Women of Tehran is a mesmerizing tale� (BookPage) of love and courage, and a sweeping exploration of how profoundly we are shaped by those we meet when we are young.]]> 10 Marjan Kamali 1797175343 Tamzin 0 to-read 4.50 2024 The Lion Women of Tehran
author: Marjan Kamali
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2024
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]]> Come and Get It 127482608
It's 2017 at the University of Arkansas. Millie Cousins, a senior resident assistant, wants to graduate, get a job, and buy a house. So when Agatha Paul, a visiting professor and writer, offers Millie an easy yet unusual opportunity, she jumps at the chance. But Millie's starry-eyed hustle becomes jeopardised by odd new friends, vengeful dorm pranks and illicit intrigue.

A fresh and intimate portrait of desire, consumption and reckless abandon, Come and Get It is a tension-filled story about money, indiscretion, and bad behavior.]]> 400 Kiley Reid 0593328205 Tamzin 0 to-read 3.32 2024 Come and Get It
author: Kiley Reid
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/10
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]]> <![CDATA[Because I'm Not Myself, You See: A Memoir of Motherhood, Madness and Coming Back From the Brink]]> 201090887 Ariane Beeston is a child protection worker and newly registered psychologist when she gives birth to her first child � and very quickly begins to experience scary breaks with reality. Out of fear and shame, she keeps her delusions and hallucinations secret, but as the months pass Ariane gets worse. Much worse. Finally admitted to a mother and baby psychiatric unit, the psychologist is forced to learn how to be the patient.


With medication, the support of her husband, psychotherapy and, ultimately, time, Ariane rebuilds herself. And she also begins a new chapter working in perinatal mental health, developing resources to support other new mothers.


Because I'm Not Myself, You See is a candid, often humorous memoir of motherhood and madness, interwoven with research and expert commentary. It's the story of the impossible pressures placed on new mothers and how quickly things can go wrong during 'the happiest time of your life'. It's also about life on the other side of serious illness, trying to make sense of what doesn't make sense, and finding humour, beauty and joy when things don't go according to plan.


‘Blistering, beautiful, true' �Susan Johnson, author of A Better Woman, From Where I Fell and Aphrodite's Breath


'Ariane Beeston's honesty, poetry and wisdom will save lives.' �Anna Spargo-Ryan, author of A Kind of Magic


'Both riveting and informative, this is an unflinching look at what it is like from inside postpartum psychosis.' —Anne Buist, Professor of Women's Mental Health, University of Melbourne, and co-author with Graeme Simsion of The Glass House


'A memoir like no other ... sing[s] with mordant humour on the page' —Geordie Williamson


'A beautifully written, raw and important memoir for anyone who has had a baby' —Daisy Turnbull]]> 331 Ariane Beeston 1743823568 Tamzin 0 to-read 4.49 Because I'm Not Myself, You See: A Memoir of Motherhood, Madness and Coming Back From the Brink
author: Ariane Beeston
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.49
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]]> Safe Haven 200481598 The new novel from the Miles Franklin award-winning author of Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens. It was a beautiful evening. The wind gathered speed, lifting the frangipanis from the grove behind him, pink and yellow petals defying gravity. Beyond the trees, hidden by the foliage androwsof toweringpalm trees, the detention centre slept fitfully in theheavy summer heat. Thepalmsblocked the oceangustthat nowswirledaround him, filling his lungs with thetasteoftemple flowersand salt. It reminded him of home. He took a deep breath, stepped off the escarpment and felt the red sand rush up towards him. After arriving in Australia seeking asylum, Fina dedicates herself to aiding the refugees held in a detention centre at Port Camden, a remote island outpost. Appalled by the mistreatment of those in custody, Fina speaks out to the media about the poor conditions within the facility, as a result she is arrested,taken from her home in the small country town of Hastings and threatened with deportation. When a security officer dies under suspicious circumstances, Lucky, a special investigator, arrives to uncover the truth. Her mystery is tied to Fina’s fate—and the secrets of the detention centre will divide the town and the nation.Safe Haven is about displacement and seeking refuge—but ultimately it is a story about finding home—and the lengths you’ll go to find safety and love.]]> 320 Shankari Chandran 1761151282 Tamzin 4 4.12 2024 Safe Haven
author: Shankari Chandran
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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]]> The Bell of The World 75719452
As Sarah’s world is nourished by music and poetry, Ferny’s life is marked by Such is Life, a book he has read and reread, so much so that the volume is falling apart. Its saviour is Jones the Bookbinder of Moolap, who performs a miraculous act. To shock and surprise, Jones interleaves Ferny’s volume with a book he bought from an American sailor, a once obscure tale of whales and the sea. In art as in life nature seems supreme. Ngangahook and its environs are threatened, however, when members of the community ask the Hutchinsons to help ‘make a savage landscape sacred� by financing the installation of a town bell. The fearless musician and her idealistic uncle refuse to buckle to local pressures, mounting their own defence of ‘the bell of the world�.

Gregory Day’s new novel embodies a cultural reckoning in a breathtakingly beautiful and lyrical way. The Bell of the World is both a song to the natural wonders that are not yet gone and a luminous prehistory of contemporary climate change and its connection to colonialism. It is a book immersed in the early to mid-twentieth century but written very much for the hearts of the future.]]> 416 Gregory Day 0648414086 Tamzin 0 to-read 3.69 2023 The Bell of The World
author: Gregory Day
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/02
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]]> Anam 123025358 look after the children? A love story? Or a ghost story � a mystery to be solved?

Moving from 1930s Hanoi through a series of never-ending wars and displacements to Saigon, Paris, Melbourne and Cambridge, Anam is a novel about memory and inheritance, colonialism and belonging, home and exile.

Anam blends fiction and essay, theory and everyday life to imagine that which has been repressed, left out, and forgotten. The grandson mines his family and personal stories to turn over ideas that resonate with all of us around place and home, legacy and expectation, ambition and sacrifice. As he sifts through letters, photographs, government documents and memories, he has his own family to think about: a partner and an infant daughter. Is there a way to remember the past that creates a future for them? Or does coming home always involve a certain amount of forgetting?]]> 352 Andre Dao 176014620X Tamzin 0 to-read 3.64 2023 Anam
author: Andre Dao
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> In Memoriam 59948520 A haunting, virtuosic debut novel about two young men who fall in love during a time of war.

It's 1914, and World War I is ceaselessly churning through thousands of young men on both sides of the fight. The violence of the front feels far away to Henry Gaunt, Sidney Ellwood and the rest of their classmates, safely ensconced in their idyllic boarding school in the English countryside. News of the heroic deaths of their friends only makes the war more exciting.

Gaunt, half German, is busy fighting his own private battle--an all-consuming infatuation with his best friend, the glamorous, charming Ellwood--without a clue that Ellwood is pining for him in return. When Gaunt's family asks him to enlist to forestall the anti-German sentiment they face, Gaunt does so immediately, relieved to escape his overwhelming feelings for Ellwood. To Gaunt's horror, Ellwood rushes to join him at the front, and the rest of their classmates soon follow. Now death surrounds them in all its grim reality, often inches away, and no one knows who will be next.

An epic tale of both the devastating tragedies of war and the forbidden romance that blooms in its grip, In Memoriam is a breathtaking debut.]]> 382 Alice Winn 0593534565 Tamzin 0 to-read 4.51 2023 In Memoriam
author: Alice Winn
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/23
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]]> Unfinished Woman: A Memoir 65214748
A spellbinding memoir exploring time and memory, home and belonging, from the internationally bestselling author of Tracks , “an unforgettably powerful book� (Cheryl Strayed).

In 1977, while she was in her twenties, Robyn Davidson set off with a dog and four camels to cross 1,700 miles of Australian desert to the sea.

A life of almost constant travelling followed-from the Outback to Sydney's underworld; from sixties street life, to the London literary scene; from migrating with nomads in India and Tibet, to marrying an Indian prince. The only territory she avoided was the past. In Unfinished Woman , she ventures into that unknown, unearthing an ache for a lost but barely remembered mother and an unmet desire to feel at home in her freedom.

Adventurous but guarded, fearless yet broken, Davidson how can we live with pain and uncertainty, to find beauty in the strangeness of being? Unfinished Woman is a stunning literary achievement, inviting readers in as a world-famous wandering spirit is, for the first time, laid truly bare.]]> 304 Robyn Davidson 1620401622 Tamzin 0 to-read 3.58 2023 Unfinished Woman: A Memoir
author: Robyn Davidson
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> The Slap 5396496
This event has a shocking ricochet effect on a group of people, mostly friends, who are directly or indirectly influenced by the slap.

In this remarkable novel, Christos Tsiolkas turns his unflinching and all-seeing eye onto that which connects us all: the modern family and domestic life in the twenty-first century. The Slap is told from the points of view of eight people who were present at the barbecue. The slap and its consequences force them all to question their own families and the way they live, their expectations, beliefs and desires.

What unfolds is a powerful, haunting novel about love, sex and marriage, parenting and children, and the fury and intensity - all the passions and conflicting beliefs - that family can arouse. In its clear-eyed and forensic dissection of the ever-growing middle class and its aspirations and fears, The Slap is also a poignant, provocative novel about the nature of commitment and happiness, compromise and truth.]]> 485 Christos Tsiolkas Tamzin 4 3.26 2008 The Slap
author: Christos Tsiolkas
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.26
book published: 2008
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/06/05
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]]> What About Men? 123028135
So, what about men? Why do they only go to the doctor if their wife or girlfriend makes them? Why do they never discuss their penises with each other - but make endless jokes about their balls? What is porn doing for young men? Is their fondness for super-skinny jeans leading to an epidemic of bad mental health? Are men allowed to be sad? Are men allowed to lose? Have Men's Rights Activists confused 'power' with 'empowerment'? And is Jordan B Peterson just your mum - but with some mad theory about a lobster?

In this book, Caitlin intends to answer all this and more - because if men haven't yet answered the question 'What About Men?', it's going to be down to a busy woman to do it.]]> 319 Caitlin Moran 1529191890 Tamzin 4 3.69 What About Men?
author: Caitlin Moran
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.69
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/05
date added: 2024/06/05
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]]> Stone Yard Devotional 168632462 A deeply moving novel about forgiveness, grief, and what it means to be 'good', from the award-winning author of The Natural Way of Things and The Weekend.

A woman abandons her city life and marriage to return to the place of her childhood, holing up in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of the Monaro. She does not believe in God, doesn't know what prayer is, and finds herself living this strange, reclusive life almost by accident.

As she gradually adjusts to the rhythms of monastic life, she finds herself turning again and again to thoughts of her mother, whose early death she can't forget. Disquiet interrupts this secluded life with three visitations. First comes a terrible mouse plague, each day signaling a new battle against the rising infestation. Second is the return of the skeletal remains of a sister who left the community decades before to minister to deprived women in Thailand - then disappeared, presumed murdered. Finally, a troubling visitor to the monastery pulls the narrator further back into her past.

With each of these disturbing arrivals, the woman faces some deep questions. Can a person be truly good? What is forgiveness? Is loss of hope a moral failure? And can the business of grief ever really be finished? A meditative and deeply moving novel from one of Australia's most acclaimed and best loved writers.

"Wood joins the ranks of writers such as Nora Ephron, Penelope Lively and Elizabeth Strout." THE GUARDIAN UK]]> 320 Charlotte Wood Tamzin 4 3.73 2023 Stone Yard Devotional
author: Charlotte Wood
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/05
date added: 2024/06/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell's Invisible Life]]> 62802741 This is the story of the marriage behind some of the most famous literary works of the 20thcentury —and a probing consideration of what it means to be a wife and a writer in the modern world

At the end of summer 2017, Anna Funder found herself at a moment of peak overload. Family obligations and household responsibilities were crushing her soul and taking her away from her writing deadlines. She needed help, and George Orwell came to her rescue.

"I’ve always loved Orwell," Funder writes, "his self-deprecating humour, his laser vision about how power works, and who it works on." So after rereading and savoring books Orwell had written, she devoured six major biographies tracing his life and work. But then she read about his forgotten wife, and it was a revelation.

Eileen O’Shaughnessy married Orwell in 1936. O’Shaughnessy was a writer herself, and her literary brilliance not only shaped Orwell’s work, but her practical common sense saved his life. But why and how, Funder wondered, was she written out of their story? Using newly discovered letters from Eileen to her best friend, Funder re-creates the Orwells� marriage, through the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War in London. As she peeks behind the curtain of Orwell’s private life she is led to question what it takes to be a writer—and what it is to be a wife.

A breathtakingly intimate view of one of the most important literary marriages of the twentieth century,Wifedomspeaks to our present moment as much as it illuminates the past. Genre-bending and utterly original, it is an ode to the unsung work of women everywhere.

]]> 464 Anna Funder 0593320689 Tamzin 5 4.08 2023 Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell's Invisible Life
author: Anna Funder
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/05
date added: 2024/06/05
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]]> Black Cake 57926137 We can’t choose what we inherit. But can we choose who we become?

In present-day California, Eleanor Bennett’s death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, and a voice recording. In her message, Eleanor shares a tumultuous story about a headstrong young swimmer who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder. The heartbreaking tale Eleanor unfolds, the secrets she still holds back, and the mystery of a long-lost child challenge everything the siblings thought they knew about their lineage and themselves.

Can Byron and Benny reclaim their once-close relationship, piece together Eleanor’s true history, and fulfill her final request to “share the black cake when the time is right�? Will their mother’s revelations bring them back together or leave them feeling more lost than ever?

Charmaine Wilkerson’s debut novel is a story of how the inheritance of betrayals, secrets, memories, and even names can shape relationships and history. Deeply evocative and beautifully written, Black Cake is an extraordinary journey through the life of a family changed forever by the choices of its matriarch.]]> 385 Charmaine Wilkerson Tamzin 5 4.06 2022 Black Cake
author: Charmaine Wilkerson
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2022
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/03/30
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]]> Salt River Road 185107859
Salt River Road is a poignant exploration of healing and resilience, small-town racism and the power of human connection.]]> 288 Molly Schmidt 1760992623 Tamzin 5 4.13 2023 Salt River Road
author: Molly Schmidt
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/30
date added: 2024/03/30
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]]> All That's Left Unsaid 59856071
Just let him go. These are the words Ky Tran will forever regret. The words she spoke when her parents called to ask if they should let her younger brother Denny out to celebrate his high school graduation with friends. That night, Denny—optimistic, guileless, brilliant Denny—is brutally murdered inside a busy restaurant in the Sydney suburb of Cabramatta, a refugee enclave facing violent crime, an indifferent police force, and the worst heroin epidemic in Australian history.

Returning home to Cabramatta for the funeral, Ky learns that the police are stumped by Denny’s case: a dozen people were at Lucky 8 restaurant when Denny died, but each of the bystanders claim to have seen nothing.

Desperately hoping that understanding what happened might ease her suffocating guilt, Ky sets aside her grief and determines to track down the witnesses herself. With each encounter, she peels back another layer of the place that shaped her and Denny, exposing trauma and seeds of violence that were planted well before that fateful celebration dinner: by colonialism, by the war in Vietnam, and by the choices they’ve all made to survive.

Alternating between Ky’s voice and the perspectives of the witnesses, Tracey Lien’s extraordinary debut is at once heart-pounding and heart-rending as it probes the intricate bonds of friendship, family, and community through an unforgettable cast of characters, all connected by a devastating crime. Combining evocative family drama and gripping suspense, All That’s Left Unsaid is a profound and moving page turner, perfect for readers of Liz Moore, Brit Bennett, and Celeste Ng.]]> 304 Tracey Lien 0063227738 Tamzin 0 to-read 3.93 2022 All That's Left Unsaid
author: Tracey Lien
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/22
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]]> Emergency Exit Only 171090631 352 Michelle Upton 1460764315 Tamzin 0 to-read 3.85 2023 Emergency Exit Only
author: Michelle Upton
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> Look Me in the Eye 199359138 running late
drop it off without me
I type drop what off? I don't know what Mish is talking about.
While I'm typing, another message appears. don't tell bella
But I am Bella.

Best friends Bella and Connie live on the outskirts of the city in an area that was once full of open fields and paddocks but is changing as the suburbs creep closer. And now there is Mish, Connie's cousin, who has to be included even though she is unfriendly and unpredictable. The pandemic lockdowns have lifted and the three teens are eager to explore their newfound independence. But with the world opening up, there has been a rise in surveillance, from apps that track their movements to voice recorders and hidden cameras. It feels like everyone is watching them. But when does 'watching' become 'watching over'?

Do we have a right to know everything about those we love? Look Me in the Eye is a gripping tale of young teens navigating freedom and trust-building, privacy and secrets, in an era of parental surveillance.

'An important novel that rings true to life' BOOKS+PUBLISHING

'Captivating . . . Readers from middle school age to adults will find this story engaging and enlightening' READPLUS

Praise for Jane Godwin's
'Fantastically tense in places, A Walk in the Dark is a great read for all kids ages 11 plus' Readings
'Refreshingly unpredictable, bold and refuses to minimise the complex lives of [its] characters' Saturday Age
'This book is a joy to read' CBCA Judges' report on When Rain Turns to Snow
'Quality storytelling . . . gripping' The Australian Women's Weekly ]]> 208 Jane Godwin 0734420803 Tamzin 0 to-read 3.79 2024 Look Me in the Eye
author: Jane Godwin
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/03/15
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]]> Shrines of Gaiety 60371805
The notorious queen of this glittering world is Nellie Coker, ruthless but also ambitious to advance her six children, including the enigmatic eldest, Niven, whose character has been forged in the crucible of the Somme. But success breeds enemies, and Nellie’s empire faces threats from without and within. For beneath the dazzle of Soho’s gaiety, there is a dark underbelly, a world in which it is all too easy to become lost.

With her unique Dickensian flair, Kate Atkinson gives us a window in a vanished world. Slyly funny, brilliantly observant, and ingeniously plotted, Shrines of Gaiety showcases the myriad talents that have made Atkinson one of the most lauded writers of our time.]]> 439 Kate Atkinson 0385547978 Tamzin 3 3.78 2022 Shrines of Gaiety
author: Kate Atkinson
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/15
date added: 2024/03/15
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]]> <![CDATA[The Heart Goes Last (Positron, #4)]]> 17973071 Positron, her darkly comic Byliner Serial about life in a Big Brother America of the near future.

In the seemingly well-adjusted world of Consilience, it's dawning on the residents that they've thrown away the keys to more than their ragged former lives outside the high walls of their gated community. When they volunteered for this new social experiment, they also gave away the keys to their destinies, even their hearts.

Ask Charmaine and she'll tell you her husband is a dead man. Sure, marriage can be murder, but when Charmaine plunged a deadly hypodermic needle into Stan, because it was part of her job--dispatching undesirables in Positron Prison--Stan survived. His former jailer, a libidinous security chief named Jocelyn, had switched out the death drugs for knockout drugs and drafted him into a plot to undo the increasingly sinister social scheme. In so doing, she promoted him from her sexual plaything to full-blown subversive. The underground is housed in a manufacturing plant of one of Consilience's most successful products: sexbots, made to order.

Love, however, is not made to order, and despite a Darwinian labyrinth of betrayal after betrayal, including wild extramarital encounters and, yes, murder, Stan can't stop thinking about Charmaine. Not only because someone has requested a sexbot replica of her but because, well, she's home in a world without homes. In The Heart Goes Last, one of Atwood's darkest and most deviously entertaining inventions yet, the human heart proves more resilient and true than any mail-order machine.]]> 56 Margaret Atwood 161452081X Tamzin 5 3.69 2015 The Heart Goes Last (Positron, #4)
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2015
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/02/27
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So good, this was a Christmas gift that was done with by NYE, I inhaled it, and then wished I had let it carry out a bit longer in to my holidays! A little bit sci-fi / futuristic but more like 1984 than anything too abstract. This is the first I have read of this author so I have nothing compare it too but I will be looking for more as I really enjoyed her writing style.
]]> <![CDATA[Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #1)]]> 44421460 What would you change if you could go back in time?

In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.

In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer's, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.

But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .

Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful, moving story explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?]]> 213 Toshikazu Kawaguchi 1529029589 Tamzin 5 3.66 2015 Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #1)
author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2015
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/01/31
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]]> The In-Between 195436024 The tender, sensual and moving new novel from the award-winning and bestselling author of The Slap and Damascus. A compelling contemporary love story between two middle-aged men, told with grace, heart and wisdom.

No life is simple, and no life is without sorrow. No life is perfect.

Two middle-aged men meet on an internet date. Each has been scarred by a previous relationship; each has his own compelling reasons for giving up on the idea of finding love.

But still they both turn up for the dinner, feel the spark and the possibility of something more.Feel the fear of failing again, of being hurt and humiliated and further annihilated by love.

How can they take the risk of falling in love again. How can they not?

A tender, affecting novel of love, of hope, of forgiveness by one of our most fearless and truthful interpreters of the human heart, the acclaimed bestselling author of�The Slap aԻ�Damascus.

Praise for Christos

'I've admired the risk and power of all his novels, but this might be the riskiest of all—so personal, so delicate and true—and I love it.' � Charlotte Wood on 7 1/2

'A scorching, mythic work with a heart of the sweetest intimacy.'� Helen Garner on 7 1/2

'The audacity of Tsiolkas is still a thrill. And, dare one say it, necessary.' � Nigel Featherstone on 7 1/2

'Tsiolkas has proved himself a heroic writer, ready to enter the fray and wrestle with intractable moral and political questions. A powerful parable of our times.' � The Saturday Paper on Damascus

'Every time I was 10 pages in a new book, I thought, "It's not Damascus", and put it aside for another day . . .' � Stephen Romei, Weekend Australian on Damascus

'I finished Barracuda on a moved, elated, immersed . . . This is the work of a superb writer who has completely mastered his craft but lost nothing of his fiery spirit in so doing. It is a big achievement.' � The Guardian

'Once in a while a novel comes along that reminds me why I love to The Slap is such a book . . . Tsiolkas throws open the window on society, picks apart its flaws, embraces its contradictions and recognises its beauty, all the time asking the reader, Whose side are you on? Honestly, one of the three or four truly great novels of the new millennium.' � John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

'The Slap is nothing short of a tour de force, and it confirms Christos Tsiolkas's reputation as one of the most significant contemporary storytellers at work today . . . Here is a novel of immense power and scope.' � Colm Tóibín, author of Brooklyn]]> 400 Christos Tsiolkas 1761188003 Tamzin 4 3.65 2023 The In-Between
author: Christos Tsiolkas
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2023
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Lenny Marks Gets Away with Murder]]> 195790841 Lenny Marks is excellent at not having a life.

She bikes home from work at exactly 4pm each day, buys the same groceries for the same meals every week, and owns thirty-six copies of The Hobbit (currently arranged by height). The closest thing she has to a friendship is playing Scrabble against an imaginary Monica Gellar while watching Friends reruns.

And Lenny Marks is very, very good at not remembering what happened the day her mother and stepfather disappeared when she was still a child. The day a voice in the back of her mind started whispering, You did this.

Until a letter from the parole board arrives in the mail—and when her desperate attempts to ignore it fail, Lenny starts to unravel. As long-buried memories come to the surface, Lenny’s careful routines fall apart. For the first time, she finds herself forced to connect with the community around her, and unexpected new relationships begin to bloom. Lenny Marks may finally get a life—but what if her past catches up to her first?

Equal parts heartbreaking and heartwarming, Kerryn Mayne’s stunning debut is an irresistible novel about truth, secrets, vengeance, and family lost and found, with a heroine who's simply unforgettable.]]> 352 Kerryn Mayne 1250340101 Tamzin 0 to-read 3.92 2023 Lenny Marks Gets Away with Murder
author: Kerryn Mayne
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/31
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]]> The Nostalgia Detective 198814928 211 Brett J. Jenkins 0645935417 Tamzin 5 4.92 The Nostalgia Detective
author: Brett J. Jenkins
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.92
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/22
date added: 2023/12/22
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Plot driven & wonderful thought provoking observations from the protagonist as a 40 something working parent, very enjoyable & relatable.
]]> My Evil Mother 60497502 32 Margaret Atwood 1662504497 Tamzin 0 to-read 3.88 2022 My Evil Mother
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/22
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]]> The Work 201628532
A stunning debut novel about art, power, love and money from the acclaimed and bestselling author of Eggshell Skull.'This novel isn't just good; it's superb. Assured, and powerful, and intelligent, and very, VERY hard to put down. I consumed it in a passion.' � Annabel Crabb'Smart, witty and super steamy, The Work oozes intelligence and pulses with energy. I devoured it!' � Emily Maguire'A completely exhilarating, powerful, mesmerising novel, filled with ALL my favourite sex, art and New York City.' � Jessie Tu'A glamorous and dirty capitalist fever dream � complex, opulent and horny.' � Ella Baxter'Caoilinn Hughes' The Orchid and the Wasp meets Andrew Lipstein's Last Resort. A smart, sexy page-turner.' � Madeleine Gray'Work, power, passion, intimacy and vulnerabilities collide, and best of all, SMUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!' � Flex Mami'A brilliant meditation on the gap between the person we wish to be and who we actually are. I was completely gripped.' � Bridie Jabour'An ambitious and meticulously modern fable about art, sex, money, power and the perils of self-curation.' � Gina Rushton'Pacy, racy and high-octane, The Work delves into the volatile world of contemporary art, forcefully exposing it as a bedfellow to the world of high finance.' � Caoilinn Hughes]]> 386 Bri Lee 176106939X Tamzin 0 to-read 3.32 2024 The Work
author: Bri Lee
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/22
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]]> <![CDATA[How to Build a Girl (How to Build a Girl, #1)]]> 20525628
What do you do in your teenage years when you realize what your parents taught you wasn’t enough? You must go out and find books and poetry and pop songs and bad heroes—and build yourself.

It’s 1990. Johanna Morrigan, fourteen, has shamed herself so badly on local TV that she decides that there’s no point in being Johanna anymore and reinvents herself as Dolly Wilde—fast-talking, hard-drinking Gothic hero and full-time Lady Sex Adventurer. She will save her poverty-stricken Bohemian family by becoming a writer—like Jo in Little Women, or the Bröntes—but without the dying young bit.

By sixteen, she’s smoking cigarettes, getting drunk and working for a music paper. She’s writing pornographic letters to rock-stars, having all the kinds of sex with all kinds of men, and eviscerating bands in reviews of 600 words or less.

But what happens when Johanna realizes she’s built Dolly with a fatal flaw? Is a box full of records, a wall full of posters, and a head full of paperbacks, enough to build a girl after all?

Imagine The Bell Jar written by Rizzo from Grease. How to Build a Girl is a funny, poignant, and heartbreakingly evocative story of self-discovery and invention, as only Caitlin Moran could tell it.]]> 368 Caitlin Moran Tamzin 0 to-read 3.71 2014 How to Build a Girl (How to Build a Girl, #1)
author: Caitlin Moran
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/12
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]]> <![CDATA[How to be Famous (How to Build a Girl, #2)]]> 35068933 How to Build a Girl, the breakout novel from feminist sensation Caitlin Moranwho the New York Times called, "rowdy and fearless . . . sloppy, big-hearted and alive in all the right ways."

You can’t have your best friend be famous if you’re not famous. It doesn’t work. You’re emotional pen-friends. You can send each other letters—but you’re not doing anything together. You live in different countries.

Johanna Morrigan (AKA Dolly Wilde) has it all: at eighteen, she lives in her own flat in London and writes for the coolest music magazine in Britain. But Johanna is miserable. Her best friend and man of her dreams John Kite has just made it big in 1994’s hot new BritPop scene. Suddenly John exists on another plane of reality: that of the Famouses.

Never one to sit on the sidelines, Johanna hatches a plan: she will Saint Paul his Corinthians, she will Jimmy his Pinocchio—she will write a monthly column, by way of a manual to the famous, analyzing fame, its power, its dangers, and its amusing aspects. In stories, girls never win the girl—they are won. Well, Johanna will re-write the stories, and win John, through her writing.

But as Johanna’s own star rises, an unpleasant one-night stand she had with a stand-up comedian, Jerry Sharp, comes back to haunt in her in a series of unfortunate consequences. How can a girl deal with public sexual shaming? Especially when her new friend, the up-and-coming feminist rock icon Suzanne Banks, is Jimmy Cricketing her?

For anyone who has been a girl or known one, who has admired fame or judged it, and above all anyone who loves to laugh till their sides ache, How to Be Famous is a big-hearted, hilarious tale of fame and fortune-and all they entail.]]> 368 Caitlin Moran 1443448524 Tamzin 0 4.00 2018 How to be Famous (How to Build a Girl, #2)
author: Caitlin Moran
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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]]> How to Be a Woman 10600242 312 Caitlin Moran 0091940737 Tamzin 0 3.71 2011 How to Be a Woman
author: Caitlin Moran
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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]]> Fleishman Is in Trouble 41880602
But Toby's new life � liver specialist by day, kids every other weekend, rabid somewhat anonymous sex at night � is interrupted when his ex-wife suddenly disappears. Either on a vision quest or a nervous breakdown, Toby doesn't know � she won't answer his texts or calls.

Is Toby's ex just angry, like always? Is she punishing him, yet again, for not being the bread winner she was? As he desperately searches for her while juggling his job and parenting their two unraveling children, Toby is forced to reckon with the real reasons his marriage fell apart, and to ask if the story he has been telling himself all this time is true.]]> 373 Taffy Brodesser-Akner 0525510877 Tamzin 5 3.61 2019 Fleishman Is in Trouble
author: Taffy Brodesser-Akner
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/12
date added: 2023/12/12
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]]> Everyone and Everything 175729372
When Yael Silver’s world comes crashing down, she looks to the past for answers and finds solace in surprising places. An unconventional new friendship, a seaside safe space and an unsettling amount of dairy help her to heal, as she wrestles with her demons � and some truly terrible erotic literature.

Funny and tender, Everyone and Everything is about friendship, grief and the deep, frustrating bond between sisters. It asks what makes us who we are and what leads us onto ledges. Perfect for fans of Sorrow and Bliss, Nora Ephron and Victoria Hannan, this is an intimate, wry and wise exploration of one woman’s journey to the brink and back.]]> 308 Nadine J. Cohen 0645757802 Tamzin 4 4.27 2023 Everyone and Everything
author: Nadine J. Cohen
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/12
date added: 2023/12/12
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]]> I Have Some Questions for You 61053829
But when the Granby School invites her back to teach a course, Bodie is inexorably drawn to the case and its increasingly apparent flaws. In their rush to convict Omar, did the school and the police overlook other suspects? Is the real killer still out there? As she falls down the very rabbit hole she was so determined to avoid, Bodie begins to wonder if she wasn't as much of an outsider at Granby as she'd thought—if, perhaps, back in 1995, she knew something that might have held the key to solving the case.]]> 438 Rebecca Makkai 0593490142 Tamzin 0 to-read 3.57 2023 I Have Some Questions for You
author: Rebecca Makkai
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/11
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]]> Year of Wonders 4965
Through Anna's eyes we follow the story of the fateful year of 1666, as she and her fellow villagers confront the spread of disease and superstition.

As death reaches into every household and villagers turn from prayers to murderous witch-hunting, Anna must find the strength to confront the disintegration of her community and the lure of illicit love.

As she struggles to survive and grow, a year of catastrophe becomes instead annus mirabilis, a "year of wonders."

Inspired by the true story of Eyam, a village in the rugged hill country of England, Year of Wonders is a richly detailed evocation of a singular moment in history. ]]> 304 Geraldine Brooks 0142001430 Tamzin 4 4.00 2001 Year of Wonders
author: Geraldine Brooks
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2001
rating: 4
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date added: 2023/11/11
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]]> Good Material 96177629
Now he is. . .

Without a home

Waiting for his stand-up career to take off

Wondering why everyone else around him seems to have grown up while he wasn't looking

Set adrift on the sea of heartbreak, Andy clings to the idea of solving the puzzle of his ruined relationship. Because if he can find the answer to that, then maybe Jen can find her way back to him. But Andy still has a lot to learn, not least his ex-girlfriend's side of the story�

In this sharply funny and exquisitely relatable story of romantic disaster and friendship, Dolly Alderton offers up a love story with two endings, demonstrating once again why she is one of the most exciting writers today, and the true voice of a generation.]]> 345 Dolly Alderton 0241523672 Tamzin 0 to-read 3.85 2023 Good Material
author: Dolly Alderton
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/10
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]]> Tom Lake 63241104 In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America’s finest writers.

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.]]> 309 Ann Patchett 006332752X Tamzin 5 3.92 2023 Tom Lake
author: Ann Patchett
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/11/09
date added: 2023/11/09
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I really really loved this book, it’s something for everyone, cleverly written with the movement between past & present, and the audio narrated by Meryl Streep is sublime
]]> Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens 58894458
Cinnamon Gardens Nursing Home is nestled in the quiet suburb of Westgrove, Sydney � populated with residents with colourful histories, each with their own secrets, triumphs and failings. This is their safe place, an oasis of familiar delights � a beautiful garden, a busy kitchen and a bountiful recreation schedule.

But this ordinary neighbourhood is not without its prejudices. The serenity of Cinnamon Gardens is threatened by malignant forces more interested in what makes this refuge different rather than embracing the calm companionship that makes this place home to so many. As those who challenge the residents� existence make their stand against the nursing home with devastating consequences, our characters are forced to reckon with a country divided.

Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens is about family and memory, community and race, but is ultimately a love letter to story-telling and how our stories shape who we are.]]> 384 Shankari Chandran 1761150316 Tamzin 5 4.15 2022 Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens
author: Shankari Chandran
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/11/09
date added: 2023/11/09
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]]> Green Dot 127282597
At twenty-four, Hera is a clump of unmet potential. To her, the future is nothing but an exhausting thought exercise, one depressing hypothetical after another. She’s sharp in more ways than one, adrift in her own smug malaise, until her new job moderating the comments section of an online news outlet—a role even more mind-numbing than it sounds—introduces her to Arthur, a middle-aged journalist. Though she's preferred women to men for years now, she soon finds herself falling into an all-consuming affair with him. She is coming apart with want and loving every second of it! Well, except for the tiny hiccup that Arthur has a wife—and that she has no idea Hera exists.

With its daringly specific and intimate voice, Green Dot is a darkly hilarious and deeply felt examination of the joys and indignities of coming into adulthood against the pitfalls of the twenty-first century and the winding, tortuous, and often very funny journey we take in deciding who we are and who we want to be.]]> 320 Madeleine Gray 1250890594 Tamzin 0 to-read 3.61 2024 Green Dot
author: Madeleine Gray
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/09
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]]> The Bee Sting 62039166 From the author of Skippy Dies comes Paul Murray's The Bee Sting, an irresistibly funny, wise, and thought-provoking tour de force about family, fortune, and the struggle to be a good person when the world is falling apart.

The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under―but rather than face the music, he’s spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife Imelda is selling off her jewelry on eBay, while their teenage daughter Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge-drink her way through her final exams. And twelve-year-old PJ is putting the final touches to his grand plan to run away from home.

Where did it all go wrong? A patch of ice on the tarmac, a casual favor to a charming stranger, a bee caught beneath a bridal veil―can a single moment of bad luck change the direction of a life? And if the story has already been written―is there still time to find a happy ending?]]> 645 Paul Murray 0374600309 Tamzin 0 to-read 3.92 2023 The Bee Sting
author: Paul Murray
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/04
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]]> The Measure 58884736
"A story of love and hope as interweaving characters display: how all moments, big and small, can measure a life. If you want joy, love, romance, and hope—read with us." —Jenna Bush Hager
A luminous, spirit-lifting blockbuster that asks: would you choose to find out the length of your life?

Eight ordinary people. One extraordinary choice.

It seems like any other day. You wake up, drink a cup of coffee, and head out.

But today, when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. The contents of this mysterious box tells you the exact number of years you will live.

From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box. In an instant, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy. Where did these boxes come from? What do they mean? Is there truth to what they promise?

As society comes together and pulls apart, everyone faces the same shocking choice: Do they wish to know how long they’ll live? And, if so, what will they do with that knowledge?

The Measure charts the dawn of this new world through an unforgettable cast of characters whose decisions and fates interweave with one another: best friends whose dreams are forever entwined, pen pals finding refuge in the unknown, a couple who thought they didn’t have to rush, a doctor who cannot save himself, and a politician whose box becomes the powder keg that ultimately changes everything.

Enchanting and deeply uplifting, The Measure is an ambitious, invigorating story about family, friendship, hope, and destiny that encourages us to live life to the fullest.]]> 353 Nikki Erlick 0063204207 Tamzin 0 to-read 3.96 2022 The Measure
author: Nikki Erlick
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/03
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]]> Lola in the Mirror 167582092
'Mirror, mirror, on the grass, what's my future? What's my past?' A girl and her mother are on the lam. They've been running for sixteen years, from police and the monster they left in the kitchen with the knife in his throat. They've found themselves a home inside an orange 1987 Toyota HiAce van with four flat tyres parked in a scrapyard by the edge of the Brisbane River � just two of the 100,000 Australians sleeping rough every night. The girl has no name because names are dangerous when you're on the run. But the girl has a dream. Visions in black ink and living colour. A vision of a life as a groundbreaking artist of international acclaim. A life outside the grip of the Brisbane underworld drug queen 'Lady' Flora Box. A life of love with the boy in the brown suit who's waiting for her in the middle of the bridge that stretches across a flooding and deadly river. A life far beyond the bullet that has her name on it. And now that the storm clouds are rising, there's only one person who can help make her dreams come true. That person's name is Lola and she carries all the answers. But to find Lola, the girl with no name must first do one of the hardest things we can sometimes ever do. She must look in the mirror. A big, moving, blackly funny, violent, heartbreaking and beautiful novel of love, fate, life and death and all the things we see when we look in the mirror. All of the past, all of the present, and all of our possible futures. 'Mirror, mirror, please don't lie. Tell me who you are. Tell me who am I.']]> 512 Trent Dalton 146071332X Tamzin 5 Brilliance 4.37 2023 Lola in the Mirror
author: Trent Dalton
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2023
rating: 5
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date added: 2023/10/19
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Brilliance
]]> Challenge Accepted! 39726937 288 Celeste Barber 146071086X Tamzin 3 3.75 2018 Challenge Accepted!
author: Celeste Barber
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2018
rating: 3
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date added: 2023/10/06
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]]> <![CDATA[The Other Half of Augusta Hope]]> 42817130 Augusta Hope has never felt like she fits in.

At six, she’s memorising the dictionary. At seven, she’s correcting her teachers. At eight, she spins the globe and picks her favourite country on the sound of its name: Burundi.

And now that she's an adult, Augusta has no interest in the goings-on of the small town where she lives with her parents and her beloved twin sister, Julia.

When an unspeakable tragedy upends everything in Augusta's life, she's propelled headfirst into the unknown. She's determined to find where she belongs � but what if her true home, and heart, are half a world away?

]]> 384 Joanna Glen 0008314152 Tamzin 5 3.99 2019 The Other Half of Augusta Hope
author: Joanna Glen
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2019
rating: 5
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date added: 2023/10/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Something Bad is Going to Happen]]> 174916084 297 Jessie Stephens Tamzin 5 3.81 2023 Something Bad is Going to Happen
author: Jessie Stephens
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2023
rating: 5
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date added: 2023/09/19
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]]> Rules of Civility 10054335 335 Amor Towles Tamzin 5 4.06 2011 Rules of Civility
author: Amor Towles
name: Tamzin
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2023/09/19
date added: 2023/09/19
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]]> Lioness 63227455
From humble beginnings, Therese has let herself grow used to a life of luxury after marrying into an empire-building family. But when rumours of corruption gather around her husband's latest development, the social opprobrium is shocking, the fallout swift, and Therese begins to look at her privileged and insular world with new eyes.

In the flat below Therese, something else is brewing. Her neighbour Claire believes she's discovered the secret to living with freedom and authenticity, freeing herself from the mundanity of domesticity. Therese finds herself enchanted by the lure of the permissive zone Claire creates in her apartment - a place of ecstatic release.

All too quickly, Therese is forced to confront herself and her choices - just how did she become this person? And what exactly should she do about it? ]]> 352 Emily Perkins 1526660660 Tamzin 4 3.35 2023 Lioness
author: Emily Perkins
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/19
date added: 2023/09/19
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]]> The Fraud 66086834 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780525558965.

From acclaimed and bestselling novelist Zadie Smith, a kaleidoscopic work of historical fiction set against the legal trial that divided Victorian England, about who gets to tell their story—and who gets to be believed.

It is 1873. Mrs. Eliza Touchet is the Scottish housekeeper—and cousin by marriage—of a once-famous novelist, now in decline, William Ainsworth, with whom she has lived for thirty years.

Mrs. Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her cousin, his wives, this life and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects her cousin of having no talent; his successful friend, Mr. Charles Dickens, of being a bully and a moralist; and England of being a land of facades, in which nothing is quite what it seems.

Andrew Bogle, meanwhile, grew up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica. He knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. That the rich deceive the poor. And that people are more easily manipulated than they realize. When Bogle finds himself in London, star witness in a celebrated case of imposture, he knows his future depends on telling the right story.

The “Tichborne Trial”—wherein a lower-class butcher from Australia claimed he was in fact the rightful heir of a sizable estate and title—captivates Mrs. Touchet and all of England. Is Sir Roger Tichborne really who he says he is? Or is he a fraud? Mrs. Touchet is a woman of the world. Mr. Bogle is no fool. But in a world of hypocrisy and self-deception, deciding what is real proves a complicated task. . . .

Based on real historical events, The Fraud is a dazzling novel about truth and fiction, Jamaica and Britain, fraudulence and authenticity and the mystery of “other people.”]]> 464 Zadie Smith Tamzin 0 to-read 3.25 2023 The Fraud
author: Zadie Smith
name: Tamzin
average rating: 3.25
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/15
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]]>