Preview :: September 2020

I feel like there are soooooooo many hotly anticipated books coming out this month, so I thought I’d share a little sneak peek at the ones I’ve go on my tbr. As well as all the lovely books in this stack, I’m also lucky enough to have Jane Harper’s upcoming new novel loaded onto my Kindle, so I’ve included that one too. All of the books in this post were sent to me for free by their publishers.

The Silver Arrow by Lev Grossman (Bloomsbury)
On Goodreads.

Kate wasn’t expecting much when she wrote to her wealthy estranged uncle to ask for a birthday present. Certainly she wasn’t expecting a colossal steam train called the Silver Arrow to arrive on her doorstep.
Despite parental misgivings, curiosity overwhelms Kate and her brother Tom and they climb aboard, only for the train’s engine to roar into life. Soon they reach a train station where an assortment of strange and beautiful creatures are waiting with tickets in their mouths, and Kate and Tom begin to understand that their job will be to see them safely home – if they can.

The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stocker by Lauren James (Walker Books)
On Goodreads.

What if death is only the beginning? When Harriet Stoker dies falling from a balcony in a long-abandoned building, she discovers a world of ghosts with magical powers – shape-shifting, hypnosis, or even the ability to possess the living. As she learns more about their community, Harriet is willing to do anything to unleash her own power, even if it means destroying everyone around her. But when all of eternity is at stake, the afterlife can be a dangerous place to make an enemy. Because who knows what grudges people have been holding onto for millennia, just waiting for a reckless girl to give them the chance to get vengeance.

Piranesi by Susannah Clarke (Bloomsbury)
On Goodreads.

Piranesi lives in the House.
Perhaps he always has.
In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides that thunder up staircases, the clouds that move in slow procession through the upper halls.
On Tuesdays and Fridays Piranesi sees his friend, the Other. At other times he brings tributes of food and waterlilies to the Dead. But mostly, he is alone.
Messages begin to appear, scratched out in chalk on the pavements. There is someone new in the House. But who are they and
what do they want? Are they a friend or do they bring destruction and madness as the Other claims?
Lost texts must be found; secrets must be uncovered. The world that Piranesi thought he knew is becoming strange and dangerous.

Lonely in Longreach by Eva Scott (Harper Collins/Mira)
On Goodreads.

Widower Sam Costello has no time for love. When he’s not working on his farm, he’s trying to figure out how to connect with his teenage son Levi.
But Levi is about to finish high school, and he has big plans to move to Sydney for university with his best friend Maddie. If only he didn’t feel so guilty about abandoning his dad. Maddie has her own reasons for wanting to go to Sydney and she’s not going to let Levi’s dad ruin her future happiness. Mr Costello needs a girlfriend and, with her talent for matchmaking, Maddie is the girl to make it happen. By the time Mr C figures out what she’s done, surely he’ll be too in love to be angry.
Journalist Sarah Lewis has a good job, a nice boyfriend and a safe life in Sydney. Though sometimes she wonders if life has more to offer than nice and safe. When she starts working on an article about finding love in the outback she finds herself asking whether journalists should become this invested in their research. But there’s just something about Lonely in Longreach. Could it be that the man behind the dating profile is the key to the passion she has been looking for?

The Good Teacher by Petronella McGovern (Allen & Unwin)
On Goodreads.

A good teacher can change lives…
Every evening, Allison watches her husband’s new house, desperate to find some answers. Every morning, she puts on a brave face to teach kindergarten. She’s a good teacher, everyone says so – this stalking is just a tiny crack in her usual self-control.
A late enrolment into her class brings little Gracie. Allison takes the sick girl under her wing, smothering Gracie with the love she can’t give her own son. When Gracie has a chance to go to America for treatment, Allison whips up the community into a frenzied fundraising drive.
But as others start to question her judgement and the police arrive at her door, Allison wonders if she can trust herself. Has she crossed a line?
How far will the good teacher go to save a life? And whose life will that be?

The Women’s Pages by Victoria Purman (Harper Collins/HQ Fiction)
On Goodreads.

Sydney 1945 The war is over, the fight begins.
The war is over and so are the jobs (and freedoms) of tens of thousands of Australian women. The armaments factories are making washing machines instead of bullets and war correspondent Tilly Galloway has hung up her uniform and been forced to work on the women’s pages of her newspaper – the only job available to her – where she struggles to write advice on fashion and make-up.
As Sydney swells with returning servicemen and the city bustles back to post-war life, Tilly finds her world is anything but normal. As she desperately waits for word of her prisoner-of-war husband, she begins to research stories about the lives of the underpaid and overworked women who live in her own city. Those whose war service has been overlooked; the freedom and independence of their war lives lost to them.
Meanwhile Tilly’s waterside worker father is on strike, and her best friend Mary is struggling to cope with the stranger her own husband has become since being liberated from Changi a broken man. As strikes rip the country apart and the news from abroad causes despair, matters build to a heart-rending crescendo. Tilly realises that for her the war may have ended, but the fight is just beginning…

The Survivors by Jane Harper (Pan Macmillan)
On Goodreads.

Kieran Elliott’s life changed forever on the day a reckless mistake led to devastating consequences.
The guilt that still haunts him resurfaces during a visit with his young family to the small coastal community he once called home.
Kieran’s parents are struggling in a town where fortunes are forged by the sea. Between them all is his absent brother, Finn.
When a body is discovered on the beach, long-held secrets threaten to emerge. A sunken wreck, a missing girl, and questions that have never washed away…

These are just a few of the books on my tbr shelf at the moment – I’m looking forward to reading them and sharing my thoughts here!

xo Bron