Summer Reading 4 – General Fiction

If you’d like to read something that inspires and enlightens you, then these titles will be of interest to you. Picked up one of these suggested titles. All are new arrivals to the Parramatta City Library and are great reads for all book lovers. 

Bed of roses by Nora Roberts – fiction on wedding supplies and service industry.

Complicit by Nicci French – Who is more dangerous? An enemy? A friend? Or a lover? 

The story of Danny Dunn by Bryce Courtenay – it is an Australian family saga spanning three generations. 

The anthologist by Nicholson Baker – it is a fiction about a poet who wants to keep writing. 

The blue notebook by James A. Levine – Batuk is just one of many girls forced into prostitution, but against the odds, she manages to put pen to paper, writing stories of her life that help her transcend and make a certain sense of her daily existence. 

Brixton Beach by Roma Tearne – a fiction of London terrorist bombings in 2005. 

A change in altitude by Anita Shreve – a photojournalist and her doctor husband, whose temporary relocation abroad goes sour. 

City of thieves by Cyrus Moore – a fiction about invest bank, about greed and evil. 

The concubine’s secret by Kate Furnivall – Russian historical fiction under Stalin era.  

The cult of Osiris by Andy McDermott – Nina Wilde and Eddie Chase are on the hunt for the lost pyramid of Osiris… 

Day after night by Anita Diamant – A tale inspired by the post-Holocaust experience is set in an immigrant holding camp in 1945 Palestine, where four women, refugees from Nazi Europe, find healing in the bonds of friendship that are forged while recounting their losses. 

Ford County : stories by John Grisham – a collection short stories by Grisham.

Legend of a suicide by David Vann – a collection of five semi-autobiographical short stories and a novella depict a boy’s confused, guilt-ridden relationship with his suicidal father.

Maralinga by Judy Nunn – a fiction on nuclear test in Australia. 

Meltdown by Ben Elton – a fiction on global finance crisis and success. 

The museum of innocence by Orhan Pamuk – an obsessive but tragic love affair that will transform itself into a compulsive collection of objects–a museum of one man’s broken heart. 

The paperbark shoe by Goldie Goldbloom – Gin, the albino, marries to escape the confines of an asylum. Toad, a little man who wears corsets, marries to prove his manhood. Together they are freaks – feared and ridiculed by the remote farming community in which they live. Into their lives come two Italian POWs bringing music, sensuality and a love that will fan the flames of small town bigotry.

The perfect man by Sheila O’Flanagan – Two very different sisters, Mia (still in love with Alejo, the married father of her daughter) and Britt (the ice maiden, who has ironically written a romantic bestseller), join a luxury honeymoon cruise in the Caribbean where Britt is the guest lecturer. 

Rebels and traitors by Lindsey Davis – historical fiction in England Civi War era. 

Shame on you by Clara Salaman – Twenty years later Caroline is living with her lover, Joe. He knows her as Lorrie and is unaware of the troubled childhood she’s left behind. Until an old friend reappears and Caroline discovers that the past isn’t so easily buried … 

The silent country by Di Morrissey –  The Silent Country is a vast and beautiful wilderness, a place which holds secrets and stories that are rarely spoken.

Sleeper’s wake by Alistair Morgan – a fiction about traffic accident victims. 

Smoke in the room by Emily Maguire – Living in a share house can really test some people’s limits.But what about when all three flatmates have significant issues like mental illness, recent grief and post-traumatic stress disorder going on in their lives at the same time?

A song in the daylight by Paullina Simons – Spanning the upscale suburbs of New Jersey, the slums of Manila and the desolate beauty of the Australian outback, A Song in the Daylight is a story of the bonds that unite us and the desires that drive us apart.

Southern lights by Danielle Steel – Eleven years after a bitter divorce, Manhattan assistant D.A. Alexa prepares to prosecute a suspected serial killer who is sending threatening letters to Alexa’s teen daughter, a situation that forces Alexa to send her daughter to her ex’s Charleston home.

Spartan gold by Clive Cussler with Grant Blackwood – Treasure hunters Sam and Remi Fargo are shocked to discover a bottle of a rare wine taken from Napoleon’s lost cellar. However, someone else is also searching for this treasure.

The stepmothers’ support group by Sam Baker – You can’t choose your family, but you can choose your friends. Eve has never imagined herself as a stepmother. But when she falls in love with Ian, he comes with a ready-made family of three children. And to make things worse, he’s widower. The ghost of his glamorous and well known wife haunts them. 

The taste of sorrow by Jude Morgan – From an obscure country parsonage came the most extraordinary family of the nineteenth century. The phenomenon of this strange explosion of genius remains as baffling now as it was to their Victorian contempories. A panoramic novel about a uniquely close-knit family whose tight bonds are the instruments of both triumph and tragedy. 

To touch the clouds by Peter Watt – it is Peter Watt’s 10th book and continues the saga of the Duffy and Macintosh families that began in 1999’s Cry of the Curlew. A touch of dead / by Charlaine Harris – A collection of every short story featuring Sookie Stackhouse, the telepathic waitress heroine of the "Southern Vampire" novels, includes "Fairy Dust," "One Word Answer," and "Dracula Night." 

Under the dome : a novel by Stephen King – On and entirely normal day in Chester’s Mill, Maine the town is suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. As the dome comes down planes crash, cars explode and families divided. Dale Barbara, Iraq vet, teams with a few intrepid citizens against a corrupt politician but time under the dome is running out. 

The vampire stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – We automatically associate Conan Doyle with Sherlock Holmes, but the author produced a number of literary works that had nothing to do with the legendary detective. 

The vintage caper by Peter Mayle – When the exclusive wine collection of a rich Hollywood lawyer is stolen by a cultivated thief, former lawyer and connoisseur Sam Levitt follows leads from Bordeaux to Provence while receiving assistance from a beautiful French colleague.