The Butterfly Cabinet by Bernie McGill, Hachette, $29.99. The first chapter sets up the classic elements of fiction. A fortress-like castle on an isolated Irish headland. A proud, wealthy family shattered by their young daughter’s death. An old retainer who finds the black-bound diary her Mistress wrote in prison and decides, finally, she must tell […]

Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane, Little, Brown, $32.99. Eleven years ago, at the end of Lehane’s Gone, Baby, Gone, hard-bitten private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro faced a terrible moral dilemma: should they “rescue” missing four-year Amanda McCready if it means taking her away from loving and safe carers and returning her to the […]

Damn You, Scarlett O’Hara by Darwin Porter and Roy Moseley, BloodMoon Productions, $39.95. It’s a wonder Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh found time to become two of the greatest actors of the 20th century, it seems they were busier in the bedroom than on the stage or screen, and not necessarily with each other. Olivier […]

The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party by Alexander McCall Smith, Little, Brown, $34.99. What a joy to catch up once again with our old fictional friend Precious Ramotswe, and the small mysteries and daily dramas of life in Botswana. Readers familiar with the No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency will be thrilled to spot this latest instalment, […]

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain, Virago, $29.99. Until she was 28 years old, shy, sheltered Hadley Richardson lived an unremarkable life in suburban Missouri. But in 1920 she met a young aspiring writer, married and moved to a tiny flat in Paris. Her husband was a big drinking man of big ambitions, and his […]

Water For Elephantsby Sara Gruen, Allen & Unwin, $24.99. Orphaned and broke, just as the Great Depression begins to bite, veterinary student Jacob Jankowski runs away to join the dirty glamour of a travelling circus. There, among the weird and wonderful characters of the Benzini Bros’ Most Spectacular Show on Earth, Jacob finds two great […]

Franklin And Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage by Hazel Rowley, MUP, $36.99. Fifth generation cousins, once removed, the famously acronymed FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) and wife Eleanor left indelible impressions on US generations serving four terms (1933-1945) as US President and First Lady. In this definitive biography, Hazel Rowley packs in just as much as the […]

My Sister Lives On the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher, Orion Children’s Books, $24.99. In the book industry they’re known as “crossovers” — books written for a young adult audience which are so well constructed and intelligently pitched that they are just as captivating to an adult audience. Harry Potter started the onslaught, but My Sister […]

Moth to the Flame, by Joy Dettman, Pan Macmillan Australia, $32.99. “You’re an interesting study, kiddo. You’ve got a 40-year-old seamstress’s hands, the look of a Botticelli angel and you play cards like a mafia boss …” Country Victorian author Joy Dettman knows how to write strong women, and 22-year-old mother of three illegitimate children, […]

Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult, Allen & Unwin, $32.99. Once upon a time, there was only one way for babies to come into being. Now IVF, sperm donation and surrogacy have opened up a brave new world, where a child with two mums is no longer a rarity. Jodi Picoult’s latest novel focuses on […]