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Hell Island (Scarecrow #4)
By Matthew Reilly. 2007
It is an island that doesn't appear on any maps. A secret place, where classified experiments have been carried out.…
Experiments that have gone terribly wrong. Four crack special forces units are dropped in. One of them is a team of Marines, led by Captain Shane Schofield, call-sign: SCARECROW. Nothing can prepare Schofield's team for what they find there. You could say they've just entered hell. But that would be wrong. This is much, much worse.The shifting fog
By Kate Morton. 2006
Summer 1924: on the eve of a glittering Society party, by the lake of a grand English country house, a…
young poet takes his life. The only witnesses, sisters Hannah and Emmeline Hartford, will never speak to each other again. Winter 1999: Grace Bradley, 98, one-time house-maid of Riverton Manor, is visited by a young director making a film about the poet's suicide. Ghosts awaken and memories, long consigned to the dark reaches of Grace's mind, begin to sneak back through the cracks. A shocking secret threatens to emerge; something history has forgotten but Grace never could.House rules
By Jodi Picoult. 2010
Jacob Hunt is a teenage boy with Asperger's Syndrome. He's hopeless at reading social cues or expressing himself to others,…
and like many children with Asperger's, Jacob has an obsessive focus on one subject-in his case, forensic analysis. He's always showing up at crime scenes, thanks to the police scanner he keeps in his room, and telling the cops what they need to do - and he's usually right. But then one day his tutor is found dead, and the police come to question him. Reluctance to make eye contact, stimulatory tics and twitches, inappropriate gestures, all these can look a lot like guilt. Suddenly, Jacob finds himself accused of murder. House Rules looks at what it means to be different in our society, and at the extremes of love and loyalty a family must call upon to help each other overcome impossible circumstances.Handle with care
By Jodi Picoult. 2009
Willow O'Keefe is born with osteogenesis imperfecta, a brittle bone disease, which means she will suffer hundreds of broken bones…
as she grows, and a lifetime of pain. As the family struggles to cover medical expenses, Charlotte decides to file a wrongful birth lawsuit against her obstetrician for the compensation which might ensure a lifetime of care for Willow. But it means that Charlotte has to say in a court of law that she would have terminated the pregnancy if she'd known about the disability in advance. And the obstetrician she's suing isn't just her physician - it's her best friend.The stillest day
By Josephine Hart. 1998
A thirtyish schoolteacher in a rural village at the turn of the century, Bethesda Barnet is constrained by duty and…
convention. She cares for her ailing mother, although their relationship seems more obligatory than fond, and has been indifferently courted by neighbouring farmer Samuel for years. The town's landlord, Lord Grantleigh, sponsors and encourages her painting, but Bethesda's life is otherwise a pretty dull lot until Matthew Pearson and his pregnant wife move in next door. Soon Betheseda is obsessed with Matthew - the kind of obsession that can only lead to tragedy...Rose
By Martin Cruz Smith. 1996
Jonathan Blair, American adventurer and mining engineer, is stranded in the Victorian coal-mining community of Wigan. He is forced by…
circumstances to search for the mine-owner's future son-in-law who mysteriously disappeared. Blair's investigations take him deep underground, into a violent world and into contact with Rose, a "pit woman". His search also forces him to confront his own heart of darkness.Her
By Garry Disher. 2017
Out in that country the sun smeared the sky and nothing ever altered, except that one day a scrap man…
came by... Australia 1909. A scrap man buys a scab-kneed three year-old girl for nine shillings and sixpence. Her name is scarcely known or remembered. All in all, she is worth less than the coins counted into her father's hand. She bides her time. She does her work. Way back in the corner of her mind is a thought she is almost too frightened to shine a light on: one day she will run away.The buckskin girl: a novel of the Californian trail in the mid-nineteenth century
By Gwen Moffat. 1982
This is the story of 28 people, a comparatively small wagon train, who set out 130 years ago, in early…
summer, with half a continent between then and their promised land, California.The list (Sid Allan #1)
By Michael Brissenden. 2017
Sidney Allen is a Fed. Part of the Australian Federal Police’s K block, a unit doing whatever it takes in…
order to stop terrorist attacks on home soil. But when young Muslim men on the Terror Watchlist start turning up dead, Sid and his partner, Haifa, have to work out what’s going on.Sectarian war? Drugs? Retribution? For Sid, there’s nothing unclear about a bullet to the head and a severed hand. Someone is sending a message. Deciphering that message reveals a much wider threat and Sid and the agency have to decide just how far they’ll go to prevent a deadly attack.Time is running out... for them and Australia.Springtime: a ghost story
By Michelle De Kretser. 2020
When Frances met Charlie at a party in Melbourne, he was married with a young son. Now that the couple…
has moved to subtropical Sydney, a lusher and more chaotic city, Frances has an unshakable sense that the world has tipped on its axis. Everything seems alien, and exotic—and Frances is haunted by the unknowability of Charlie's previous life. A young art historian studying the objects in paintings--the material world--Frances takes mind-clearing walks around her neighborhood with her dog. Behind the fence of one garden, she thinks she sees a woman in an old-fashioned gown, but something is not right. ..The operators
By Barry Heard. 2019
Sophisticated computer hacking told the syndicate everything about Wally. Everything but why it would be a big mistake to kidnap…
him. Retired farmer Wally Flannagan is on a pilgrimage to Indonesia to witness the once-in-a-lifetime blooming of a rare flower. His holiday soon goes awry when he finds himself the target of kidnapping with the goal of extortion. Yet these plans, as alarming as they are for Wally, are little more than a diverting pastime for this criminal syndicate. They are organised, powerful, and ruthless. Yet there's one thing they don't know about Wally. He's a Pig. What's a Pig? Read on.The rich man's house
By Andrew McGahan. 2019
Billionaire Walter Richman has built himself his dream home - the Observatory, a mansion like no other mansion - at…
the foot of the world's highest mountain in the cold Antarctic waters south of Tasmania. Living a far humbler life is Rita Gausse, estranged daughter of the architect who designed the Observatory. Rita is surprised, upon her father's death, to be invited to the Observatory to meet the famous Richman in person. From the beginning, something doesn't feel right. Why is Richman so insistent that she come? What does he, and the additional guests he has invited, expect of her? When cataclysmic circumstances intervene to trap Rita and the others in the Observatory, cut off from the outside world, she slowly begins to learn the unsettling - and ultimately horrifying - answers.Cry of the firebird
By T. M Clark. 2019
Consultant with the World Health Organisation, South African born Doctor Lily Winters has been in the thick of some of…
the worst humanitarian disasters across the globe. But when she's posted back to South Africa following the suspicious death of an ex-colleague, she faces the biggest medical mystery she's ever seen. The resettled Platfontein San People population is exhibiting a higher than average HIV epidemic, and their people are dying. The cases Lily takes over are baffling and despite her best efforts, the medicine doesn't seem to be helping. To save this unique community, Lily and a policeman from the Kalahari, Piet Kleinman, join forces to trace the origins of the epidemic and uncover the truth. Their search drags them into the dangerous world of a corrupt industry driven by profit while the authorities meant to protect their community turn a blind eye. In a race against time Lily and Piet will put not only their careers but their lives on the line..Temple
By Matthew Reilly. 2002
Deep in the jungle of Peru, the race of the century is underway. A race to locate a legendary Incan…
idol - an idol carved out of a strange kind of stone. A stone which in the late 20th century could be used as the basis of a terrifying new weapon. Guiding a US Army team is Professor William Race, a young linguist who must translate an ancient manuscript which contains the location of the idol. What they discover is an ominous stone temple, sealed tight. They open it - and soon discover that some doors are meant to remain unopened...The codebreakers
By Alli Sinclair. 2021
1943, Brisbane: The war continues to devastate and the battle for the Pacific threatens Australian shores. For Ellie O'Sullivan, helping…
the war effort means utilising her engineering skills for Qantas as they evacuate civilians and deliver supplies to armed forces overseas. Her exceptional logic and integrity attract the attention of Central Bureau - an intelligence organisation working with England's Bletchley Park codebreakers. But joining Central Bureau means signing a lifetime secrecy contract. Breaking it is treason.With her country's freedom at risk, Ellie works with a group of elite women who enter a world of volatile secrets; deciphering enemy communications to change the course of the war. Working under immense pressure, they form a close bond - yet there could be a traitor in their midst. Can the women uncover the culprit before it's too late? As Ellie struggles with the magnitude of the promise she's made to her country, a wedge grows between her and those she holds dear. When the man she loves asks questions she's forbidden to answer, how will she prevent the double life she's leading from unravelling?The painter of battles
By Margaret Sayers Peden, Arturo Perez-Reverte. 2007
A man lives alone in a watchtower by the sea. On the circular walls of the tower he is painting…
a grand mural - the timeless landscape of a battle. He is a former war photographer, and the painting is his attempt to capture the photo he was never able to take; to encapsulate, in an instant, the meaning of war. But one day a stranger knocks on his door and announces that he has come to kill him. The man is a shadow from his past, one of the myriad faces of war, and now the consequences of his actions are brought home to him. As the novel progresses, the story of both the soldier and the artist emerge, entwined with a doomed love affair, and the progress of a painting that is infused with the history of art.Ignorance
By Milan Kundera, Linda Asher. 2003
The story of two Czechs return to their homeland after 20 years in exile. Irena, who fled the country in…
1968 with her now-deceased husband Martin, returns to Prague only to find coldness and indifference on the part of her former friends. Josef, who emigrated after the Russian invasion, is back in Prague to fulfill a wish of his beloved late wife. Arriving at the airport, the two meet by chance, strangers who shared a single evening years ago in Prague. Irena remembers their initial meeting with detailed intensity and has always regretted its abrupt, chaste conclusion. Josef doesn't even recognize Irena, but does not admit the truth. Will they manage to pick up the thread of their strange love story, interrupted almost as soon as it began and then lost in the tides of history? The truth is that after such a long absence "their memories no longer match." we always believe that our memories coincide with those of the person we loved, that we experienced the same thing. But this is just an illusion...The raw shark texts
By Steven Hall. 2007
A man wakes in terror, choking for air, in the unfamiliar bedroom of an empty house. He has no memories…
and no sense of his own identity. The licence in his wallet tells him his name is Eric Sanderson. Letters and parcels arrive in careful sequence, signed: the first Eric Sanderson. He accumulates a set of instructions for negotiating this unknown and obscurely dangerous life. He reads his own past...and there is Clio, who was loved - by him? - and who died. His dreams fill with the memory of loss. Then the attacks begin. And now, armed with his survival manual and accompanied by a cat called Ian, Eric will set off to find out what it is that's trying to hunt him down and destroy him.Night work
By Thomas Glavinic. 2008
How does it feel to be the last man alive? There's nothing moving outside. No cars. No buses. No people.…
No birds - nothing. No one. An ordinary man wakes up on an ordinary day to find the radio and TV filled with white noise. There's no newspaper, the internet is down and no one's answering the phone. Jonas is the last living being on the planet. What happened? Why? And why is he still here?A whistling woman (Frederica Quartet #4)
By A. S Byatt. 2002
While Frederica falls almost by accident into a London television career, tumultuous events in her Yorkshire home threaten to change…
her life. In the late 1960s the world begins to split. Near the university, where the scientists Luk and Jacqueline are studying snails and neurons, an 'anti-university' springs up. On the high moors nearby, a gentle community is taken over by a charismatic leader. Visions of blood and flames, of mirrors and doubles, share the refracting energy of Frederica's mosaic-like television shows. Darkness and light are in perpetual tension; people flounder, often comically, to find their true sexual, intellectual and emotional identity.