Recent Books

The Bookshop Detectives- Tea & Cake & Death

By Gareth & Louise Ward

July 31, 2025

When we opened Sherlock Tomes people warned us that we’d made a terrible mistake. The one thing they didn’t warn us about was the murders . . .

The Bookshop Detectives are on the case!

In this rollicking new adventure, Garth and Eloise (and Stevie) must sniff out a prolific poisoner ahead of a vital fundraising event, the Battle of the Book Clubs. As time runs out and the body count rises, it seems the bad actors are circling closer to the people and places they care about.

Could Pinter, the infamous serial killer from Eloise’s past, somehow be involved? And when anyone could be a suspect, how can Garth and Eloise keep their customers, their small town and their beloved bookshop safe?

Small Boat

By Vincent Delecroix

July 24, 2025

In November 2021, an inflatable dinghy carrying migrants from France to the United Kingdom capsized in the Channel causing the death of 27 people on board. Despite receiving numerous calls for help, the French authorities wrongly told the migrants they were in British waters and had to call the British authorities for help. By the time rescue vessels arrived on the scene, all but two of the migrants had died.

The narrator of Delecroix’s fictional account of the events is the woman who took the calls. Accused of failing in her duty, she refuses to be held more responsible than others for this disaster. Why should she be more responsible than the sea, than the war, than the crises behind these tragedies?

A Different Kind of Power

By Jacinda Arden

July 14, 2025

What if we could redefine leadership? What if kindness came first? Jacinda Ardern grew up the daughter of a police officer, a Mormon girl plagued by self-doubt. But as prime minister she commanded worldwide respect for her empathetic leadership, made political history, and changed our assumptions about what a global leader can be.

When Jacinda Ardern became prime minister at age thirty-seven, the world took notice. But it was her compassionate, powerful response to the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks, resulting in swift gun-control reforms, that exemplified a new kind of leadership—one that is caring and effective. She guided New Zealand through unprecedented challenges—a volcanic eruption, a major biosecurity breach, and a global pandemic—and advanced visionary new policies to address climate change, reduce child poverty, and secure historic international trade deals. She did this all while juggling first-time motherhood in the public eye.

She is a global icon, and now in this remarkable book she shares her story, from the struggles to the surprises, including the full details of her decision to step down during her sixth year as prime minister.

Jacinda Ardern is a model for anyone who has ever doubted themselves or has aspired to lead with compassion, conviction, and courage. A Different Kind of Power is more than a political memoir; it’s an insight into how it feels to lead, ultimately asking: What if you, too, are capable of more than you ever imagined?

The Vegetarian

By Han Kang

July 10, 2025

Yeong-hye and her husband are ordinary people. He is an office worker with moderate ambitions and mild manners; she is an uninspired but dutiful wife. The acceptable flatline of their marriage is interrupted when Yeong-hye, seeking a more ‘plant-like’ existence, decides to become a vegetarian, prompted by grotesque recurring nightmares. In South Korea, where vegetarianism is almost unheard-of and societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hye’s decision is a shocking act of subversion.

Her passive rebellion manifests in ever more bizarre and frightening forms, leading her bland husband to self-justified acts of sexual sadism. His cruelties drive her towards attempted suicide and hospitalisation. She unknowingly captivates her sister’s husband, a video artist. She becomes the focus of his increasingly erotic and unhinged artworks, while spiralling further and further into her fantasies of abandoning her fleshly prison and becoming – impossibly, ecstatically – a tree

Stag Dance

By Torrey Peters

July 2, 2025

Deep in the forest, a group of restless lumberjacks working an illegal logging outfit plan a winter dance that some will volunteer to attend as women; the broadest, strongest axeman finds himself caught in a rivalry with a pretty, young jack that culminates in jealousy, betrayal and an astonishing spectacle of transition. Meanwhile, in other times and places, the gender apocalypse is brought about by an unstable ex-girlfriend; an illicit boarding-school romance surfaces intrigue and cruelty; and a Las Vegas party weekend turns dark when a young crossdresser must choose between a thrilling mystery man or a veteran trans woman offering unglamorous sisterhood.

In this quartet of tales, Torrey Peters’ keen eye for the rough edges of desire reveals fresh possibilities. Acidly funny, boldly inventive and breathtaking in scope, Stag Dance provokes and unsettles, inspires and delights.

Memorial Days

By Geraldine Brooks

July 2, 2025

A heartrending and beautiful memoir of sudden loss and a journey toward peace, from the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Horse

Many cultural and religious traditions expect those who are grieving to step away from the world. In contemporary life, we are more often met with red tape and to-do lists. This is exactly what happened to Geraldine Brooks when her partner of more than three decades, Tony Horwitz – just sixty years old and, to her knowledge, vigorous and healthy – collapsed and died on a Washington, DC street.

A spare and profoundly moving memoir that joins the classics of the genre, Memorial Days is a portrait of a larger-than-life man and a timeless love between souls that exquisitely captures the joy, agony and mystery of life.

Ripeness

By Sarah Moss

July 2, 2025

It is the 60s and, just out of school, Edith finds herself travelling to rural Italy. She has been sent by her mother with strict instructions: to see her sister , ballet, dancer Lydia, through the final weeks of her pregnancy, help at the birth and then make a phone call which will change all of their lives.

Decades later, happily divorced and newly energized, Edith is living in contentment and comfort in Ireland. When her best friend Meabh receives a call from an American man claiming to be her brother. Meabh must decide if she will meet him, and Edith finds herself plunged back into her own past and the story of the baby she once knew and loved.

The Good Father

By Liam MclLvanney

July 2, 2025

Gordon and Sarah Rutherford are normal, happy people with successful, fulfilling lives. They have a son they adore, a house on the beach and a safe, friendly and honest community in a picture-postcard town on the Ayrshire coast.

Until one day, Bonnie the lab comes in from the beach alone. Their son, Rory, has gone – the only trace left behind is a single black Adidas slider.

Their lives don’t fall apart immediately. While there’s still hope (and no body) they dig deep and try to carry on. It’s a process of abrasion – a wearing away of happiness and normality; a slow degradation, a gradual breakdown – until they’ll never be the people they were before. This sort of tragedy impacts a whole town. Does the community still feel the same after? What are folk saying about you? Who are your friends? Who can you trust?

When the worst thing has happened and you’ve lost everything, you either go under or you rebuild and start again.

1985

By Dominic Hoey

July 1, 2025

It’s 1985 and Obi’s on the cusp of teenagehood, after a childhood marked by poverty, dysfunctional family dynamics, (dis)organised crime and violence. His dad’s delusional, his mum’s real sick, the Rainbow Warrior just exploded, and it’s time for Obi to grow up and get out of the spacies parlour.

When he and his best mate Al discover a map leading to unknown riches, Obi wonders if this windfall could be the thing that turns his family’s fortunes around. Instead, he’s thrown into an adventure where the stakes are a lot higher than the games he loves.

An electric novel about life in a multi-cultural, counter-cultural part of Auckland pre-gentrification. 1985 is an adventure story with a local flavour, a coming-of-age story for the underdogs, the disenfranchised and the dreamers.

Dream Count

By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

July 1, 2025

Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until — betrayed and brokenhearted — she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America – but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve.

In Dream Count, Adichie trains her fierce eye on these women in a sparkling, transcendent novel that takes up the very nature of love itself. Is true happiness ever attainable or is it just a fleeting state? And how honest must we be with ourselves in order to love, and to be loved? A trenchant reflection on the choices we make and those made for us, on daughters and mothers, on our interconnected world, Dream Count pulses with emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations on the human heart, in language that soars with beauty and power. It confirms Adichie’s status as one of the most exciting and dynamic writers on the literary landscape.