In 1950, teenager Anne flees Wattle Island, desperate to make her own way in the big city. As she begins to establish her new life, though, she is faced with a choice that could destroy all she has worked so hard for. Then when tragedy strikes, establishing the Wattle Island book club is the only thing that offers her solace. Passion. Spirited librarian Grace has been writing bucket lists since she was a child, and is ticking off as many challenges as she can now that life has handed her a hefty dose of perspective. Heading to Wattle Island on one of her adventures, she is determined to uncover a long-held mystery surrounding the town's historic book club, unlocking a buried truth that has been trapped between the dusty pages of secrecy for years. Hope. All too aware of how fragile life is, Anne and Grace must come together to help the residents of Wattle Island find the bravery to move beyond the trauma that tore the book club apart. Budding relationships offer new hope, along with a library project for the town's future - but it will take more than a few lively literary debates to break the silence and heal the past.

Is it ever too late to rewrite your own story? COURAGE In 1950, teenager Anne flees Wattle Island for the big city, where she learns that establishing the life she's always dreamed of isn't as easy as she thought. When a secret she's been keeping is discovered, she has no choice but to retreat home and live a quiet life. But when tragedy strikes, establishing the Wattle Island book club is the only thing that offers her solace. PASSION In 2018, spirited librarian Grace has been writing bucket lists since she was a child, and is ticking off as many challenges as she can now that life has handed her a hefty dose of perspective. Heading to Wattle Island on one of her adventures, she is determined to uncover a long-held mystery surrounding the town's historic book club, unlocking a buried truth that has been trapped between the dusty pages of secrecy for years. HOPE All too aware of how fragile life is, Anne and Grace must come together to help the residents of Wattle Island find the bravery to move beyond the trauma that tore the book club apart. Budding relationships offer new hope, along with a library project for the town's future - but it will take more than a few lively literary debates to break the silence and heal the past. Welcome to the Wattle Island Book Club, where some chapters may end, but others are just beginning...

A year is a long time in the memory of a small town. Stories get twisted, truths become warped, history is rewritten. MYSTERIES When Laura discovers an old photo of her grandmother, Lillian, with an intriguing inscription on the back, she heads to the sleepy seaside town of Banksia Bay to learn the truth of Lillian’s past. But when she arrives, Laura finds a community where everyone seems to be hiding something. SECRETS Virginia, owner of the iconic Beach Shack café, has kept her past buried for sixty years. As Laura slowly uncovers the tragic fragments of that summer so long ago, Virginia must decide whether to hold on to her secrets or set the truth free. LIES Young Gigi and Lily come from different worlds but forge an unbreakable bond – the ‘Sisters of Summer’. But in 1961 a chain of events is set off that reaches far into the future. One lie told. One lie to set someone free. One lie that changes the course of so many lives. Welcome to the Banksia Bay Beach Shack, where first love is found and last chances are taken. A moving and heartfelt story by the bestselling author of The Kookaburra Creek Café and The Cottage At Rosella Cove. Praise for Sandie Docker: ‘Docker soars from the absolute heart’ Australian Women’s Weekly ‘The best of the best of heart-wrenching yarns.’ Woman’s Day

Carl Matt - even his name mocks him. The people of Wattle Beach do their best to grind him under foot.Why are the Matts such pariahs? The answer lies in Wiseman's Cove, a short ride across the strait where Carl finds refuge in the most unlikely place. Wiseman's Cove has been waiting for Carl - waiting a long time.

In a riveting, groundbreaking narrative, Russell Shorto tells the story of New Netherland, the Dutch colony which pre-dated the Pilgrims and established ideals of tolerance and individual rights that shaped American history. "Astonishing . . . A book that will permanently alter the way we regard our collective past." --The New York Times When the British wrested New Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1664, the truth about its thriving, polyglot society began to disappear into myths about an island purchased for 24 dollars and a cartoonish peg-legged governor. But the story of the Dutch colony of New Netherland was merely lost, not destroyed: 12,000 pages of its records–recently declared a national treasure–are now being translated. Russell Shorto draws on this remarkable archive in The Island at the Center of the World, which has been hailed by The New York Times as “a book that will permanently alter the way we regard our collective past.” The Dutch colony pre-dated the “original” thirteen colonies, yet it seems strikingly familiar. Its capital was cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic, and its citizens valued free trade, individual rights, and religious freedom. Their champion was a progressive, young lawyer named Adriaen van der Donck, who emerges in these pages as a forgotten American patriot and whose political vision brought him into conflict with Peter Stuyvesant, the autocratic director of the Dutch colony. The struggle between these two strong-willed men laid the foundation for New York City and helped shape American culture. The Island at the Center of the World uncovers a lost world and offers a surprising new perspective on our own.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “Rutherford brings England’s New Forest to life” (The Seattle Times) in this companion to the critically acclaimed Sarum From the time of the Norman Conquest to the present day, the New Forest, along England’s southern coast, has remained an almost mythical place. It is here that Saxon and Norman kings rode forth with their hunting parties, and where William the Conqueror’s son Rufus was mysteriously killed. The mighty oaks of the forest were used to build the ships for Admiral Nelson’s navy, and the fishermen who lived in Christchurch and Lymington helped Sir Francis Drake fight off the Spanish Armada. The New Forest is the perfect backdrop for the families who people this epic story. The feuds, wars, loyalties, and passions of many hundreds of years reach their climax in a crime that shatters the decorous society of Bath in the days of Jane Austen, whose family lived on the edge of the Forest. Edward Rutherfurd is a master storyteller whose sense of place and character—both fictional and historical—is at its most vibrant in The Forest. “As entertaining as Sarum and Rutherford’s other sweeping novel of British history, London.”—The Boston Globe

“Jonah Lehrer has a lot to offer the world….The book is interesting on nearly every page….Good writers make writing look easy, but what people like Lehrer do is not easy at all.” —David Brooks, The New York Times Book Review Science writer Jonah Lehrer explores the mysterious subject of love. Weaving together scientific studies from clinical psychologists, longitudinal studies of health and happiness, historical accounts and literary depictions, child-rearing manuals, and the language of online dating sites, Jonah Lehrer’s A Book About Love plumbs the most mysterious, most formative, most important impulse governing our lives. Love confuses and compels us—and it can destroy and define us. It has inspired our greatest poetry, defined our societies and our beliefs, and governs our biology. From the way infants attach to their parents, to the way we fall in love with another person, to the way some find a love for God or their pets, to the way we remember and mourn love after it ends, this book focuses on research that attempts, even in glancing ways, to deal with the long-term and the everyday. The most dangerous myth of love is that it’s easy, that we fall into the feeling and then the feeling takes care of itself. While we can easily measure the dopamine that causes the initial feelings of “falling” in love, the partnerships and devotions that last decades or longer remain a mystery. This book is about that mystery. Love, Lehrer argues, is not built solely on overwhelming passion, but, fascinatingly, on a set of skills to be cultivated over a lifetime.