Reading Groups Collection
A Boy Made of Blocks |
The Bureau of Second Chances |
Cashelmara |
Circe |
The Clockmaker's Daughter |
Cloud Cuckoo Land |
The Colour of Magic |
The Comforts of Home |
The Confessions of Frannie Langton |
The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper |
Dangerous Crossing |
Dark Matter |
Demon Copperhead |
The Dressmaker |
The Dry |
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A Boy Made of Blocks by Keith Stuart
A
father who rediscovers love.
Alex loves his wife Jody, but has forgotten how to show it. He loves his son Sam, but doesn’t understand him. He needs a reason to grab his future with both
hands.
A son who shows him how to live.
Meet eight-year-old Sam: beautiful, surprising – and different. To him the world is a frightening mystery. But as his imagination comes to life, his family
will be changed… for good.
A Boy Made of Blocks is a beautiful, funny and uplifting story of family love and inspired by the author’s own experiences with his son.
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The Bureau of Second Chances by Sheena Kalayil
After
more than 30 years in London, recently-widowed Thomas Imbalil returns to India. He spends his first months in uncluttered isolation in his house overlooking
the Arabian Sea, in a small fishing village in Kerala. But when he agrees to look after his friend's business, Chacko's Optical Store, he meets and befriends
Rani, the young assistant. Before long he discovers that Rani is using the store to run an intriguing side-business.
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Cashelmara by Susan Howatch
There were two subjects which lonely
widower Edward de Salis never discussed: his dead wife and his family home in Ireland, 'matchless Cashelmara'. So when he meets Marguerite, a bright young American with whom he can talk
freely about both, he is able to love again and takes her back to Ireland as his wife.
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Circe by Madeline Miller
In the house of Helios, god of the sun and
mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe has neither the look nor the voice of divinity, and is scorned and rejected by her kin. Increasingly isolated, she turns to mortals
for companionship, leading her to discover a power forbidden to the gods: witchcraft. When love drives Circe to cast a dark spell, wrathful Zeus banishes her to the remote island of Aiaia.
There she learns to harness her occult craft, drawing strength from nature. But she will not always be alone; many are destined to pass through Circe's place of exile, entwining their
fates with hers. The messenger god, Hermes. The craftsman, Daedalus. A ship bearing a golden fleece. And wily Odysseus, on his epic voyage home.
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The Clockmaker's Daughter by Kate Morton
In
the summer of 1862, a group of young artists led by the passionate and talented Edward Radcliffe descends upon Birchwood Manor in rural Oxfordshire. Their plan: to spend a secluded
summer month in a haze of inspiration and creativity. But by the time their stay is over, one woman has been shot dead while another has disappeared; a priceless heirloom is missing;
and Edward Radcliffe's life is in ruins. Over 150 years later, Elodie Winslow, a young archivist in London, uncovers a leather satchel containing two seemingly unrelated items:
a sepia photograph of an arresting-looking woman in Victorian clothing, and an artist's sketchbook containing a drawing of a twin-gabled house on the bend of a river.
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Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
'Cloud Cuckoo Land'
follows three storylines: Anna and Omeir, on opposite sides of the formidable city wall during the 1453 siege of Constantinople; teenage idealist Seymour and gentle octogenarian Zeno,
in an attack on a public library in present day Idaho; and Konstance, on an interstellar ship bound for a distant exoplanet, decades from now. A single copy of an ancient text - the story
of Aethon, who longs to be turned into a bird so that he can fly to the paradise of Cloud Cuckoo Land - provides solace, mystery and the most profound human connection to these five
unforgettable characters.
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The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett
Twoflower
was a tourist, the first ever seen on the Discworld. Tourist, Rincewind decided, meant idiot. Somewhere on the frontier between thought and reality exists the Discworld, a parallel
time and place which might sound and smell very much like our own, but which looks completely different.
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The Comforts of Home by Susan Hill
DC Simon
Serrailler's last, devastating case was nearly the death of him and left him confronting a new reality. Recovering on a remote Scottish island, his peace doesn't last long.
He is pulled in to a murder inquiry by the overstretched local police. A newcomer, popular with the islanders, has died in perplexing circumstances. It's good to be back on the job
but it's when Simon returns to Lafferton that things start to get complicated.
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The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins
1826, and all of London is in a frenzy. Crowds gather at the gates of the Old Bailey to watch as
Frannie Langton, maid to Mr and Mrs Benham, goes on trial for their murder. The testimonies against her are damning - slave, whore, seductress. And they may be the truth. But they are not
the whole truth. For the first time Frannie must tell her story. It begins with a girl learning to read on a plantation in Jamaica, and it ends in a grand house in London, where a beautiful
woman waits to be freed. But through her fevered confessions, one burning question haunts Frannie Langton: could she have murdered the only person she ever loved?
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The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick
Arthur and Miriam
Pepper were happily married for forty years.
They shared an uneventful life in Yorkshire, two children and had no secrets.
At least that’s what Arthur thought.
Now he is on his own. He gets up every morning, eats his breakfast, waters his plant, Frederica, and speaks to nobody unless it is absolutely necessary. Until
something disrupts his routine.
On the first anniversary of Miriam’s death, Arthur finds a small box containing a gold charm bracelet. On the underside of an elephant charm is a telephone
number and, uncharacteristically, Arthur picks up the phone.
That call changes everything he thought he knew about Miriam.
Embarking on a journey, charm by charm, Arthur uncovers his wife’s secret life before they met,
and along the way learns more about himself.
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Dangerous Crossing by Rachel Rhys
1939,
Europe on the brink of war. Lily Shepherd leaves England on an ocean liner for Australia, escaping her life of drudgery for new horizons. She is instantly
seduced by the world onboard: cocktails, black-tie balls and beautiful sunsets. Suddenly, Lily finds herself mingling with people who would otherwise never
give her the time of day. But soon she realizes her glamorous new friends are not what they seem. The rich and hedonistic Max and Eliza Campbell, mysterious
and flirtatious Edward, and fascist George are all running away from tragedy and scandal even greater than her own. By the time the ship docks, two passengers
are dead, war has been declared, and life will never be the same again.
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Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
Are
you happy in your life? Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. Before he wakes to find himself
strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. Before the man he's never met smiles down at him and says, 'Welcome back, my friend'. In this
world he's woken up to, Jason's life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics
professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible. Is it this world or the other that's the dream? And even if
the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves?
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Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
This is the
tale of Demon Copperhead: our hero. A boy with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-coloured hair, bucket-loads of charm and a talent or two the world is yet to discover.
Born to a teenaged single mother in a single wide trailer, life is not set fair for Demon as he escorts us on this, his journey through the modern perils of foster care, athletic success and
addiction, the dizzying highs of true love, and the crushing losses that can accompany it. But Demon is a fighter, a survivor.
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The Dressmaker by Rosalie Ham
‘That
Tilly Dunnage has got a nerve I tell you, turning up wearing a bold frock. She’ll cause more trouble, just you wait...’
When she was only ten years old, little Tilly Dunnage was force to leave her hometown of Dungatar in rural Australia under a black cloud of accusation.
Years later Tilly, now a couturier for the Paris fashion houses, sweeps back into town hoping to make peace with her mentally unstable mother.
But mid-century Dungatar is a small town, and small towns have long memories. At first she wins over the suspicious locals with her extraordinary dressmaking skills.
But when the eccentric townsfolk turn on Tilly for a second time, she decides to teach them a lesson…
Packed with memorable characters, acid humour and luscious clothes, The Dressmaker is an irresistible gothic tale of small-town revenge.
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The Dry by Jane Harper
Amid
the worst drought to ravage Australia in a century, it hasn't rained in small country town Kiewarra for two years. Tensions in the community become unbearable
when three members of the Hadler family are brutally murdered. Everyone thinks Luke Hadler, who committed suicide after slaughtering his wife and six-year-old
son, is guilty. Policeman Aaron Falk returns to the town of his youth for the funeral of his childhood best friend, and is unwillingly drawn into the
investigation. As questions mount and suspicion spreads through the town, Falk is forced to confront the community that rejected him 20 years earlier. Because
Falk and Luke Hadler shared a secret, one which Luke's death threatens to unearth. And as Falk probes deeper into the killings, secrets from his past and why
he left home bubble to the surface as he questions the truth of his friend's crime.
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Page last updated: 1st November 2023