BIOGRAPHY

Cher: The memoir, part one by Cher

The diva recounts the action-packed first half of her life story, an all-American rags-to-riches dream. Like Barbra Streisand, this iconic woman, born in 1946, is going to need about a thousand pages to tell the story of her amazing life and career—but she has chosen to do it in two volumes. This one ends about eight years before she won her Oscar for Moonstruck in 1988, but having started her partnership with Sonny Bono at the age of 16, there is plenty to cover. She begins at the beginning: “I mean, jeez. My family. You couldn’t make it up.” Though Cher grew up with sour milk, ants in the Rice Krispies, and saddle shoes held together with rubber bands, her mother always won the “misery Olympics” with stories of her own past: “Did your dad ever try to gas you in your sleep?” Georgia Holt, this beautiful man-eater actress mom, was married six times (twice to Cher’s “smooth-talking Armenian father,” Johnnie Sarkisian), and Cher’s relationship with her, which included quite a bit of difficulty over the years but always landed on love, seems to presage her history with Bono. He died in 1998, creating an opportunity for affecting candor and self-reflection about their trajectory, which included a divorce on the basis that “Sonny had held me in ‘involuntary servitude,’ in direct violation of the US Constitution’s Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery.” Their comedy act continued to thrive after their split: She loved this man, and always will. The story of Sonny & Cher is a story of the ’60s and ’70s, of the growth of the music and television industries, of fashion and celebrity culture, of the evolving role of women in the 20th century. And the skinny on her relationships with music mogul David Geffen, second husband Gregg Allman, and Kiss frontman Gene Simmons is just as riveting. “We talked so long on the phone he ended up with a $2,800 phone bill,” she writes of Simmons. “That’s when he blurted out that he loved me….What is it with these men?” The vicarious experience of wealth, glamour, and romance is rarely this much fun. A truly great celebrity memoir. Kirkus Reviews, November 2024

We are the stars by Gina Chick

As I watched Gina Chick on the SBS series ‘Alone’, her bond to the earth was undeniable. She was fascinating to watch. This memoir is a very personal exploration of her life and choices. It starts with her childhood where she is ‘too big’ for everyone and feels more at home feeding baby birds. Her struggles at school are heartbreaking as they lay down the foundations that impact her in her 20s. Her university and working life in Sydney are crazy. She falls in love with a con man and then works her way out of an impossible amount of debt. As Gina starts to reconnect with her childhood self, she begins her journey to different camps and retreats. She falls in love and eventually, with cancer and its brutal treatment while she’s pregnant, fulfils her dream to have a child. Then another cruel blow is dealt to Gina, I found this chapter very hard to read. This book is a gift. Gina is honest, raw, poetic and captures her deepest emotions authentically. The people in her life are colourful, interesting and loyal. I loved reading about her connection and dedication to the land and the lengths she will go to live a version of life she believes is true and authentic. She’s a natural storyteller with wonderfully descriptive writing. Every emotion is big, bold and heartfelt. Everyone will take something different from this book but without a doubt you will never forget this extraordinary woman and will wish for a little of her optimism in your life. Good Reading Magazine, December / January 2025

Murriyang by Stan Grant

In May 2023, journalist Stan Grant (Talking to My Country) stepped away from his role as host of ABC’s Q+A. His latest book, Murriyang: Song of Time, is a heartfelt and vulnerable response to the events that led to his resignation and that have unfolded since, ‘in a year when Australia struggled with its soul, [and] I felt my own slipping away’. Murriyang has a personal and emotional tone that makes it a poignant departure from the decades of political commentary that have made Grant a household name. The memoir explores themes of identity, colonisation and belonging through the unique lens of Grant’s intersecting Wiradjuri descent and Christian faith. With self-awareness, Grant reflects on how these aspects of his identity, though seemingly at odds with one another, have been a source of comfort through trials, including his father’s illness. Grant poetically chronicles his relationship with his stoic father, Stan Grant Sr, a Wiradjuri cultural leader, transforming his grief into gratitude. Each chapter jumps between stories of ‘Babiin’ (father) and ‘Murriyang’ (skyworld) to weave together an intimate image of Stan Grant. Murriyang is one of the first books to address the wounds of post–Voice referendum Australia, making it a meaningful read for those reflecting on recent events. Grant implores readers to leave chaos behind, pause, contemplate and seek peace. Books + Publishing, October 2024

Captive queen: The decrypted history of Mary, Queen of Scots by Dr Jade Scott

The suffering of a doomed queen. Historian Scott draws on letters by Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-1587), including 57 newly decoded, to create a detailed portrait of the nearly 20 years she spent in captivity. Because her letters were intercepted and sometimes altered, Mary devised a system of ciphers, “a mix of graphical symbols and alphabetic letters drawn from Greek and Arabic,” codes that she kept changing depending on recipient and courier. She devised creative ways to smuggle letters out, sometimes, for example, folding them into tiny packets that could be secreted in her emissaries’ clothing. The contents of the letters reveal political intrigue, complaints about physical and emotional suffering, anger, and supplication. Scott puts them in the context of religious and political rebellions, international tensions, treachery, murder, spying, arrests, and executions that marked a tumultuous age. She also conveys the day-to-day reality of Mary’s life: Although her staff became diminished through the years, she was granted her own medical attendants, kitchen staff (a servant tasted her food for poison), and attendant ladies. Her meals were abundant, with a choice of 32 different dishes: ladies would have nine, secretaries, seven. Accused of adultery and conspiracy, during her captivity, as she was moved among manors and castles, she learned about, and tried to initiate, plots for her freedom. One bold plan attempted to muster “French troops, Spanish funds, and Scottish supporters to mount a triple attack on England” from Scotland, Ireland, and the continent. She was finally undone by a plot that involved the assassination of Queen Elizabeth. Found guilty of treason, she went to the scaffold. Scott begins each chapter with a fictionalized episode of the ongoing drama—unnecessary, since her history is dramatic and colorful enough in itself. A thoroughly researched historical narrative. Kirkus Reviews, December 2024

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COOKING

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GENERAL FICTION

Good bad girl by Alice Feeney

Feeney’s latest (after Daisy Darker) solidifies her reputation as a premier purveyor of psychological suspense. She grabs readers from page one, as an unnamed woman, wracked with guilt about being an ambivalent mother, is distracted while shopping; when she returns her attention to her baby carriage, her six-month-old daughter is gone. “I will never see her again and it is all my fault,” the woman thinks. “Because I know who has stolen her. And I know why.” From there, Feeney introduces several women, including Frankie, who’s just left her job as a prison librarian, and her teen daughter Patience, who’s run away from home and works as an attendant at a London senior-care facility. Patience has bonded with one of the residents, Edith, a former store detective whose daughter tricked her into signing away her house, and Clio, a therapist who believes another resident at the home was murdered. As the women’s relationships deepen, Feeney gradually reveals their connection to the initial abduction, keeping readers constantly off-balance with shifting perspectives and brilliantly withheld information. All the while, she mines the murky waters of mother/daughter relationships with aplomb, anchoring the flashy plotting in palpable emotion. This crafty thriller will touch readers’ hearts as much as it bends their minds. Publishers Weekly, May 2023

River road by Carol Goodman

In River Road, Professor Nan Lewis and her husband are no longer together after their only child, Emmy, was killed by a drunken hit and run driver. Lewis’s agony and grief are such that her only way of dealing with them is to turn to alcohol—lots of it. Unfortunately, her drinking affects her professional life at the college where she teaches creative writing. Many of her colleagues and some students realize Lewis has a problem, but Lewis is in denial thinking that if she can function at work it means she’s just fine. A bad sign. One night at a faculty party, one in which Lewis learns she has been denied tenure, she hits a deer on snow packed River Road while on her way home from the event. Coincidentally, the spot of the accident was the same location where her four-year-old daughter Emmy had been killed. Infused with several glasses of wine she gets out of her car to look for the deer, thinking that she may have only hurt it rather than killed it. She never finds the animal. The snow is so deep in the driveway leading to her house that she decides to leave her car parked at the bottom of the road and walk up to her house. As a result, she’s awakened the next morning by the local police who inform her that one of her students was killed by a hit and run driver on River Road. Moreover, because of the damage to Lewis’s car, she is a suspect in the victim’s death that turns out to be one of her most gifted students, Leia Dawson. Soon afterward, the town gets wind of Lewis’s involvement and turns against her. This ubiquitous scorn causes Lewis to drink even more, but also compels her to investigate what really happened the night Leia was killed. Was she really to blame, or was someone trying to frame her? The author creates a dynamic novel by using suspense and unforeseen plot twists. Her characters are interesting and well developed, bringing intrigue and excitement to a frighteningly real life story that could easily be an actual event. The Achilles heel of the protagonist, her alcoholism, is painfully realistic and shows how the disease slowly progresses, pulling people to the bottom of an inescapable bottle. With a fast-paced story and surprise ending, River Road is a destination you’ll surely want to take. New York Journal of Books, January 2016

Molly by Rosalie Ham

Rosalie Ham continues to explore the lives of the Dunnage women in her latest novel, a prequel to her bestselling debut novel The Dressmaker (2000) and its sequel The Dressmaker’s Secret (2020). But don’t worry if you haven’t read these books or watched the film adaptation of The Dressmaker (2015), Molly is a charming and bittersweet story in its own right about finding love, facing death and loss, seeking freedom, fighting for equality – and the art of corsetry! Set in Melbourne’s inner city, with real-life street names and landmarks providing a vivid and nostalgic backdrop for local readers, this is the story of 24-year-old Molly Dunnage, a spirited and independent young woman who dreams of travelling to Paris, revolutionising women’s underwear and getting her family out of poverty. However, it’s 1914, the world is on the brink of another war and opportunities for even the most educated and wealthy women are still limited, let alone a young woman who lives is a dingy shack and works in a local factory. A couple of sayings come to mind when reading this novel: ‘Life isn’t fair’ and ‘It’s better to have loved and lost, than to have never experienced love at all.’ Perhaps it’s fate or a Dunnage family curse, but Molly, her father and her aunt have all found and lost great loves and struggle to fit into expectations of the traditional patriarchal society in which they live. Despite the characters being repeatedly beaten down, Ham’s writing is full of rich imagery and humour, supported by a cast of vibrant and unique characters – even the unlikeable ones – that makes this book hard to put down. It can be disheartening to consider the fight for women’s rights from more than a century ago may have progressed so little today, but it’s not all hopeless. Ham balances moments of joy with the challenges of the day, and Molly teaches us never to give up in the face of setbacks, becoming more resilient and taking the future into her own hands. ArtsHub, November 2024

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HISTORICAL FICTION

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MYSTERY

Femicide by Pascal Engman

Heralded as a bright new star among the Scandi Noir constellation, Pascal Engman has already become a huge success at home – ‘the bestselling Swedish crime novelist of his generation’ – and in many translations, before we Anglophones get to sample his wares. Femicide (Råttkungen in Sweden) is Engman’s third of six novels, the second to star Detective Vanessa Frank and her informant Nicholas Paredes, and Engman’s first book to be translated into English. When a young woman is found murdered in her Stockholm apartment, the prime suspect is clear: her violent ex who’d just been released from prison. But is something else going on? A violent sexual assault on a young journalist, the murder of a prominent TV celebrity’s lover, a homeless couple trying to find some peace among shattered lives, a rising incel movement that wants to weaponise the ‘gender war’. Engman finely balances a page-whirring storyline with some nuanced characters and an exploration of the darker side of the internet, where misogyny festers and metastasizes. Femicide takes readers into some dark places and builds to a bold conclusion, but never feels bleak, as it’s laced with humanity and some hope. Engman is definitely a storyteller to watch, and read, and hopefully more of his books will soon be available for us all. Good Reading Magazine, December / January 2024

The grey wolf by Louise Penny

A routine break-in at the home of Sûreté homicide chief Armand Gamache leads slowly but surely to the revelation of a potentially calamitous threat to all Québec. At first it seems as if nothing at all triggered the burglar alarm at Gamache’s home in Three Pines; it was literally a false alarm. It’s not till he receives a package containing his summer jacket that Gamache realizes someone really did get into his house, choosing to steal exactly this one item and return it with a cryptic note referring to “some malady…water” and “Angelica stems.” Having already refused to meet with Jeanne Caron, chief of staff to Marcus Lauzon, a powerful politician who’s already taken vengeance on Gamache and his family for not expunging his child’s criminal record, Gamache now agrees to meet with Charles Langlois, a marine biologist with ties to Caron who confesses to a leading role in stealing Gamache’s jacket. Their meeting ends inconclusively for Gamache, who’s convinced that Langlois is hiding something weighty, and all too conclusively for Langlois, who’s killed by a hit-and-run driver as he leaves. The news that Langlois had been investigating a water supply near the abbey of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups sends Gamache scurrying off to the abbey, where the plot steadily thickens until he’s led to ask how “an old recipe for Chartreuse” can possibly be connected to “a terrorist plot to poison Québec’s drinking water.” That’s a great question, and answering it will take the second half of this story, which spins ever more intricate connections among leading players that become deeply unsettling. One of those rare triple-deckers that’s actually worth every page, every complication, every bead of sweat. Kirkus Reviews, August 2024

The comfort of ghosts by Jacqueline Winspear

Farewell, Maisie Dobbs. Once a maid in Lady Rowan Compton’s household, then a university student, a nurse, and an agent of the British Secret Service, Maisie has blossomed into a psychologist and private investigator. Her first husband, James Compton, died while test-flying an experimental aircraft. The end of World War II finds her living in the Dower House of the Compton estate with her second husband, Mark Scott—an American diplomat—and their adopted daughter, Anna, and comforting her former mother-in-law, Lady Rowan, who’s just lost her own spouse. When she hears there are squatters living in the Comptons’ London house, Maisie heads to Belgravia, where she finds four teenagers in residence along with an ailing Will Beale, the son of Maisie’s business partner, who survived a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. Checking with her old friend DCI Robbie MacFarlane, whose help she’d asked in finding the previously missing Will, she gets a bad feeling about Robbie’s interest in the squatters. Worried about the youngsters, who were part of some secret government project, Maisie talks them into letting her into the house to help Will. When they admit they witnessed the murder of a Nazi sympathizer that the government wants covered up, she moves the group to a safer place. Her investigation of the murder discloses a mass of nasty secrets. One of the teens found a packet of letters under the floorboards of the Compton house belonging to one of Maisie’s fellow maids, killed in an explosion, who had a child with James when they were very young. Finding that child, who was put up for adoption, may be the most challenging task Maisie’s ever undertaken. A fitting finale to a marvelously entertaining series full of finely drawn characters often scarred by the horrors of war. Kirkus Reviews, May 2024

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NON FICTION

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ROMANCE

A time to die by Beverly Barton

Barton gives her fans what they want in her latest romantic suspense (following The Dying Game ), featuring Lexie Murrough, who had a promising career in broadcast journalism until she was caught in the crossfire during the assassination of a newly inaugurated African dictator. If it hadn’t been for the quick reaction of the gunman, Deke Brosnan, part of a special binational assassination team, her spinal wound would have been fatal; though she never knew who rescued her, Lexie has a memory of a man with “smoky-gray eyes.” Ten years later, she’s the high-powered cofounder and CEO of a worldwide charitable organization, and she’s in danger. Bombs and telephone threats make it clear someone has a personal vendetta against her; coincidentally, Brosnan now works for the security agency hired to protect Lexie, and the assignment offers him the chance to salve his chronically guilty conscience. The romance that develops during the ensuing scramble won’t disappoint Barton’s devotees, who will be happy to find her usual blend of passion and peril—heavy on the passion. Publishers Weekly, December 2007

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SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY

Blood of Hercules by Jasmine Mas

In 2050, the world collapsed. Monstrous beings known as Titans appeared and destroyed the Earth. Immortal and impossibly indestructible, they laid waste to cities and civilization. Their destruction had brought forth the apocalypse. History repeats with Spartans rescuing humankind. A new age dawns and Spartans arise as ruthless gods. An original twist of alternate history and reimagined Greek mythology collide in Blood of Hercules by Jasmine Mas. Even by post-apocalyptic standards, Alexis Hert is dirt poor. She has nothing to her name, save the cardboard shelter she and her brother live in. Besides school, she spends her days stealing food vouchers and trying not to smell homeless. Both are equally futile endeavors. Her one hope is to score high enough on the Spartan merit test to secure a better life for her small family. As per usual, fate stomps on her humble dreams. And then on her. After a lifetime of pain, Alexis finds hell. Alexis’s life is turned upside down when she is discovered as an abandoned Spartan mutt. She is forced into the Spartan initiation test called the Crucible. Participants will either survive and become a god or die. Alexis has no known powers and no training. Her body is broken from abuse and starvation. She fears people, let alone gods. To top it all, Alexis’s assigned mentors may just kill her themselves. Alexis is doomed. The opposite of the Mary Sue trope is a well-balanced character. Jasmine Mas achieves that with Alexis Hert in Blood of Hercules. Alexis’s viewpoint is incredibly fun to read. She is 100% grim snark in the best of ways. She has the right dose of dark humor to rebel against her stark reality. Jasmine Mas made Alexis feel like a real person. Mas isn’t afraid to show some of Alexis’s naïve side or her vulnerability. Amidst all the bloodshed, Blood of Hercules by Jasmine Mas is an unapologetic dark romantasy. It is sure to delight readers looking for characters far beyond the morally gray fence post. As the first book in the Villains of Lore series, readers can hope life becomes progressively worse for Alexis Hert. Grimdark Magazine, November 2024

The mirror by Nora Roberts

A woman works to cast out the evil witch haunting her inherited home in the second book of Roberts’ Lost Bride Trilogy, following Inheritance (2023). Sonya MacTavish inherited a mansion in a small coastal Maine town, only to discover it was haunted by ghosts known as the lost brides. In 1806, a malevolent witch named Hester Dobbs wanted the mansion and its owner for herself, so she killed his bride on their wedding night and then sealed the curse by killing herself. The first woman in each subsequent generation was killed by the curse on her wedding day. Dobbs has become a poltergeist that controls part of the mansion, while the rest is inhabited by the ghosts of her victims. Roberts follows her typical trilogy plotting: In this middle book, the forces of good retrench, gather information, and build their forces, saving the final showdown for the last volume. Sonya builds a small cadre of supporters around her here, including her cousin, best friend, and lover. Inside the mansion, the foursome discovers a magic mirror that shows them scenes from the past, but as family members, Sonya and her cousin can also travel through the mirror. On the other side, they become ghosts, able to experience the murders of the brides as if they were present in the room. Sonya and her friends treat these visits as fact-finding missions, hoping to use the information to cast out Dobbs and end the curse once and for all. Meanwhile, Dobbs builds her own power, hoping to intimidate and frighten Sonya away. Roberts is a masterful storyteller, weaving together the tales of Sonya’s ancestors, not only the murdered brides but also desperate survivors who did monstrous things to avoid the curse. It’s a fascinating look at the destructive power of ambition, greed, and weakness while Sonya marshals the power of creativity, community, and togetherness. A quiet yet mesmerizing story reveals how a family was impacted by a curse over the centuries. Kirkus Reviews, October 2024

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New additions to eBooks at SMSA

eBooks & Audiobooks help

EBOOKS

Unfinished business by Shankari Chandran

The first in Miles Franklin–winning author Shankari Chandran’s Ellie Harper political thriller series, Unfinished Business mirrors the themes of the author’s past books (Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens, Safe Haven): intergenerational trauma, the violent dispossession of land and culture, and the complicity of global superpowers in state-sanctioned genocides. Respected political journalist Ameena Fernando is gunned down in broad daylight—echoing the real-life assassination of Lasantha Wickrematunge in 2009—and disaffected CIA operative Ellie Harper is dispatched to Sri Lanka to find out ‘something, but not too much’ about Fernando’s murder. Going against the wishes of her superiors, Harper becomes ensnared in a complex web of lies, deceit and state secrets as she untangles the mystery. Unfinished Business expertly evokes the hyper-surveilled metropolis of Colombo as Harper moves through morally impenetrable circles of diplomats, warlords, bureaucrats and spies. Harper herself is a fraught protagonist whose loyalties and motivations are murky—she’s not mindlessly patriotic, yet parrots US talking points whenever that nation’s hegemony is questioned. Through her, Chandran exposes the hypocrisy of the United States’ foreign policy and its intrusive interventions in the affairs of other sovereign states. Oscillating between 2005, 2007 and 2009, and taking place almost wholly in Sri Lanka, Unfinished Business is infused with dread and horror as Chandran explores the darkest depths of human cruelty and the impacts on the victims of this violence. This book will appeal to readers of Michelle de Kretser, Anuk Arudpragasam and Rajith Savanadasa. Books+Publishing, November 2024.

The Stolen Queen by Fiona Davis

In this alluring outing from Davis (The Spectacular), two women team up to find an artifact that’s gone missing from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s 1978 and curator Charlotte Cross, who specializes in Egyptian antiquities, has spent the past three years working to prove female pharaoh Hathorkare was not “universally reviled,” and that her visage was not damaged directly after her death, as conventionally believed, but decades later. Charlotte must visit Egypt to prove her thesis, a trip she’s avoided because of devastating memories from when she studied abroad there in the 1930s. In a parallel narrative, 19-year-old housekeeper Annie Jenkins dreams of becoming a fashion designer. When she lands a job as the assistant to Met Gala organizer Diana Vreeland, she thinks she’s hit the jackpot. But the night of the gala, one of the museum’s most famous Egyptian pieces disappears, and Charlotte and Annie join forces to track it down. Their search leads them to Egypt, where Charlotte will finally face her past—if she and Annie aren’t killed first. The action-packed novel brims with Davis’s customary meticulous research and adds insight to debates over whether artifacts should remain in their country of origin. There’s plenty of substance to this rousing adventure. Publishers Weekly, September 2024.

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AUDIOBOOKS

Puzzle Me a Murder by Roz Noonan

An Oregon librarian gets sucked into a murder case and discovers that her skills in researching give her quite a knack for it. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. In the run-up to her daughter Celeste’s wedding, Ruby Milliner comes home to discover her husband, West Hazel city comptroller George Byrd, in a compromising position with an unidentified woman and then, while she’s still venting her outrage to her old friend Alice Pepper, gets news that George has been bashed to death–maybe, the cops insinuate, by Ruby herself. Luckily, it doesn’t take long for Alice–who left her own husband after he ran the restaurant he started with the family savings into the ground–to establish that there are plenty of other candidates for the role of murderer. George’s quest to hunt down the low-stakes Cola Bandits, high school students Tony Preston and Jimmy Moynihan, through DNA evidence he collected through EYE-dentify, the high-tech security firm run by Jared Chase, turns out to be only the tip of a surprisingly unsavory iceberg. While Ruby was doing her best to make an honest living at Ruby’s House of Wigs, George was using trace evidence EYE-dentify gathered for him at top prices billed to the city to blackmail everyone in West Hazel. Will more people get killed? Not a single one. Will the killer get off scot-free? No way. Will Celeste’s wedding to Jamal get postponed? Absolutely not; cozy fans can breathe easy. Is a series likely to follow? Yes–under the branding of the Alice Pepper Lonely Hearts and Puzzle Club. Your move. Kirkus Review, June 2024.

The Wrong Lady Meets Lord Right by Suzanne Allain

Love blooms amid deception in this delightful Regency rom-com from Allain (Mr. Malcolm’s List). After the death of Lady Strickland, mother to Lady Isabelle “Issie” Strickland and aunt to Arabella “Bella” Grant, the cousins enjoy a peaceful life at Fenborough Hall, free from the difficult woman’s rules. But their idyll comes to an end when Issie’s great aunt, the very nearsighted Lady Dutton, demands that the pair come to London for the social season. Bookworm Issie is terrified of being presented to the queen, so she asks Bella to pretend to be her. Bella reluctantly agrees, and literally bumps into the very eligible Lord Brooke right before her presentation, igniting their mutual attraction—though Brooke believes Bella is Issie. Meanwhile, the cousins arrange for Issie to see a doctor about her heart palpitations—and Issie’s shocked to find young Dr. Jordan so deeply attractive. Both women embark on new romances, but as their time in London comes to an end, their futures are complicated by arrangements Lady Dutton has made for them without their consent. Allain keeps things G-rated, but still manages to generate some fun romantic tension, and the plot moves at a steady clip while taking the time to fully develop its multifaceted heroines. Regency fans will be riveted. Publishers Weekly, October 2024.

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