BIOGRAPHY

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COOKING

Good Lookin’ Cookin’ by Dolly Parton and Rachel Parton George

Legendary singer-songwriter Parton (Behind the Seams) teams up with her sister, debut author George, for this cheery guide to entertaining. The sisters provide 12 themed menus, each devoted to one month of the year, with recipes for drinks, appetizers, mains, sides, and desserts. July’s menu, inspired by Fourth of July cookouts, starts with sweet tea and hot wing dip with celery sticks, features barbecue spare ribs as the main, includes grilled corn with spicy mayo and layered salad as the sides, and ends with apple pie with crumb topping. Throughout, the authors share endearing anecdotes (“This is one of Dolly’s favorite dishes, so I usually make it for her birthday,” George writes of the rustic chicken and dumplings) and family recipes, including their mother’s banana pudding and their sister Willadeene’s witches’ brew cider. Instructions are uncomplicated, with prep times and cook times listed to help readers plan ahead and sidebars with handy tips: for the watermelon fruit salad, they suggest adding the dressing (made of citrus, herbs, and champagne) to individual servings instead of the entire bowl to help leftovers last longer. This tasty and heartfelt outing is a gift for Parton’s fans. Publisher’s Weekly, June 2024

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GENERAL FICTION

Before We Forget Kindness by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

The gentle but poignant fifth light fantasy in Kawaguchi’s Before the Coffee Gets Cold series (after Before We Say Goodbye) returns to Tokyo’s Café Funiculi Funicula. Run by the Tokita family, this otherwise unassuming café has one major draw: any customer who sits in one particular seat can travel in time, as long as they return before their cup of coffee gets cold. Each series installment comprises stories following different customers and the people with whom they hope to have one last conversation. This time around, readers meet a young boy trying to come to terms with his parents’ divorce (“The Son”); a new mother whose husband was killed before he could meet and name their infant daughter (“The Nameless Child”); a woman who eloped without her father’s blessing and now needs his forgiveness (“The Father”); and two best friends driven apart by painful romantic secrets (“The Valentine”). The focus on regret and grief makes this a heart-wrenching outing, but kindness and empathy still shine through in Kawaguchi’s characters. Readers will find comfort even as they reach for the tissues. Publishers Weekly, September 2024

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

Bestseller Rooney returns with a boldly experimental and emotionally devastating story of estrangement (after Beautiful World, Where Are You). After their father dies, brothers Peter and Ivan Koubek drift further apart. Peter, 32, is a depressed Dublin lawyer torn between his college girlfriend, Sylvia, who broke up with him with after she suffered a disabling accident six years earlier, and 23-year-old Naomi, a sometime sex worker. Ivan, 22, is a socially inept pro chess player whose wunderkind status is in doubt when he meets and falls for 36-year-old near-divorcée Margaret at a tournament. Peter’s reflexive disapproval of the age gap in Ivan and Margaret’s relationship causes a permanent rift, and Rooney crosscuts between their perspectives as they ruminate on their father’s death and their complicated romances. The novel’s deliberate pacing veers from the propulsiveness of Normal People and the deep character work contrasts with the topicality of Beautiful World, but in many ways this feels like Rooney’s most fully realized work, especially as she channels the modernist styles of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. Underlining Peter’s rudderlessness, she writes, “Lamplight. Walking her to the library under the trees. Live again one day of that life and die. Cold wind in his eyes stinging like tears. Woman much missed.” Moreover, her focus on Peter and Ivan’s complicated fraternal bond pays enormous dividends. Even the author’s skeptics are liable to be swept away by this novel’s forceful currents of feeling. Publisher’s Weekly, July 2024

Days at the Morisaki bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa

A young woman goes to work in a used bookstore in this comforting tale about growing old and settling down. Even though her boyfriend broke her heart and, in despair, she lost her job, 25-year-old Takako doesn’t want to leave Tokyo. Her uncle Satoru, though, owns a cramped, musty bookstore in Jimbocho, Japan’s famous book town, and he offers her a room in exchange for her assistance. Surveying her temporary abode among the piles of books, Takako says, “If I got even the slightest bit careless, my Towers of Babel would collapse.” Yagisawa’s short and engaging novel is simply structured, following the ordinary events of Takako’s days at the bookstore. The first section is propelled by Takako’s increasing curiosity as she discovers the delights of literature and becomes part of a close-knit network of book lovers. Satoru helps her express her hurt and stand up for herself, and with her newfound strength and kindness, she is able not only to help others express their desires and vulnerabilities, but to navigate the world with assurance herself. Takako does it all: listening, building friendships, matchmaking, reading, and recommending books. Gabrielle Zevin’s A Storied Life of A.J. Fikry and Helene Hanff’s 84, Charing Cross Road come to mind, though this novel dwells more intimately on the relationships Takako develops than on the books she grows to love. The second section centers on Satoru’s heartache as his wife returns to the bookstore after many years away, armed with a mysterious cheerfulness. As Takako attempts to unravel the currents of romantic love, both in her own life and those of her uncle and aunt, the novel delivers a gentle portrait of desire and grief. Ozawa’s translation preserves the drollness and buoyancy of Takako’s first-person narrative of small pleasures and mysteries. A familiar romance about books and bookstores, told with heart and humor. Kirkus Reviews, June 2023

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HISTORICAL FICTION

The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable

Constable’s mellifluous debut draws on the life of composer Anna Maria della Pietà (1696–1782), an orphan who became a violin prodigy at the age of eight and was tutored by Antonio Vivaldi. Raised at the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice, Anna Maria dreams of becoming the youngest member of the orphanage’s renowned orchestra. She’s learned to play the flute and the oboe, but she finds her calling when she hears the violin. Sure enough, her new teacher, the virtuoso Vivaldi, sees promise in Anna Maria’s playing. When she’s 13, he invites her to collaborate with him. Anna Maria says she’s been thinking about writing a piece about spring, which gives Vivaldi the idea for his Four Seasons concerti. By the time Anna Maria is 17, she chafes at Vivaldi’s insistence on keeping her contributions secret. When she claims she’s destined for greatness as a composer in her own right, Vivaldi belittles her. Anna Maria then leaves the orphanage in a huff, and struggles to survive after pawning a necklace and living in a hovel. Constable richly portrays the city’s opulence and its seedy underside, and she charms in her portrayal of her fiery young protagonist. This will appeal to fans of historicals with strong female leads. Publisher’s Weekly, June 2024.

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MYSTERY

The Clutter Corpse by Simon Brett

Set in Chichester, England, this gentle series launch from Brett (the Fethering mysteries) introduces Ellen Curtis, a widow with two grown children who runs her own business called SpaceWoman, which offers decluttering and interior restyling. As Ellen goes about a typical workday, she chats engagingly about her clients, her friends, her actor mother, her children, her deceased husband, and her adventurous youth. However, her afternoon takes an unexpected turn when she stops in at the cluttered apartment of Maureen Ogden, whose grown son, Nate, has recently been released on parole from prison where he was serving time for his live-in girlfriend’s murder. Amid the stacked newspapers and piles of debris, Ellen finds the body of an emaciated young woman. Could Nate be the killer? Ellen decides to investigate. The languid lead-up to the body’s discovery turns out to be necessary preparation for another murder and the denouement. The appealing Ellen is fortunate to pursue a profession that allows her to enter into the homes and minds of her clients. She is sure to win many loyal fans. Publisher’s Weekly, March 2020

Death at High Tide by Hannah Dennison

At the start of this winning series launch from Dennison (the Honeychurch Hall mysteries), 36-year-old Evie Mead learns that her recently deceased older husband, Robert, has left her in financial difficulties, but a document discovered at his accountant’s office indicates she may have inherited Tregarrick Rock, a hotel on the island of Tregarrick off the coast of Cornwall. Accompanied by Margot Chandler, her glamorous Hollywood producer sister, Evie heads to remote Tregarrick to check out her possible inheritance. Nasty Jago Ferris claims he owns Tregarrick Rock, and denies knowledge of Robert and any such document, though Evie later finds a photo of them together next to a picture of Robert’s first wife in Jago’s office. Jago’s artist wife, Tegan, takes a particular dislike to Evie, and two hotel employees are conspicuously cool to the sisters. Two murders and a high tide cutting off the police heighten the suspense. Intriguing characters and an intricate plot lift this twist on Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. Cozy fans will look forward to further skullduggery on Tregarrick. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary. Publisher’s Weekly, May 2020

Mortmain Hall by Martin Edwards

Set in 1930s England, Edgar winner Edwards’s sequel to 2019’s Gallows Court is a triumph, from its tantalizing opening, in which an unnamed dying man begins to explain an unspecified perfect crime, through its scrupulously fair final reveal. Rachel Savernake, an enigmatic figure fascinated with mysteries, is tipped off by Reggie Vickers, who works in Whitehall, that someone is about to be murdered. Gilbert Payne, a publisher believed dead, is set to travel, incognito, from London to his mother’s funeral in the country. Rachel warns Gilbert that his life is in peril, but he ignores her, and ends up dead under the wheels of a train. Meanwhile, Rachel’s reporter friend, Jacob Flint, is approached by Leonora Dobell, one of the country’s top criminologists, who seeks an introduction to Rachel, who later attends a house party at Leonora’s home, Mortmain Hall, on the Yorkshire coast, for “acquitted murder suspects,” whose ranks include other individuals Reggie mentioned to Rachel. The labyrinthine plot builds to a logical explanation. Edwards, the current president of the Detection Club, a group of British mystery writers founded in 1930, impressively channels Agatha Christie, one of his predecessors in that position. Publishers Weekly, June 2020

Bad Liar by Tami Hoag

Det. Annie Broussard and Lt. Nick Fourcade return in Hoag’s gripping third case for the Partout Parish, La., investigative duo (after The Boy). At the outset, Nick responds to a call about the discovery of a body in a rural, marshy area, with a face so pulverized it’s nearly impossible to identify the victim. Annie, meanwhile, returns to the sheriff’s office after recovering from PTSD and a concussion she sustained during a previous investigation, and immediately encounters a distraught woman named B’Lynn Fontenot. B’Lynn’s son, Robby, has gone missing in the nearby town of Bayou Breaux, but police there refuse to take his disappearance seriously given his history of drug use. B’Lynn is certain that Robby’s kicked the habit, and Annie agrees to investigate. She links up with Nick to determine whether the body in the marsh might be Robby, or if it’s Marc Mercier, a well-liked local businessman who’s recently gone missing. Hoag sketches Robby, Marc, and B’Lynn with remarkable depth and sensitivity, and keeps the plot moving at a brisk clip through many twists and turns. This will please series fans and newcomers alike. Publisher’s Weekly, June 2024

A Dangerous Collaboration by Deanna Raybourn.

In March 1888, Veronica Speedwell agrees to accompany Tiberius, Viscount Templeton-Vane, to a windswept Cornish isle, the home of a rare butterfly, in Raybourn’s deliciously gothic fourth mystery featuring the adventurous lepidopterist (after 2018’s A Treacherous Curse). Incidentally, Veronica hopes to sort out her disturbing feelings for Tiberius’s brother, Revelstoke “Stoker” Templeton-Vane—a plan that’s complicated when Stoker invites himself along. St. Maddern’s Isle is owned by Tiberius’s oldest friend, Malcolm Romilly, whose bride, Rosamund, disappeared three years earlier, on their wedding day. In order to finally discover what has become of Rosamund, Malcolm has gathered everyone who was present on the day she went missing: his estranged family, his long-time staff, and Tiberius, who harbored a secret passion for the mysterious Rosamund. Over several stormy days, Veronica and Stoker discover that everyone is concealing painful secrets and ulterior motives. A brooding castle, rain-lashed windows, hidden passages, and a séance all contribute to a delightfully creepy tale with twists that would make Daphne Du Maurier proud. Publishers Weekly, January 2019

The Last Grudge by Max Seeck

Det. Sgt. Yusuf Pepple takes center stage in Seeck’s gripping third Ghosts of the Past mystery (after 2021’s The Ice Coven), in which the Helsinki Police investigate the homicide of industrialist Elial Zetterborg. The murder occurs on the 50th anniversary of the founding of the victim’s company and at a time when the sudden closure of a local factory will cost several thousand people their jobs. Assisted by other series regulars on the force, Yusuf must first decide whether to look for suspects among those adversely affected by Zetterborg’s controversial business decisions or with personal motivation to kill. Meanwhile, Det. Sgt. Jessica Niemi is on leave as she attempts to deal with the aftermath of events that nearly took her life in the previous book. Jessica’s hallucinatory struggles help develop her character but distract from the main story line, and it’s a relief when Yusuf persuades her to join the Zetterborg investigation. Clever plot twists more than compensate for some inconsistent handling of characterization and dialogue. Newcomers are advised to start with the first book in the series, The Witch Hunter. Publishers Weekly, Oct 2022

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NON FICTION

Seventy Times Seven: A True Story of Murder and Mercy by Alex Mar

Journalist Mar (Witches of America) delivers an engrossing study of faith, forgiveness, and justice centered on the 1985 murder of a great-grandmother in Gary, Ind. Fifteen-year-old Paula Cooper, one of four teenage girls who invaded the home of Bible teacher Ruth Pelke and stole her car, was sentenced to death for the crime. Mar details the physical abuse Cooper endured from her father, her mother’s attempt to kill herself and her two daughters, and Cooper’s experiences being “passed from stranger to stranger” in foster homes and emergency shelters in the three years leading up to the murder. Juxtaposed with Cooper’s volatile childhood are snapshots of Pelke, who had taught one of the teenage girls and driven her to church. Other profile subjects include Jack Crawford, the prosecutor who chose to pursue the death penalty against Cooper, who confessed to stabbing Pelke more than 30 times; Bill Pelke, Ruth’s grandson, who publicly forgave Cooper for the crime; and Earline Rogers, a state legislator who spearheaded efforts to exempt juveniles younger than 16 from the death penalty in Indiana. Though Cooper’s sentence was commuted and she was released from prison in 2013, she died in an apparent suicide less than two years later. Deeply reported and vividly written, this is a harrowing and thought-provoking portrait of crime and punishment. Publisher’s Weekly, August 2022

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SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY

A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas

Feyre and her friends must stop the evil Hybern king’s conquering schemes. Following A Court of Mist and Fury (2016), pale-skinned Feyre has been returned to the Spring Court in the wake of an alliance between Tamlin and Hybern. She deceives them, actually serving as a spy and saboteur for Rhysand and his court. But right before she can sneak back to the Night Court (and her loving, quite physical relationship with Rhys), her careful plan is torpedoed. She and Lucien make a far more dangerous than expected voyage back to Velaris and to Feyre’s friends and family, her two sisters suffering from their forcible Fae transformations. To counter Hybern’s machinations, Feyre and Rhys must rally their own allies, but the Fae courts are still fractured and reeling from Amarantha’s cruelties, and they distrust Night for its reputation. To repair the rifts, the heroes must weigh the pros and cons of dropping their protective masks and showing their true selves, part of the reoccurring themes of self-acceptance and forgiveness. But some alliances are still dangerous—recruiting monsters to fight the monstrous is always a dicey proposition—and double agents abound. Side characters’ romantic storylines are interwoven with the strategizing and even the war, pairing the expanded world with extended action sequences and character revelations, and the conclusion’s ramifications will be felt in the next installments. Nifty romantic escapism enhanced by expansion of worldbuilding and development of secondary characters. Kirkus Reviews, May 2017

Time Trials by M. A. Rothman

Aragtag team of archaeology experts find themselves at the center of a battle for humankind’s survival in Rothman and Butler’s supernatural thriller. Present-day Egyptologist Marty Cohen joins a secret, privately financed dig in Egypt’s Nabta Playa after his friend and German archaeologist Gunther Mueller tantalizingly tells him that they found hieroglyphs that predate any known writing from the region. The expedition, led by eccentric French millionaire François Garnier, also includes Indigenous Australian biological anthropologist Lowanna Lancaster; security expert Surjan Singh, a former member of India’s special forces; and Egyptian dig specialists Abdullah bin Rahman and his nephew Kareem. When Marty finally sees the hieroglyphs in a tunnel leading to a mysterious chamber, he’s dumbfounded to find something that shouldn’t be there: English-language text. Just then, the members of the expedition are suddenly transported to another place, across the Sahara—and back in time, thousands of years. As they journey across the desert in an attempt to find their way back home, they meet new friends and foes; among the latter are monsters with jackal heads and human bodies that looks suspiciously like the god Seth. The team soon discover that the future is in danger—and that they’re the only ones who can save it. This highly enjoyable novel by Rothman and Butler is full of nonstop action, bits of science, mystery, humor, and enough Ancient Egypt trivia to satisfy any history enthusiast. The quest narrative and the Dungeons & Dragons–style team structure recall familiar fantasy tropes, but the authors manage to develop the characters well, giving them each their own distinct arcs, and it results in a tale that’s well worth reading. The overarching mystery keeps the pages turning in an adventure tale that refreshingly shows respect for ancient civilizations and their accomplishments. An entertaining first entry in what promises to be a fantastic time-travel series. Kirkus Review, March 2023

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New additions to eBooks at SMSA

eBooks & Audiobooks help

EBOOKS

The Burrow by Melanie Cheng

A Melbourne family struggles to move on four years after their baby’s death in the penetrating latest from Cheng (Room for a Stranger). Hoping to lighten the mood for their 10-year-old daughter, Lucie, Jin and Amy Lee get her a pet rabbit. Initially, the rabbit proves a welcome distraction, but then Amy’s estranged mother, Pauline, arrives after breaking her wrist, and the family’s tenuous harmony is undermined. Through flashbacks, Cheng hints at the circumstances of the baby’s death at six months, suggesting that Pauline bore some responsibility. Meanwhile, Pauline is struck by the family’s stagnation: the backyard is riddled with detritus from a partially completed home improvement project, and Amy seems to be incapable of providing the necessary emotional support to sensitive Lucie. To make matters worse, the Covid-19 pandemic keeps everyone but Jin, an ER doctor, housebound. Eventually, each character’s bond with the rabbit proves restorative, and a crisis point involving a break-in nudges them further along the path toward recovery. Cheng shrewdly portrays the impact of the tragedy on each family member. Readers will be moved. Publisher’s Weekly, September 2024

Down the Rabbit Hole by Shaeden Berry

In Shaeden Berry’s mystery debut, Down the Rabbit Hole, the lives of three women unravel in the aftermath of a tragedy. In 2015, Alice Montgomery goes missing. Seven years later, her best friend Hannah is still haunted by the event. Drifting between different jobs and cities, Hannah wants to be anywhere but in her hometown of Perth, where her friend vanished and where Hannah grew physically and emotionally distant from her mother, Jamie. When she does return, Hannah is determined to uncover the truth about her friend’s disappearance. She seeks answers first from Marnie, Alice’s terminally ill mother who formerly struggled with substance use issues; then from Rachel Olney, Alice’s reclusive high-school teacher whom Marnie blames for her daughter’s disappearance. Down the Rabbit Hole is suitable for readers who loved Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere or Melina Marchetta’s On the Jellicoe Road and will capture the attention of any book club looking for its next page-turning read. Berry’s writing is masterful, with each moment and word chosen perfectly by the author to create a thrilling atmosphere. Hannah’s sleuthing reveals deep regret and remorse in the three women, each haunted by unresolved pasts and aching to be understood. While the mystery of Alice drives the plot, the stories of mothers and daughters struggling to mend their fraught relationships with each other and themselves emerge as the heart of the narrative, and readers will be left reeling long after the last page. Books Publishing, September 2024

The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk

Nobel Prize winner Tokarczuk (The Books of Jacob) delivers the disarming tale of a Silesian tuberculosis ward and a series of mysterious deaths in the surrounding countryside. Mieczysław Wojnicz, a frail engineering student, has been sent to the ward in 1913 to convalesce. While awaiting a room in the main facility, he chats in the guesthouse with a group of fellow patients, whose misogynistic views reflect the period’s prevailing attitudes. Tokarczuk places the modern institution against a rural backdrop where locals remain enthralled by ancient folk superstitions, and she explores this dissonance as Wojnicz learns of the witch trials that purportedly drove some women into the wilderness centuries earlier and gave rise to legends of female shape-shifters. Each November, the bodies of mutilated men are recovered from the woods, and hikers stumble upon Tuntschi, female dolls fashioned from natural materials to gratify sex-starved itinerant laborers. At the novel’s crisis point, Wojnicz uncovers a chilling connection between the legend and the sanatorium. Tokarczuk concocts a potent blend of horror tropes and literary references (Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann) as she realizes the potential of her tale’s uncommon setting—a community set apart by the omnipresence of sickness and death, where the rules of civilized propriety give way to more fantastic possibilities. Readers will find much to savor. Publisher’s Weekly, July 2024

Jilya by Tracy Westerman

Jilya means ‘my child’ in Nyamal language, and it is evident on every page of her hybrid memoir/cultural study that leading psychologist and Nyamal woman Tracy Westerman is committed to improving the prospects of First Nations kids in Australia. As she shows at length, insidious racism continues to measurably impact psychological health outcomes for First Nations peoples. Through grit and resilience, Westerman has gained a thorough knowledge of these ongoing issues, and she makes an impassioned case in Jilya for how mental health professionals—and society—should respond. She balances hope against the realities she’s faced throughout her decades-long career. However, it is her own origin story that persuades her—and this reader—the most convincingly of what is possible with the right environment. The chapters alternate between the personal and the accessibly academic, with commentary on scientific studies often couched in yarns and examples from Westerman’s own practice. This style reminded me of Tyson Yunkaporta’s broader-focused Sand Talk, which would be an excellent companion read to Jilya, especially for non-Indigenous readers. As a white Australian, I found Jilya educational, illuminating and contagiously hopeful. It is heartening to know that Westerman is doing such great work. I sincerely hope copies are distributed to mental health professionals and the Australian government on all levels. Books Publishing, July 2024

Leave the Girls Behind by Jacqueline Bublitz

Ruth-Ann Baker, affectionately known as ‘Ruthie’ to those around her, never takes the same route home, secures her apartment with three internal chain locks and can recite murder victim statistics off the top of her head. In Jacqueline Bublitz’s Leave the Girls Behind, Ruthie harbours a secret: she’s often visited by the ghost of her childhood best friend, Beth, who was abducted and murdered in their hometown of Hoben, Connecticut, when they were seven years old. When another child goes missing in the town Ruthie left behind, she’s spurred into action, revisiting old memories and piecing together clues to try to establish a pattern. Leave the Girls Behind steps into the framework of a crime mystery novel without being a classic whodunnit. Bublitz (Before You Knew My Name) leans on established tropes of copycat killers, suspected accomplices and online citizen detective forums to explore the hierarchy of victimhood, the ethics of the burgeoning true crime genre, the phenomenon of collective grief, and the legacy of trauma and complicity. There are perpetrators of violence and misogyny, and there are the people who enable them, whether explicitly or implicitly. A page-turner with unexpected twists right up to the end, Leave the Girls Behind will appeal to readers who enjoyed Lucy Treloar’s Days of Innocence and Wonder, Hayley Scrivenor’s Dirt Town and Holly Jackson’s A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. Books Publishing, September 2024

Thanks for Having Me by Emma Darragh

Emma Darragh’s debut novel, Thanks for Having Me, is an intergenerational familial story that offers a glimpse into the lives of three women: Mary Anne, Vivian and Evie. It’s a non-sequential narrative that transports readers to different points in each of the women’s lives—sometimes Mary Anne is an adult and Vivian is a child, sometimes Vivian is an adult and Evie is a child, and so forth. The women go about their lives—growing families, working, grocery shopping—with one point of contention driving the narrative: Mary Anne is unhappy as a wife and mother, and she leaves her family. This decision ripples through her daughter’s life, and history repeats itself when Vivian leaves her family, too. Mary Anne and Vivian are easy to connect with, particularly in their frustrations, but they’re almost interchangeable characters whose personalities could be more fleshed out. Time markers—cassette tapes, Dolly magazines and cigarettes—replace meaningful change or character growth, and the book might have been stronger if we had just followed one woman’s life. In saying that, the book’s strengths include Darragh’s writing style (which has a lovely and practised flow), engaging female characters, and an exploration of the consequences women face for changing their lives. This is a story for fans of French Braid by Anne Tyler and I’m Sorry You Feel That Way by Rebecca Wait. Books Publishing, January 2024

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AUDIOBOOKS

A Wilder Shore by Camille Peri

“There would be no Robert Louis Stevenson as we know him” if not for his wife, Fanny Osbourne Stevenson, according to this shrewd debut. Journalist Peri recounts how, from the couple’s introduction at a French artist colony in 1876 through Stevenson’s death in 1894, the pair traveled the world in search of climates that would ease Stevenson’s chronic respiratory ailments, spending time in San Francisco and southern England before settling in Samoa. Peri suggests the marriage was mutually beneficial; Osbourne provided Stevenson with medical care while he used his literary connections to get her short stories published in respected magazines. More importantly, Peri contends, was Osbourne’s editorial feedback on virtually everything Stevenson wrote. For instance, Peri notes that in Stevenson’s first draft of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Jekyll was evil and only used the Hyde persona as a disguise; however, Osbourne convinced him to lean into the tale’s themes of duality and to present the characters as moral contrasts. Peri offers a nuanced take on her subjects’ relationship, positing that while theirs was more egalitarian than most (Stevenson took the unusual step of insisting Osbourne receive credit as coauthor of their short story collection, More New Arabian Nights), “the couple’s verbal scuffles were notorious” and the burden of caring for Stevenson likely stunted Osbourne’s own literary ambitions. This detailed history gives Osbourne her overdue turn in the spotlight. Publisher’s Weekly, July 2024

The Ledge by Christian White

When reading author and screenwriter Christian White’s fourth novel, The Ledge, it’s worth remembering the adage: ‘When you assume, you make an ass of u and me.’ As a seasoned crime reader and long-time fan of White’s storytelling (both on the page and on the screen), I thought I might be able to anticipate the plot twists and sniff out the red herrings, but my assumptions led me astray. Once again, White has crafted a pacy and ingenious thriller you’ll immediately want to reread. The Ledge explores male friendship over two parallel timelines. In 1999, 16-year-old Aaron runs away from home, leaving his closest friends, Justin, Chen and Leeson, baffled. Twenty-five years later, human remains are found in a nearby forest, and long-buried secrets resurface. While the present-day timeline feels less focused than that set in the past—characters jostle for space in the storyline, making it difficult to connect with the key players—White’s skill with character development and voice shines in the 1999 timeline, which is told through Justin’s diary. Justin is an endearing teenager who loves his friends as fiercely as he loves Stephen King novels. His experiences coming of age in a small Victorian town and his internal battle with right and wrong are expertly conveyed in diary form. It’s impossible not to enjoy the twists and turns in The Ledge, and it’s a must-read for fans of Aussie crime. Books Publishing, August 6

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