A Thousand Heartbeats

 By: Kiera Cass

Location: FIC Cas

Genre: Romance, Fantasy

" I really enjoyed this! An easy fantasy that focuses on characters, romance, and politics - my favourite kind!" Oceania

#1 New York Times bestselling author of The Selection series Kiera Cass is back with her most epic novel yet – a sweeping enemies-to-lovers standalone romance.

‘Love has a sound. It sounds like a thousand heartbeats happening at the same time.’
Annika has lived a life of comfort and luxury as the Princess of Kadier—but now, after the death of her mother, she’s weighted under the looming threat of a loveless marriage arranged by her cold father.

Far outside the palace walls, on the outskirts of the land Annika’s family has long ruled over, Lennox is waiting for his moment. His people displaced, his father gone, Lennox knows that it’s up to him to lead his people into a battle to overthrow the Kadierian monarchy.

After Annika and Lennox’s worlds collide, they can’t stop thinking of each other. Annika has waited her whole life to find out what love truly feels like—but could it be that she’s found love with someone she can never have

True Biz

 By Sara Novic

Location: FIC NOV

Genre:  Fiction, Disability, Deaf,

True biz (adj./exclamation; American Sign Language): really, seriously, definitely, real-talk

This is a story of sign language and lip-reading, disability and civil rights, isolation and injustice, first love and loss, and, above all, great persistence, daring, and joy. Absorbing and assured, idiosyncratic and relatable, this is an unforgettable journey into the Deaf community and a universal celebration of human connection.


True biz? The students at the River Valley School for the Deaf just want to hook up, pass their history finals, and have politicians, doctors, and their parents stop telling them what to do with their bodies. This revelatory novel plunges readers into the halls of a residential school for the deaf, where they'll meet Charlie, a rebellious transfer student who's never met another deaf person before; Austin, the school's golden boy, whose world is rocked when his baby sister is born hearing; and February, the hearing headmistress, a CODA (child of deaf adult(s)) who is fighting to keep her school open and her marriage intact, but might not be able to do both. As a series of crises both personal and political threaten to unravel each of them, Charlie, Austin, and February find their lives inextricable from one another--and changed forever.

Review by Celest Ng

Partly a tender coming of age story, partly an electrifying tale of political awakening, partly a heartfelt love letter to Deaf culture, TRUE BIZ is a wholly a wonder. Sara Nović examines the ways language can include, exclude, or help forge an identity—as well as what it means to carve out a place for yourself in a world that sees you as other.

Traitor

By: Tom Wood

Location: FIC WOO

Genre: Action Thriller 

SOMEONE'S SET HIM UP
SOMEONE'S GOING TO DIE

When Victor is arrested for a murder that, for once, he didn't commit, escape must surely be inevitable for a hitman of his ferocity.

Yet someone wants Victor put away, and he finds himself behind bars, incarcerated by police who have no idea of the monster they are dealing with and have, apparently, tamed.

Quickly, however, his fellow prisoners realise that he's not trapped in there with them: they are in a cage, with the most dangerous of enemies. And Victor has a traitor to find.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

 By: Gabrielle Zevin

Location: FIC ZEV

Genre: Fiction, Contemporary, Romance

Sometimes I find an author early and fall in love with how they write. Years ago I did that with Zevins first book- The Storied Life of A J Frikry- I raved about it and gave it to all my colleagues. On Friday I fly to the UK and I see that book is now a movie and I cant wait to watch it.

As soon as I saw Zevin had written another book- it was a no brainer- and now it is a super star hit.

In this exhilarating novel, two friends--often in love, but never lovers--come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

This is not a romance, but it is about love

Two kids meet in a hospital gaming room in 1987. One is visiting her sister, the other is recovering from a car crash. The days and months are long there. Their love of video games becomes a shared world -- of joy, escape and fierce competition. But all too soon that time is over, fades from view.

When the pair spot each other eight years later in a crowded train station, they are catapulted back to that moment. The spark is immediate, and together they get to work on what they love - making games to delight, challenge and immerse players, finding an intimacy in digital worlds that eludes them in their real lives. Their collaborations make them superstars.

This is the story of the perfect worlds Sadie and Sam build, the imperfect world they live in, and of everything that comes after success: Money. Fame. Duplicity. Tragedy.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow takes us on a dazzling imaginative quest as it examines the nature of identity, creativity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play and, above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love.

"I feel a bit bad for the upcoming books I’ll be reading in the wake of this novel, since I know nothing will compare for a very long time. In case it’s not clear enough already, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow has a well-earned place on my all-time favorites shelf. When you finish the final page of a book and hug it to your chest, where else would it go?"- Regina

Birnham Wood

 By: Eleanor Catton

Location: FIC CAT

Genre: Aotearoa, Fiction, Thriller

"Part social satire, part literary fiction, part thriller, Birnam Wood sees the return of the Booker Prize-winning author, Eleanor Catton, with a compulsively readable and compelling story about activism, the climate crisis, and deception. I flew through this book; I couldn't put it down. I wanted not only to find out what happened but also enjoyed the many different conversations characters had about big themes like purpose, activism, social responsibility, economics, privilege, etc. She writes these diatribes so well they may go on for pages but you can't stop reading. You will flip who you are siding with from section to section. And it all ends with a memorable ending that will definitely create lots of discussion" Maxwell- Goodreads.

A gripping psychological thriller from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Luminaries, Birnam Wood is Shakespearean in its wit, drama, and immersion in character. A brilliantly constructed consideration of intentions, actions, and consequences, it is an unflinching examination of the human impulse to ensure our own survival.

Birnam Wood is on the move . . .

Five years ago, Mira Bunting founded a guerrilla gardening group: Birnam Wood. An undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic gathering of friends, this activist collective plants crops wherever no one will notice: on the sides of roads, in forgotten parks, and neglected backyards. For years, the group has struggled to break even. Then Mira stumbles on an answer, a way to finally set the group up for the long term: a landslide has closed the Korowai Pass, cutting off the town of Thorndike. Natural disaster has created an opportunity, a sizable farm seemingly abandoned.

But Mira is not the only one interested in Thorndike. Robert Lemoine, the enigmatic American billionaire, has snatched it up to build his end-times bunker--or so he tells Mira when he catches her on the property. Intrigued by Mira, Birnam Wood, and their entrepreneurial spirit, he suggests they work this land. But can they trust him? And, as their ideals and ideologies are tested, can they trust each other?

The Drift

 By: C.J.Tudor

Location: FIC TUD

Genre: Horror, Thriller

"Oh boy, is this clever, it’s CJ Tudor on tiptop form, knocking it out of the park"

Survival can be murder . . .

Hannah awakens to carnage, all mangled metal and shattered glass. Evacuated from a secluded boarding school during a snowstorm, her coach careered off the road, trapping her with a handful of survivors.

Meg awakens to a gentle rocking. She's in a cable car stranded high above snowy mountains, with five strangers and no memory of how they got on board.

Carter is gazing out of the window of an isolated ski chalet that he and his companions call home. As their generator begins to waver in the storm, the threat of something lurking in the chalet's depths looms larger.

Outside, the storm rages. Inside each group, a killer lurks.

But who?

And will anyone make it out alive? .

Kawai- For such a time as this

 By: Monty Soutar

Location: FIC Sou

Genre: Aotearoa, Historical Fiction

Kāwai: For Such a Time as This is the remarkable first novel by respected historian Dr. Monty Soutar, ONZM (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Awa, Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki, Ngāti Kahungunu) in a series that reveals the role of colonisation in shaping Aotearoa New Zealand, balanced with an honest appraisal of the country in pre-colonial times

Ockham New Zealand Book Awards Nominee for Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize Fiction (shortlist)) (2023)

This epic historical adventure tells the story of pre-colonial Aotearoa New Zealand like it’s never been told before. A young Māori man, compelled to learn the stories of his ancestors, returns to his family marae on the east coast of the North Island to speak to his elderly grand-uncle, the keeper of the stories. What follows is the enthralling account of the young man’s tipuna, the legendary warrior Kaitanga, after whom his marae’s whare puni has been named.

Tracing the author’s own ancestral line, Kāwai: For Such a Time as This reveals a picture of an indigenous Aotearoa in the mid-18th century, through to the first encounters between Māori and Europeans. It describes a culture that is highly sophisticated with an immense knowledge of science, medicine and religion; proud tribes who live harmoniously within the natural world; a highly capable and adaptable people to whom family and legacy are paramount. However, it is also a culture illuminated by a brutal undercurrent of inter-generational vengeance, witchcraft and cannibalism.

The Empire

 By: Michael Ball

Location: FIC BAL

Genre Historical Fiction, Mystery

Welcome to The Empire theatre

1922. When Jack Treadwell arrives at The Empire, in the middle of a rehearsal, he is instantly mesmerised. But amid the glitz and glamour, he soon learns that the true magic of the theatre lies in its cast of characters - both on stage and behind the scenes.

There's stunning starlet Stella Stanmore and Hollywood heartthrob Lancelot Drake; and Ruby Rowntree, who keeps the music playing, while Lady Lillian Lassiter, theatre owner and former showgirl, is determined to take on a bigger role. And then there's cool, competent Grace Hawkins, without whom the show would never go on . . . could she be the leading lady Jack is looking for?

When long-held rivalries threaten The Empire's future, tensions rise along with the curtain. There is treachery at the heart of the company and a shocking secret waiting in the wings. Can Jack discover the truth before it's too late, and the theatre he loves goes dark?

Musical theatre legend Michael Ball brings his trademark warmth, wit and glamour to this, his debut novel.

Dr. No

 By: Percival Everett

Location: FIC EVE

Genre: Fiction, Humour

A sly, madcap novel about supervillains and nothing, really, from an American novelist whose star keeps rising

The protagonist of Percival Everett’s puckish new novel is a brilliant professor of mathematics who goes by Wala Kitu. (Wala, he explains, means “nothing” in Tagalog, and Kitu is Swahili for “nothing.”) He is an expert on nothing. That is to say, he is an expert, and his area of study is nothing, and he does nothing about it. This makes him the perfect partner for the aspiring villain John Sill, who wants to break into Fort Knox to steal, well, not gold bars but a shoebox containing nothing. Once he controls nothing he’ll proceed with a dastardly plan to turn a Massachusetts town into nothing. Or so he thinks.

With the help of the brainy and brainwashed astrophysicist-turned-henchwoman Eigen Vector, our professor tries to foil the villain while remaining in his employ. In the process, Wala Kitu learns that Sill’s desire to become a literal Bond villain originated in some real all-American villainy related to the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. As Sill says, “Professor, think of it this way. This country has never given anything to us and it never will. We have given everything to it. I think it’s time we gave nothing back.”

Dr. No is a caper with teeth, a wildly mischievous novel from one of our most inventive, provocative, and productive writers. That it is about nothing isn’t to

Atomic Anna

 By: Rachel Barenbaum

Location: FIC Bar

Genre: Historical Fiction, Sci Fi

Three brilliant women.
Two life-changing mistakes.
One chance to reset the future.

In 1986, renowned nuclear scientist, Anna Berkova, is sleeping in her bed in the Soviet Union when Chernobyl’s reactor melts down. It’s the exact moment she tears through time—and it’s an accident. When she opens her eyes, she’s landed in 1992 only to discover Molly, her estranged daughter, shot in the chest. Molly, with her dying breath, begs Anna to go back in time and stop the disaster, to save Molly’s daughter Raisa, and put their family’s future on a better path.

In ‘60s Philadelphia, Molly is coming of age as an adopted refusenik. Her family is full of secrets and a past they won’t share. She finds solace in comic books, drawing her own series, Atomic Anna, and she’s determined to make it as an artist. When she meets the volatile, charismatic Viktor, their romance sets her life on a very different course.

In the ‘80s, Raisa, is a lonely teen and math prodigy, until a quiet, handsome boy moves in across the street and an odd old woman shows up claiming to be her biological grandmother. As Raisa finds new issues of Atomic Anna in unexpected places, she notices each comic challenges her to solve equations leading to one impossible conclusion: time travel. And she finally understands what she has to do.

As these remarkable women work together to prevent the greatest nuclear disaster of the 20th century, they grapple with the power their discoveries hold. Just because you can change the past, does it mean you should?

Review from Goodreads

This sci-fi novel follows the lives of these three women. The plot’s pace is even, although the timeline skips around quite a bit.

Atomic Anna tackles the phrase “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.” It explores the risks of producing nuclear weapons. It asks whether it’s possible for a weapon to be created but not used and who controls it.

I am happy I read this, as science fiction is not a genre I read often. I am far from a science buff, but the author did a great job explaining everything in simple enough terms.