10 books to read this Summer

1. Molly | Rosalie Ham

It's 1914 and Molly Dunnage wants to see change – at home, at work and in underwear. Her burgeoning corsetry business is starting to take off, thanks to some high-profile supporters. She's marching with Melbourne's suffragists for better conditions for women everywhere. And her family – her eccentric, confounding, adored father and aunt – are turning their minds to country retirement. But as the clouds of war gather and an ominous figure starts skulking in the shadows of her life, Molly's dreams start to falter. 

2. The Ministry of Time | Kaliane Bradley

In the near future, a disaffected civil servant is offered a lucrative job in a mysterious new government ministry gathering 'expats' from across history to test the limits of time-travel. Her role is to work as a 'bridge': living with, assisting and monitoring the expat known as '1847' - Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin's doomed expedition to the Arctic, so he's a little disoriented to find himself alive and surrounded by outlandish concepts such as 'washing machine', 'Spotify' and 'the collapse of the British Empire'. With an appetite for discovery and a seven-a-day cigarette habit, he soon adjusts; and during a long, sultry summer he and his bridge move from awkwardness to genuine friendship, to something more. But as the true shape of the project that brought them together begins to emerge, Gore and the bridge are forced to confront their past choices and imagined futures. Can love triumph over the structures and histories that have shaped them? And how do you defy history when history is living in your house?

3. Funny Story | Emily Henry

Daphne always loved the way Peter told their story. That is until it became the prologue to his actual love story with his childhood bestie, Petra. Which is how Daphne ends up rooming with her total opposite and the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra's ex, Miles. As expected, it’s not a match made in heaven - that is until one night, while tossing back tequilas, they form a plan. And if it involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their adventures together, well, who could blame them? But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancé’s ex...right? 

4. The Turnglass | Gareth Rubin - 2023

1880s England: On the bleak island of Ray, off the Essex coast, an idealistic young doctor, Simeon Lee, is called from London to treat his cousin, Parson Oliver Hawes, who is dying. Parson Hawes, who lives in the only house on the island, Turnglass House, believes he is being poisoned. And he points the finger at his sister-in-law, Florence. Florence was declared insane after killing Oliver's brother in a jealous rage and is now kept in a glass-walled apartment in Oliver's library. And the secret to how she came to be there is found in Oliver's tete-beche journal, where one side tells a very different story from the other.

5. In the dead of night | Greg Haddrick

In March 2020 a couple disappears from the remote Wonnangatta Valley, leaving a burnt-out campsite. Russell Hill and Carol Clay are secret lovers, and at first it seems they might simply have started a new life somewhere. But the police become increasing convinced that they have been the victims of foul play, even though their bodies have not been found. So begins a painstaking police investigation, tracing the driver of every car in the area at the time, checking their stories and alibis. Ultimately, after more than a year's work, there seems to be only one driver who cannot be eliminated: Greg Lynn, a Jetstar captain. Is it possible that this highly successful professional pilot is a killer? Could he be responsible for a number of mysterious disappearances in the Wonnangatta Valley? Where are the bodies and how can the police successfully charge him, given that there are no witnesses, no bodies and no clues as to how they were murdered? This is the gripping inside story of the pursuit and trial of Greg Lynn.

6. Daydream | Hannah Grace

The third instalment in the bestselling Maple Hills series follows fan-favourite Henry and a bookish fellow student who come up with a plan to help each other in and out of the classroom. When procrastination lands him in a difficult class with his least favourite professor, Henry Turner knows he's going to have to work extra hard to survive his junior year of college. And now with his new role as ice hockey captain – which he didn't even want – Henry absolutely cannot fail. Enter Halle Jacobs, a fellow junior who finds herself befriended by Henry when he accidentally crashes her book club. Halle may not have the romantic pursuits of her favourite fictional leads, but she's an academic superstar, and when she hears about Henry's problems with his class reading material, she offers to help. But being a private tutor isn't exactly ideal given her own studies, job and the novel she's trying to write. New experiences are the key to beating her writer's block, though, and Henry's promising to be the one to give them to her. They just need to stick to their rulebook. Oh, and not fall in love. Note: Daydream contains 18+ content and is not suitable for younger readers.

7. Not in love | Ali Hazelwood

Rue Siebert might not have it all, but she has enough: a few friends she can always count on, the financial stability she yearned for as a kid, and a successful career as a biotech engineer at Kline, one of the most promising start-ups in the field of food science. Her world is stable, pleasant, and hard-fought. Until a hostile takeover and its offensively attractive front man threatens to bring it all crumbling down. Eli Killgore and his business partners want Kline, period. Eli has his own reasons for pushing this deal through--and he's a man who gets what he wants. With one burning exception: Rue. The woman he can't stop thinking about. The woman who's off-limits to him. Torn between loyalty and an undeniable attraction, Rue and Eli throw caution out the lab and the boardroom windows. Their affair is secret, no-strings-attached, and has a built-in deadline: the day one of their companies will prevail. But the heart is risky business--one that plays for keeps.

8. A Good Girl's Guide to Murder | Holly Jackson

Five years ago, schoolgirl Andie Bell was murdered by Sal Singh. The police know he did it. Everyone in town knows he did it. But having grown up in the same small town that was consumed by the crime, Pippa Fitz-Amobi isn't so sure. When she chooses the case as the topic for her final project, she starts to uncover secrets that someone in town desperately wants to stay hidden. And if the real killer is still out there, how far will they go to keep Pip from the truth...? 

9. Things Will Calm Down Soon | Zoë Foster Blake

Welcome to the hectic world of beauty and business in this highly relatable novel following a talented hair stylist turned entrepreneur juggling family dramas, workplace near-catastrophes and relationship crises. Things will calm down soon … right? 'Zoë Foster Blake is incapable of writing a false sentence. Every crackling page presents a new bone-deep, funny, wise and utterly brave insight into love, family and the breathless abyss of big business... And what an extraordinary tale it is.' Trent Dalton Hair stylist Kit Cooper is at the top of her game. She does the shows in Milan and Paris, tends to pop stars and celebrities, and has styled enough campaigns and magazine covers to last a lifetime. But Kit is ambitious. Restless. She can't help asking: what's next? One day, frustrated she can't find the perfect product for a look, she wonders...could she make it herself? 

10. A Fire In The Sky | Sophie Jordan

Dragon fire no longer blisters the skies over Penterra, but inside the lavish palace, life is still perilous... especially for Tamsyn. Raised in the glittering court alongside the princesses, it's her duty to be punished for their misdeeds. Treated as part of the royal family but also as the lowliest servant, Tamsyn fits nowhere. Her only friend is Stig, Captain of the Guard...though sometimes she thinks he wants more than friendship. When Fell, the Beast of the Borderlands, descends on her home, Tamsyn's world becomes even more dangerous. To save the pampered princesses from a fate worse than death, she is commanded to don a veil and marry the brutal warrior. She agrees to the deception even though it means leaving Stig, and the only life she's ever known, behind. The wedding night begins with unexpected passion--and ends in near violence when her trickery is exposed. Rather than start a war, Fell accepts Tamsyn as his bride...but can he accept the dark secrets she harbors--secrets buried so deep even she doesn't know they exist? For Tamsyn is more than a royal whipping girl, more than the false wife of a man who now sees her as his enemy. And when those secrets emerge, they will ignite a flame bright enough to burn the entire kingdom to the bone. Magic is not dead...it is only sleeping. And it will take one ordinary girl with an extraordinary destiny to awaken it.