Staff Picks
A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers
Adult fiction
Picked by Paige
It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend.
One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered.
But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how.
They're going to need to ask it a lot
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All The Broken Places by John Boyce
Adult Fiction
Picked by Kia
Ninety-one-year-old Gretel Fernsby has lived in the same mansion block in London for decades. She leads a comfortable, quiet life, despite her dark and disturbing past. She doesn't talk about her escape from Germany over seventy years before. She doesn't talk about the post-war years in France with her mother. Most of all, she doesn't talk about her father, the commandant of one of the most notorious Nazi concentration camps.
Then, a young family moves into the apartment below her. In spite of herself, Gretel can't help but begin a friendship with the little boy, Henry, though his presence brings back memories she would rather forget. One night, she witnesses a violent argument between Henry's mother and his domineering father, one that threatens Gretel's hard-won, self-contained existence.
Gretel is faced with a chance to expiate her guilt, grief and remorse and act to save a young boy - for the second time in her life. But to do so, she will be forced to reveal her true identity to the world. Will she make a different choice this time, whatever the cost to herself?
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House of Odysseus by Claire North
Adult fiction
Picked by Lis
On the isle of Ithaca, Queen Penelope maintains a delicate balance of power. Many years ago, her husband, Odysseus, sailed to war with Troy and never came home. In his absence, Penelope uses all her cunning to keep the peace - but this is shattered by the arrival of Orestes, king of Mycenae, and his sister Elektra.
Orestes's hands are stained with his mother's blood. Not so long ago, the son of Agamemnon took Queen Clytemnestra's life on Ithaca's sands. Now, racked with guilt, he is slowly losing his mind.
Penelope knows destruction will follow in his wake as surely as the Furies circle him. His uncle, Menelaus, the battle-hungry king of Sparta, longs for Orestes's throne - and if he can seize it, no one will be safe from his violent whims.
Trapped between two mad kings, Penelope fights to keep war from Ithaca's shores. Her only allies are Elektra and Helen of Troy, Menelaus's enigmatic wife. And watching over them all is the goddess Aphrodite, who has plans of her own.
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The German Midwife by Mandy Robotham
Adult fiction
Picked by Alex
Germany, 1944. A prisoner in the camps, Anke Hoff is doing what she can to keep her pregnant campmates and their newborns alive.
But when Anke’s work is noticed, she is chosen for a task more dangerous than she could ever have imagined. Eva Braun is pregnant with the Führer’s child, and Anke is assigned as her midwife.
Before long, Anke is faced with an impossible choice. Does she serve the Reich she loathes and keep the baby alive? Or does she sacrifice an innocent child for the good of a broken world?
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The Beacon by P A Thomas
Adult fiction
Picked by Marj
Jack Harris, the disgraced son of Australia's most powerful business tycoon, has just been exiled to Byron Bay as a junior journalist at his father's smallest regional newspaper, The Beacon. His arrival coincides with the disappearance of the newspaper's editor, Patrick O'Shaughnessy, while out on his morning surf. When Patrick's body is discovered in the ocean, with a severed leg, it appears certain that he's fallen victim to a shark attack.
But when rumours emerge that Patrick was about to publish an explosive article – its subject unknown – Jack begins to suspect his death is not what it seems.
Although police aren't buying his murder theory, Jack joins forces with Patrick's daughter and investigates anyway, taking a sometimes less than lawful dive into the newspaperman's past. Together they discover plenty of Byron locals with a motive to kill, including a bioholistic dentist with a secret, a naturist with an undisguised grudge, and even the mayor of Northern Rivers Shire. But has Jack bitten off more than he can chew?
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Snow Piercer by Jacques Lob
Adult fiction - Graphic Novel
Picked by Pam
On a future, frozen Earth, a train that never stops circumnavigates the globe. On board: all of humanity that we could save from the great disaster that wrapped the planet in ice. At the front of the train, the survivors live in comfort and luxury - at the rear, their lives are worse than cattle, trapped in the squalid dark. When one of the occupants of the tail breaks through into the main train - all hell follows in his wake!
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