​NEW B0OKS - JANUARY/FEBRUARY

​PASSING JUDGMENT -
​ TERI APTER

TerriApter.com

​Our obsession with praise and blame begins soon after birth.Totally dependent on others,rapidly we learn to value praise and to fear the consequences of blame. Despite outgrowing an infant's dependence, we continue to monitor others judgments of us and develop what relational psychologist Terri Apter calls a judgment meter , which constantly scans people and our interactions with them, registering a positive or negative opinion.

Apter reveals how interactions between parents and children, within couples, and among friends and colleagues are permeated with praise and blame that range far beyond specific compliments and accusations.Drawing on three decades of research,Apter gives us tools to learn about our personal needs, goals and values;to manage our biases;to tolerate others views;and to make sense of our most powerful, and often confusing, responses to ourselves and to others.

​A FALSE REPORT - 
​ T. CHRISTIAN MILLER & KEN ARMSTRONG

"On 11 August 2008, eighteen-year-old Marie reported that a masked man had broken into her home and raped her. Within days, police – and even those closest to Marie – became suspicious of her story: details of the crime just didn’t seem plausible. Confronted with the seeming inconsistencies, Marie broke down and said her story was a fabrication – a bid for attention. The police convicted her of making a false report. She was vilified as a liar.
More than two years later, some 1,600 kilometres away, detective Stacy Galbraith was assigned to a case of sexual assault. It bore an eerie resemblance to a rape that had taken place months earlier in a nearby town. Galbraith contacted the detective on that case, Edna Hendershot, and they joined forces.

Galbraith and Hendershot soon realised they were dealing with a serial rapist: a man who took calculated steps to erase all physical evidence, who photographed each of his victims, threatening to release the images online if the women went to the police. After weeks of meticulous investigation, they had a name. But they also had yet another victim – a young woman whose identity was a mystery, a possible missing link. It was imperative they find her."

​DEFECTORS -
​ JOSEPH KANON

JosephKanon.com

Joseph Kanon – a former New York publisher himself – brings all of his insider knowledge and urbane observation to deliver an exceptional, le Carré-class thriller. In Frank Weeks we discover shades of Graham Greene’s Harry Lime, a man who has made the half-world of defection in a foreign state his own. In Moscow, we discover a brittle playground of those who have risked everything for communism but now find themselves disillusioned and under the constant observation of the state.
American author Joseph Kanon is internationally recognised as one of the finest contemporary writers of espionage fiction, earning him comparison with Graham Greene and John le Carré. His novels include: Los Alamos, The Prodigal Spy, The Good German, Alibi, Stardust, Istanbul Passage, Leaving Berlin and Defectors.

I'll be honest someone recommended this book mentioning Len Dieghton. Mr Dieghton was a life saving escape at one time in my time and the recommend worked. It's a great book and I was hooked from the off. Don't expect a brilliant Dieghton though! Expect a brilliant Kanon! - and pay attention! -paulie-

ELEANOR OLIPHANT IS COMPLETELY FINE -
​GAIL HONEYMAN

Gail on Twitter

"Widely hailed as the fiction debut of 2017, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is a triumph of deft observation of everyday life. By turns laugh-aloud funny and deeply poignant, it is a book that champions everyday courage and the importance of friendship in a world where people are increasingly isolated. Challenging the stigmas that exist around loneliness in contemporary society, it is a gentle reminder of those we too easily overlook and how a life can be changed by small acts of kindness."
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

​THREE THINGS ABOUT ELSIE 
- ​JOANNA CANNON

"There are three things you should know about Elsie.
The first thing is that she’s my best friend.
The second is that she always knows what to say to make me feel better.
And the third thing… might take a little bit more explaining.
84-year-old Florence has fallen in her flat at Cherry Tree Home for the Elderly. As she waits to be rescued, Florence wonders if a terrible secret from her past is about to come to light; and, if the charming new resident is who he claims to be, why does he look exactly like a man who died sixty years ago?
From the author of THE TROUBLE WITH GOATS AND SHEEP, this book will teach you many things, but here are three of them:
1) The fine threads of humanity will connect us all forever.
2) There is so very much more to anyone than the worst thing they have ever done.
3) Even the smallest life can leave the loudest echo."

This is a beautiful novel, age affects us all in fact all the more now as our lifespans seem to increase. You need to read this but be warned, it will touch your heart! Fran X

​IN THESE DAYS OF PROHIBITION -
​CAROLINE BIRD

Caroline on Woman's Hour.

'In These Days of Prohibition' ​is shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot prize for poetry which will be announced next week and you can hear Caroline talking about her experiences and the inspiration behind the poetry  on Woman's hour. I've put a link behind the book cover. - Fran 

"​In These Days of Prohibition is Caroline Bird's fifth Carcanet collection. As always, she is a poet of dark hilarity and telling social comment. Shifting between poetic and vulgar registers, the surreal imagery of her early work is re-deployed to venture into the badlands of the human psyche. Her poems hold their subjects in an unflinching grip, addressing faces behind the veneer, asking what it is that keeps us alive. These days of prohibition are days of intoxication and inebriation, rehab in a desert and adultery for atheists, until finally Bird edges us out of danger, 'revving on a wish'."

​THE WIFE BETWEEN US

​'A fiendishly clever thriller in the vein of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train. This one will keep you guessing.' - Anita Shreve, author of The Stars are Fire
When you read this book, you will make many assumptions.
It’s about a jealous wife, obsessed with her replacement.
It’s about a younger woman set to marry the man she loves.
The first wife seems like a disaster; her replacement is the perfect woman.
You will assume you know the motives, the history, the anatomy of the relationships.
You will be wrong.
The Wife Between Us is the first collaboration between Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen; a gripping thriller with film rights sold to the creators of The Girl On the Train.

​THE WOMAN IN THE WINOW

Anna Fox hasn't left her New York home in 10 months. Instead of venturing into the outside world, she watches it from her window. But her world order vanishes in an instant when she sees something she shouldn't.

​THE LAST THING SHE EVER DID -

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author comes a psychological thriller exploring the things we dare to do when no one is looking . . .
The community along Oregon’s Deschutes River is one of successful careers and perfect families. For years, up-and-comers Liz and Owen have admired their good friends and neighbors, Carole and David. They appear to have it all—security, happiness, and a beautiful young son, Charlie.

Then Charlie vanishes without a trace, and all that seemed safe is shattered by a tragedy that is incomprehensible—except to Liz.
It took one fleeting moment for her to change the lives of everyone she loves—a heartrending accident that can’t be undone. Neither can the second-worst mistake of her life: concealing it. As two marriages crack and buckle in grief and fear, Liz retreats into her own dark place of guilt, escalating paranoia—and betrayals even she can’t imagine. Because there’s another good neighbor who has his own secrets, his own pain, and his own reasons for watching Liz’s every move.
And only he knows that the mystery of the missing boy on the Deschutes River is far from over.