Nicholas Sparks - Two By Two
New York Times bestselling author Nicholas Sparks returns with an emotionally powerful story of unconditional love, its challenges, its risks and most of all, its rewards. At 32, Russell Green has it all: a stunning wife, a lovable six year-old daughter, a successful career as an advertising executive and an expansive home in Charlotte. But underneath the shiny surface of this perfect existence, fault lines are beginning to appear...and no one is more surprised than Russ when he finds every aspect of the life he took for granted turned upside down. In a matter of months, Russ finds himself without a job or wife, caring for his young daughter while struggling to adapt to a new and baffling reality.
Amy Schumer - The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo
Amy Schumer starts her highly-anticipated essay collection off with a lie. Right there in the introduction she writes, “I also want to clarify that this book has NO SELF-HELP INFO OR ADVICE FOR YOU.” But The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo is full of advice”and not just the tongue-in-cheek kind you might expect from a stand-up comedian. She urges current and future parents to teach their sons (and daughters) what really constitutes sexual assault and rape after writing about her own. She extols the importance of a work ethic. And she even includes a quick how-to paragraph for any ladies who haven’t yet figured out how to pleasure themselves. The book is laugh-out-loud funny when Schumer wants it to be but more often, it’s surprisingly honest and raw ” much more like a straightforward memoir than even she appears to believe.
Bruce Springsteen “ Born to Run
Bruce Springsteen is one of the last avatars of a bygone American type: The rock ’n’ roll superstar. Springsteen’s book is the written equivalent of one of his legendarily lengthy stage shows. It’s a massive tome that will never be long enough for the fans (and probably seem a bit indulgent to naysayers), but carefully orchestrated to deliver rising and falling action, quiet moments of reflection and explosive passages of excitement, all laid out with the come-hither exhortations of a born performer. And at more than a few points, it leaves one wishing the words had musical accompaniment. His life story, as he sees it, unfolds in a series of harrowing family struggles that gradually shape him into the magnetic but damaged adult he continually worked to improve.
Stacy Schiff - The Witches: Salem, 1692
In late-17th-century America paranoia intersected with persecution to cause the perfect storm in the small town of Salem. Where, amid a God-fearing colonial community in Massachusetts, men, women, children “ and two dogs “ were sentenced to death for witchcraft. Between 144 and 185 witches were named in 25 villages and towns. In Stacy Schiff’s new retelling, The Witches: Salem, 1692”the old Salem saga now reads most compellingly as a kind of true-life version of young-adult fiction. Pint-size wizards, talking cats, bloody bite marks, supernatural battles between rival factions of preteens”it’s all straight out of the pages of J. K. Rowling or the Twilight series. The more enduring lesson here is that the fear of terror can unleash its own terror, though frustratingly in the case of this book, one is still left wondering why.
James Patterson, Kathryn Fox - Private Sydney
Even for Private Investigations, the world’s top detective agency, it’s tough to find a man who doesn’t exist . Craig Gisto has promised Eliza Moss that his elite team at Private Sydney will investigate the disappearance of her father. After all, as CEO of a high-profile research company, Eric Moss shouldn’t be difficult to find. Except it’s not just the man who’s gone missing. Despite the most advanced technology at their disposal, they find every trace of him has vanished too. And they aren’t the only ones on the hunt. Powerful figures want Moss to stay ‘lost’, while others just as ruthlessly want him found. Meanwhile, a routine background check becomes a frantic race to find a stolen baby and catch a brutal killer “ a killer Private may well have sent straight to the victim’s door. This is the plot of a book that is created when the world's bestselling thriller writer teams up with Australia's bestselling crime writer.
