Unwind Book Club- Summer Reads

I Hope This Finds You Well- Natalie Sue

As far as Jolene is concerned, her interactions with her colleagues should start and end with her official duties as an admin for Supershops, Inc. Unfortunately, her irritating, incompetent coworkers don’t seem to understand the importance of boundaries. Her secret to survival? She vents her grievances in petty email postscripts, then changes the text colour to white so no one can see. That is until one of her secret messages is exposed. Her punishment: sensitivity training (led by the suspiciously friendly HR guy, Cliff) and rigorous email restrictions.

When an IT mix-up grants her access to her entire department’s private emails and DMs, Jolene knows she should report it, but who could resist reading what their coworkers are really saying? And when she discovers layoffs are coming, she realizes this might just be the key to saving her job. The plan is simple: gain her boss’s favour, convince HR she’s Supershops material, and beat out the competition.

But as Jolene is drawn further into her coworkers’ private worlds and realizes they are each keeping secrets, her carefully constructed walls begin to crumble–especially around Cliff, who she definitely cannot have feelings for. Eventually she will need to decide if she’s ready to leave the comfort of her cubicle, even if that means coming clean to her colleagues.

Crackling with laugh-out-loud dialogue and relatable observations, I Hope This Finds You Well is a fresh and surprisingly tender comedy about loneliness and love beyond our computer screens. This sparkling debut novel will open your heart to the everyday eccentricities of work culture and the undeniable human connection that comes along with it.

Any Ordinary Day- Leigh Sales

As a journalist, Leigh Sales often encounters people experiencing the worst moments of their lives in the full glare of the media. But one particular string of bad news stories – and a terrifying brush with her own mortality – sent her looking for answers about how vulnerable each of us is to a life-changing event. What are our chances of actually experiencing one? What do we fear most and why? And when the worst does happen, what comes next?

In this wise and layered book, Leigh talks intimately with people who’ve faced the unimaginable, from terrorism to natural disaster to simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Expecting broken lives, she instead finds strength, hope, even humour. Leigh brilliantly condenses the cutting-edge research on the way the human brain processes fear and grief and poses the questions we too often ignore out of awkwardness. Along the way, she offers an unguarded account of her own challenges and what she’s learned about coping with life’s unexpected blows.

Warm, candid and empathetic, this book is about what happens when ordinary people, on ordinary days, are forced to suddenly find the resilience most of us don’t know we have.

The Work- Bri Lee

Lally has invested everything into her gallery in Manhattan and the sacrifices are finally paying off. Pat is a scholarship boy desperate to establish himself in Sydney’s antiquities scene. When they meet at New York’s Armory Show their chemistry is instant – fighting about art and politics is just foreplay.

With an ocean between them they try to get back to work, but they’re each struggling to balance money and ambition with the love of art that first drew them to their strange industry. Lally is a kingmaker, bringing exciting new talent to the world, so what’s the problem if it’s also making her rich? Pat can barely pay his rent, and he isn’t sure if he’s taking advantage of his clients or if they are taking advantage of him, and which would be worse? Their international affair ebbs and flows like the market, while their aspirations and insecurities are driving them both towards career-ending mistakes.

If love costs and art takes, what price do we pay for wanting it all? The Work is about the biggest intersections of life: of art and commerce, of intimacy and distance, of talent and entitlement, and of labour and privilege. Dazzling, funny and unforgettable, it is an epic and forensic exploration of modern love and passion, politics and power. The Work announces a brilliant new voice in Australian fiction.

The Younger Wife- Sally Hepworth

The moment she laid eyes on Heather Wisher, Tully knew this woman was going to destroy their lives.

Tully and Rachel are murderous when they discover their father has a new girlfriend. The fact that Heather is half his age isn’t even the most shocking part. Stephen is still married to their mother, who is in a care facility with end-stage Alzheimer’s disease.

Heather knows she has an uphill battle to win Tully and Rachel over, while carrying the burden of the secrets of her past. But, as it turns out, they are all hiding something.

The announcement of Stephen and Heather’s engagement threatens to set off a family implosion, with old wounds and dark secrets finally being forced to the surface.

A garage full of stolen goods. An old hot-water bottle, stuffed with cash. A blood-soaked wedding. And that’s only the beginning…

 Mad Honey- Jennifer Boylan and Jodi Picoult

Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life – living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising a beautiful son, Asher – was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in, and taking over her father’s beekeeping business.

Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mother relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start.

And for just a short while, these new beginnings are exactly what Olivia and Lily need. Their paths cross when Asher falls for the new girl in school, and Lily can’t help but fall for him, too. With Ash, she feels happy for the first time. Yet at times, she wonders if she can she trust him completely …

Then one day, Olivia receives a phone call: Lily is dead, and Asher is being questioned by the police. Olivia is adamant that her son is innocent, and begs her brother, lawyer Jordan McAfee (The Pact, Nineteen Minutes, Salem Falls) to defend Asher. But she would be lying if she didn’t acknowledge the flashes of his father’s temper in Asher, and as the case against him unfolds, she realises he’s hidden more than he’s shared with her.

Mad Honey is a riveting novel of suspense, an unforgettable love story and a moving and powerful exploration of the secrets we keep and the risks we take in order to become ourselves.

The Last To Vanish- Megan Miranda

Will the dark secrets of a small mountain town finally be revealed?

Ten years ago, Abigail Lovett fell into a job she loves, working at the Passage Inn, nestled in the resort town of Cutter’s Pass, just off the Appalachian Trail.

Now, the string of unsolved disappearances that haunts the town is again thrust into the spotlight when Landon West, a journalist investigating the story, himself disappears.

Abigail still feels like an outsider within the community she now calls home, and when Landon’s brother shows up to look for him, she senses the town closing ranks.

Then she finds incriminating evidence that may finally bring the truth to light and discovers how little she knows about her co-workers, neighbours, and even those closest to her…

Paper Cranes- Cheryl Koenig

At the age of 12, Cheryl Koenig’s son Jonathon was involved in a horrific car accident. He was given very little chance of survival, and when he did miraculously pull through, doctors predicted that due to his extremely severe traumatic brain injury, he would most likely never walk, talk or even eat again.

Cheryl refused to accept this prognosis and set out on a relentless and ultimately successful quest to save her son and prove the medical profession wrong. Her fervent hope that he would one day be well again was poignantly expressed by his many school friends who filled their school prayer room with hundreds of handmade paper cranes, symbols of hope and healing.

Paper Cranes tells the story of Jonathon’s extraordinary courage and the Koenig family’s unceasing drive to help him defy the ominous predictions. The book outlines their desperate search for knowledge in the area of recovery from traumatic brain injury, set against the background of Cheryl’s heartfelt grief, denial, and anger. At the same time, she and her husband were forced to deal with the trials and tribulations of the legal system in their search for justice for their son. The message that shines through is that together with persistence, determination, family and love, almost any challenge can be faced and conquered. Most importantly this inspirational, uplifting story demonstrates that with the right attitude it is possible to determine your own destiny regardless of what life throws in your path.