Reading Well
Health and wellbeing collections chosen by librarians and health professionals
July New Reads
Check out our new reads for the Summer! Each of these books are available for order online!
The Book Binder of Jericho by Pip Williams
When the men of Oxford University Press leave for the Western Front, Peggy, her twin sister Maude and their friends in the bookbindery must shoulder the burden at home. As Peggy moves between her narrowboat full of memories and the demands of the Press, her dreams of studying feel ever more remote. She must know her place, fold her pages and never stop to savour the precious words in front of her. From volunteer nurses to refugees fleeing the horrors of occupation, the war brings women together from all walks of life, and with them some difficult choices for Peggy. New friends and lovers offer new opportunities, but they also make new demands – and Peggy must write her own story.
Eye for an Eye by M.J Arlidge
Only nine criminals in the UK have been granted lifelong anonymity. Their crimes so heinous that their identities are permanently changed for their own safety. Upon release, they’re given a second chance: new identities and new homes with new neighbours who have no idea. Because, by law, they cannot be named as who they are – or were. But what if someone started systematically exposing their true identities? Not to the press, or the public, but to the families of their victims. Who deserves justice? And who gets to decide?
The Whispers by Ashley Audrain
Whitney Loverly can only sit by her son’s hospital bed after he falls from his bedroom window in the middle of the night. She refuses to speak to anyone. Back at home, the Loverlys’ neighbours must reckon with their own roles in the tragedy – their selfless best friends who live across the street, the ambitious Goldsteins who desperately want a family of their own, and the quiet elderly couple who spend their days people watching on the front porch. But what happens next, when over the course of a week, the hidden and explosive truths that connect these families must come out?
A Song of Me & You by Mike Gayle
Helen and Ben parted as heartbroken 18-year-olds and went their very separate ways. Twenty years later, mother-of-two-teenagers Helen is still in Manchester, a part-time primary teacher, stunned by the behaviour of her love-rat husband. In an old T-shirt and scruffy jeans, she feels at the lowest point in her life. And suddenly, impossibly, Ben is standing on her doorstep. Tired maybe, lonely even, but clearly still the world-famous, LA-based multi-millionaire Rockstar he has become. Can you ever go back? For Helen and Ben, so much has happened in the years between. But just to sit in the kitchen for a while and talk – that would be nice. Before the world comes crashing in.
Black Thorn by Sarah Hilary
Blackthorn Ashes was meant to be their forever home. For the first six families moving into the exclusive new housing development, it was a chance to live a peaceful life on the cliffs overlooking the Cornish sea, safe in the knowledge that it had been created just for them. But six weeks later, paradise is lost. Six people are dead. And Blackthorn Ashes is left abandoned and unfinished, its dark shadows hiding all manner of secrets. One of its surviving residents, Agnes Gale, is determined to find out the truth about what happened. Even if that truth is deadlier than she could have ever believed possible.
Everyone Here is Lying by Shari Lapena
William Wooler is a family man, on the surface. But he’s been having an affair, an affair that ended horribly this afternoon at a motel up the road. So when he returns to his house, devastated and angry, to find his difficult nine-year-old daughter Avery unexpectedly home from school, William loses his temper. Hours later, Avery’s family declare her missing. Suddenly Stanhope doesn’t feel so safe. And William isn’t the only one on his street who’s hiding a lie. As witnesses come forward with information that may or may not be true, Avery’s neighbours become increasingly unhinged. Who took Avery Wooler? Nothing will prepare you for the truth.
A Nurse’s Tale by Ola Awonubi
Princess Ademola arrived in England from Nigeria in 1939, full of hope that training as a midwife would give her the skills to provide a better future for her kingdom. But as Nazi Germany rose to power, Ademola found herself living in a country plunged into war. Working in a busy London hospital, the Princess must navigate not only the challenge of nursing during the war, but the prejudice of the people she is trying to help. 80 years later, in 2019, Ademola’s great niece, Yemi, arrives in London clutching her great aunt’s precious diaries and longs to uncover the mysteries they hold.
The Collector by Daniel Silva
Legendary art restorer and spy Gabriel Allon joins forces with a brilliant and beautiful master-thief to track down the world’s most valuable missing painting, but soon finds himself in a desperate race to prevent an unthinkable conflict between Russia and the West.
Every Shade of Happy by Phyllida Shrimpton
The uplifting story of a man at the end of his life and a girl at the beginning of hers, who reach out across the generations to explore what it means to find happiness, and how to make your own when there’s none to be had.
The Murder Game by Tom Hindle
One house. Nine guests. Endless motives for murder. In the seaside town of Hamlet Wick, nine guests assemble for a New Year’s Eve party to remember. The owner of Hamlet Hall has organised a murder mystery evening with a 1920s twist, and everyone has their own part to play. But the game has barely begun when one guest is found dead – killed by a fatal injury to the head. With no phone signal and no way out of the house, the others are trapped with a killer in their midst. Someone is playing by their own rules. And in a close-knit community, old rivalries run deep.
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