Summer Reading 2022: Oceania

The Bounty

Alexander, Caroline

Rabbit-proof Fence

Pilkington, Doris

Mister Pip

Jones, Lloyd

Tentacles

Smith, Roland

After the mysterious disappearance of their parents, Marty and Grace go to live with their scientist uncle and accompany him on what soon becomes an increasingly dangerous expedition to New Zealand to track a giant squid.

Sophie

Pearse, Emma.

This is the story of a dog's journey back to her family. Sophie Tucker, a three-year-old Australian blue heeler, goes overboard into the predator infested waters of the Great Barrier Reef, and Sophie's heartbroken family has given her up for lost; little do they know that Sophie swam six miles to an isolated nature preserve called St. Bees, where she survived unassisted for five months by living off the land. The story of her survival and rescue is nothing short of miraculous. The author, a journalist into Sophie's story and re-creates the accident and Sophie's improbable journey. She tells the story from the perspectives of Sophie, her family, and the scientists on St. Bees who found her. Interwoven with research on the emotional lives of animals and interviews with animal experts, including Temple Grandin, Sophie offers undeniable proof about the unbreakable animal-human bond. It is a story of the resilience of the human and animal spirit.

The Luminaries

Catton, Eleanor

This novel is a murder mystery set in a remote gold-mining frontier town in 19th-century New Zealand. Arriving in New Zealand in 1866 a weary Englishman, Walter Moody, lands in a gold-mining frontier town on the coast of New Zealand to make his fortune and forever leave behind his family's shame. On arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of twelve local men who have met in secret to investigate what links three crimes that occurred on a single day, events in which each man finds himself implicated in some way. Moody finds himself drawn into a series of unsolved crimes and complex mysteries.

The People In The Trees

Yanagihara, Hanya

Joining an anthropologist's 1950 expedition to discover a lost tribe on a remote Micronesian island, a young doctor investigates and proves a theory that the tribe's considerable longevity is linked to a rare turtle, a finding that brings worldwide fame and unexpected consequence.

Euphoria

King, Lily.

English anthropologist Andrew Banson has been alone in the field for several years, studying the Kiona river tribe in the Territory of New Guinea. Haunted by the memory of his brothers' deaths and increasingly frustrated and isolated by his research, Bankson is on the verge of suicide when a chance encounter with colleagues, the controversial Nell Stone and her wry and mercurial Australian husband, Fen, pulls him back from the brink. Nell and Fen have just fled the bloodthirsty Mumbanyo and, in spite of Nell's poor health, are hungry for a new discovery. When Bankson finds them a new tribe nearby, the artistic, female-dominated Tam, he ignites an intellectual and romantic firestorm between the three of them that burns out of anyone's control" --

The Solomon Curse

Cussler, Clive

Journeying to the Solomon Islands to hunt for treasure linked to myths about ancient atrocities, Sam and Remi Fargo follow leads to Australia and Japan, where they make a wonderful but monstrous discovery.

The Dry

Harper, Jane

One of the most stunning debuts I've ever read . . . Every word is near perfect.' -- David Baldacci. A small town hides big secrets in The Dry, an atmospheric, page-turning debut mystery by award-winning author Jane Harper. After getting a note demanding his presence, Federal Agent Aaron Falk arrives in his hometown for the first time in decades to attend the funeral of his best friend, Luke. Twenty years ago when Falk was accused of murder, Luke was his alibi. Falk and his father fled under a cloud of suspicion, saved from prosecution only because of Luke's steadfast claim that the boys had been together at the time of the crime. But now more than one person knows they didn't tell the truth back then, and Luke is dead. Amid the worst drought in a century, Falk and the local detective question what really happened to Luke. As Falk reluctantly investigates to see if there's more to Luke's death than there seems to be, long-buried mysteries resurface, as do the lies that have haunted them. And Falk will find that small towns have always hidden big secrets. "--

Crimson Lake

Fox, Candice

Wrongly accused of the abduction of a thirteen-year-old girl, Sydney detective Ted Conkaffey is forced to hide in the crocodile-infested wetlands of Crimson Lake, where he agrees to help convicted killer Amanda Pharrell in a case involving dangerous secrets.

Crimson Lake

Fox, Candice

Wrongly accused of the abduction of a thirteen-year-old girl, Sydney detective Ted Conkaffey is forced to hide in the crocodile-infested wetlands of Crimson Lake, where he agrees to help convicted killer Amanda Pharrell in a case involving dangerous secrets.

Shell

Olsson, Kristina

In this spellbinding and poignant historical novel--perfect for fans of All the Light We Cannot See and The Flamethrowers--a Swedish glassmaker and a fiercely independent Australian journalist are thrown together amidst the turmoil of the 1960s and the dawning of a new modern era. 1965: As the United States becomes further embroiled in the Vietnam War, the ripple effects are far-reaching--even to the other side of the world. In Australia, a national military draft has been announced and Pearl Keogh, a headstrong and ambitious newspaper reporter, has put her job in jeopardy to become involved in the anti-war movement. Desperate to locate her two runaway brothers before they're called to serve, Pearl is also hiding a secret shame--the guilt she feels fornot doing more for her younger siblings after their mother's untimely death. Newly arrived from Sweden, Axel Lindquist is set to work as a sculptor on the besieged Sydney Opera House. After a childhood in Europe, where the shadow of WWII loomed large, heseeks to reinvent himself in this utterly foreign landscape, and finds artistic inspiration--and salvation--in the monument to modernity that is being constructed on Sydney's Harbor. But as the nation hurtles towards yet another war, Jørn Utzon, the Opera House's controversial architect, is nowhere to be found--and Axel fears that the past he has tried to outrun may be catching up with him. As the seas of change swirl around them, Pearl and Axel's lives orbit each other and collide in this sweeping novel of art and culture, love and destiny"--

The Lost Man

Harper, Jane

Two brothers meet in the remote Australian outback when the third brother is found dead, in this stunning new standalone novel from New York Times bestseller Jane Harper Two brothers meet at the remote fence line separating their cattle ranches in the lonely outback. In an isolated belt of Western Australia, they are each other's nearest neighbor, their homes four hours' drive apart. The third brother lies dead at their feet. Something caused Cam, the middle child who had been in charge of the family homestead, to die alone in the middle of nowhere. So the eldest brother returns with his younger sibling to the family property and those left behind. But the fragile balance of the ranch is threatened. Amidst the grief, suspicion starts to take hold, and the eldest brother begins to wonder if more than one among them is at risk of crumbling as the weight of isolation bears down on them all. Dark, suspenseful, and deeply atmospheric, The Lost Man is the highly anticipated next book from the bestselling and award-winning Jane Harper, author of The Dry and Force of Nature .

Sea People

Thompson, Christina

For more than a millennium, Polynesians have occupied the remotest islands in the Pacific Ocean, a vast triangle stretching from Hawaii to New Zealand to Easter Island. How did the earliest Polynesians find and colonize these far-flung islands? How did a people without writing or metal tools conquer the largest ocean in the world? For author Christina Thompson, this mystery is personal: her Maori husband and their sons descend directly from these ancient navigators. In Sea People, Thompson explores the fascinating story of these ancestors, as well as those of the many sailors, linguists, archaeologists, folklorists, biologists, and geographers who have puzzled over this history for three hundred years. A mix of history, geography, anthropology, and the science of navigation, Sea People combines the thrill of exploration with the drama of discovery in a tour of one of the most captivating regions in the world.

How To Be A Family

Kois, Dan

What happens when one frustrated dad turns his kids' lives upside down in search of a new way to be a family? Dan Kois and his wife always did their best for their kids. Busy professionals living in the D.C. suburbs, they scheduled their children's time wisely, and when they weren't arguing over screen time, the Kois family--Dan, his wife Alia, and their two pre-teen daughters--could each be found searching for their own happiness. But aren't families supposed to achieve happiness together? In this eye-opening, heartwarming, and very funny family memoir, the fractious, loving Kois' go in search of other places on the map that might offer them the chance to live away from home--but closer together. Over a year the family lands in New Zealand, the Netherlands, Costa Rica, and small-town Kansas. The goal? To get out of their rut of busyness and distractedness and to see how other families live outside the East Coast parenting bubble. HOW TO BE A FAMILY brings readers along as the Kois girls--witty, solitary, extremely online Lyra and goofy, sensitive, social butterfly Harper--hike through the Kiwi bush, ride bikes to a Dutch school in the pouring rain, battle iguanas in their Costa Rican kitchen, and learn to love a town where everyone knows your name. Meanwhile, Dan interviews neighbors, public officials, and scholars to learn why each of these places work the way they do. Will this trip change the Kois family's lives? Or do families take their problems and conflicts with them wherever we go? A journalistic memoir filled with heart, empathy, and lots of whining, HOW TO BE A FAMILY will make readers dream about the amazing adventures their own families might take."--Amazon.com.

When We Believed In Mermaids

O'Neal, Barbara

From the author of The Art of Inheriting Secrets comes an emotional new tale of two sisters, an ocean of lies, and a search for the truth. Her sister has been dead for fifteen years when she sees her on the TV news ... Josie Bianci was killed years ago on a train during a terrorist attack. Gone forever. It's what her sister, Kit, an ER doctor in Santa Cruz, has always believed. Yet all it takes is a few heart-wrenching seconds to upend Kit's world. Live coverage of a club fire in Auckland has captured the image of a woman stumbling through the smoke and debris. Her resemblance to Josie is unbelievable. And unmistakable. With it comes a flood of emotions-grief, loss, and anger-that Kit finally has a chance to put to rest: by finding the sister who's been living a lie. After arriving in New Zealand, Kit begins her journey with the memories of the past: of days spent on the beach with Josie. Of a lost teenage boy who'd become part of their family. And of a trauma that has haunted Kit and Josie their entire lives. Now, if two sisters are to reunite, it can only be by unearthing long-buried secrets and facing a devastating truth that has kept them apart far too long. To regain their relationship, they may have to lose everything.

The Girl In The Mirror

Carlyle, Rose

In the vein of The Wife Between Us and Something in the Water, a debut thriller about beautiful identical twin sisters sailing a luxury yacht and racing toward a one-hundred-million-dollar inheritance"--

Miss Benson's Beetle

Joyce, Rachel

Leaving London behind, Margery Benson, a schoolmarm and spinster in 1950, embarks on a quest to the other side of the world in search of her childhood obsession – the golden beetle of New Caledonia – with the help of a fun-loving assistant who changes her life forever.

The Absolute Book

Knox, Elizabeth

The epic fantasy that's taking the world by storm--a bewitching story about a revenge killing, a mysterious scroll box that has survived centuries of fires, and the book that changed everything. Taryn Cornick believes that the past--her sister's violentdeath, and her own ill-conceived revenge--is behind her, and she can get on with her life. She has written a successful book about the dangers that threaten libraries...but not all of the attention it brings her is good. Questions arise about a fire in the library at her grandparents' house and about the whereabouts of an ancient scroll box known as the Firestarter. A policeman, Jacob Berger, also has questions, about a cold case. Then a shadowy young man named Shift appears, forcing Taryn and Jacob toward a reckoning felt in more than one world. The Absolute Book is an epic fantasy with an intimate tone; one in which hidden treasures are recovered, wicked things resurface, dead sisters are a living force, and great beauty is born of lies and treachery. It is a book of journeys and returns, from contemporary England to a magical land of great beauty and peace but is founded on treachery, from New Zealand to Purgatory itself. Above all, it is a declaration of love for stories and the ways in which they shape our worlds"--

Quiet In Her Bones

Singh, Nalini

In this gripping thriller set in New Zealand, New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh takes you into the twisted world of an exclusive cul-de-sac located on the edge of a sprawling forest. My mother vanished ten years ago. So did a quarter of a million dollars in cash. Thief. Bitch. Criminal. Now, she's back. Her bones clothed in scarlet silk. When socialite Nina Rai disappeared without a trace, everyone wrote it off as another trophy wife tired of her wealthy husband. But now her bones have turned up in the shadowed green of the forest that surrounds her elite neighborhood, a haven of privilege and secrets that's housed the same influential families for decades. The rich live here, along with those whose job it is to make their lives easier. And somebody knows what happened to Nina one rainy night ten years ago. Her son, Aarav, heard a chilling scream that night, and he's determined to uncover the ugly truth that lives beneath the moneyed elegance...but no one is ready for the murderous secrets about to crawl out of the dark. Even the dead aren't allowed to break the rules in this cul-de-sac"--

Dangerous Women

Adams, Hope

Nearly two hundred condemned women on board a sailing ship bound for Australia. One of them is a murderer. London, 1841. One hundred eighty Englishwomen file aboard the Rajah, embarking on a three-month voyage to the other side of the world. They're daughters, sisters, mothers-and convicts. Transported for petty crimes. Except one of them has a deadly secret, and will do anything to flee justice. As the Rajah sails farther from land, the women forge a tenuous kinship. Until, in the middle of the cold and unforgiving sea, a young mother is mortally wounded, and the hunt is on for the assailant before he or she strikes again. Each woman called in for question has something to fear: Will she be attacked next? Will she be believed? Because far from land, there is nowhere to flee, and how can you prove innocence when you've already been found guilty? From debut author Hope Adams comes a thrilling novel based on the 1841 voyage of the convict ship Rajah, about confinement, hope, and the terrible things we do to survive"--

Ten Steps To Nanette

Gadsby, Hannah

Hannah Gadsby's unique standup special Nanette was a viral success--and to some, her worldwide fame may have seemed like an overnight sensation. But like everything else about Gadsby, there's more to her success than meets the eye. In her first book, the queer Australian comedian, writer, and actress takes us through the key moments in her life that ultimately led to the creation of Nanette and her startling declaration that she was quitting comedy. She traces her growth as a gay woman from Tasmania--where homosexuality was illegal until 1997--to her ever-evolving relationship with comedy, to her struggle with late-in-life diagnoses of autism and ADHD, and finally to the backbone of Nanette--the renouncement of self-deprecation, the rejection of misogyny, and the moral power of telling the truth"--

The Island

McKinty, Adrian

After moving from a small country town to Seattle, Heather Baxter marries Tom, a widowed doctor with a young son and teenage daughter. A working vacation overseas seems like the perfect way to bring the new family together, but once they're deep in the Australian outback, the jet-lagged and exhausted kids are so over their new mom. When they discover remote Dutch Island, off-limits to outside visitors, the family talks their way onto the ferry, taking a chance on an adventure far from the reach of iPhones and Instagram. But as soon as they set foot on the island, which is run by a tightly knit clan of locals, everything feels wrong. Then a shocking accident propels the Baxters from an unsettling situation into an absolute nightmare"--