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An awesome read - especially given the current landscape of the world....

"Over the last decade, we have become better at knowing what brings us contentment, well-being and joy. We know, for example, that there are a few core truths to science of happiness. We know that being kind and altruistic makes us happy, that turning off devices, talking to people, forging relationships, living with meaning and delving into the concerns of others offer our best chance at achieving happiness. But how do we retain happiness? It often slips out of our hands as quickly as we find it. So, when we are exposed to, or learn, good things, how do we continue to burn with them?

And more than that, when our world goes dark, when we're overwhelmed by illness or heartbreak, loss or pain, how do we survive, stay alive or even bloom? In the muck and grit of a daily existence full of disappointments and a disturbing lack of control over many of the things that matter most - finite relationships, fragile health, fraying economies, a planet in peril - how do we find, nurture and carry our own inner, living light - a light to ward off the darkness?"

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I read Foley's 'The Hunting Party' & its excellent. This is her new book.

"EACH HAS A SECRET, EACH HAS A MOTIVE.
Off the windswept Irish coast, guests gather for the wedding of the year.
Old friends
Past grudges
Happy families
Hidden jealousies
Thirteen guests
One body
The stage is set for the marriage of Jules Keegan and Will Slater. The setting is spectacular, the planning meticulous, the atmosphere alive with nostalgia as the guests toast the most golden of couples.
Yet under the cloak of happiness, dark secrets begin to spill and old grudges surface. And the wedding cake has barely been cut when someone is found dead.
As a storm unleashes its fury on the island, everyone is trapped - and the killer circulates amongst the guests.
IT STARTS WITH A PARTY.
IT'LL END IN MURDER.

LJ :)

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After all, there are only a few things truly worth fighting for: freedom, of course, and all that it brings with it. Poetry, perhaps, and a good glass of wine. A nice meal. Nature. Love, if you're lucky.

One summer following the Second World War, Robert Appleyard sets out on foot from his Durham village. Sixteen and the son of a coal miner, he makes his way across the northern countryside until he reaches the former smuggling village of Robin Hood’s Bay. There he meets Dulcie, an eccentric, worldly, older woman who lives in a ramshackle cottage facing out to sea.

Staying with Dulcie, Robert’s life opens into one of rich food, sea-swimming, sunburn and poetry. The two come from different worlds, yet as the summer months pass, they form an unlikely friendship that will profoundly alter their futures.

From the Walter Scott Prize-winning author of The Gallows Pole comes a powerful new novel about an unlikely friendship between a young man and an older woman, set in the former smuggling village of Robin Hood’s Bay in the aftermath of the Second World War.
Cheers Michelle McG

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Set in the days of civilization's collapse, Station Eleven tells the story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of King Lear. Hours later, the world as we know it begins to dissolve. Moving back and forth in time—from the actor's early days as a film star to fifteen years in the future, when a theater troupe known as the Traveling Symphony roams the wasteland of what remains—this suspenseful, elegiac, spellbinding novel charts the strange twists of fate that connect five people: the actor, the man who tried to save him, the actor's first wife, his oldest friend, and a young actress with the Traveling Symphony, caught in the crosshairs of a dangerous self-proclaimed prophet.
Cheers Michelle McG

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Frankissstein: A Love Story is a 2019 novel by Jeanette Winterson. It was published on 28 May 2019 by Jonathan Cape. The novel employs speculative fiction and historical fiction to reimagine Mary Shelley's classic novel Frankenstein

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The Time in Between by Maria Duenas

The inspiring international bestseller of a seemingly ordinary woman who uses her talent and courage to transform herself first into a prestigious couturier and then into an undercover agent for the Allies during World War II.
SGO

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This was a previous CJS Book Club read and one of my favourites. I've just loaned my copy to Beth. ML

Where the Crawdads Sing is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

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A hard hitting story about a Neurosurgeon who gets diagnosed with Cancer and has to deal with the realities that he goes from Doctor to Patient in one swift move.
A very interesting read, but caution - tears will flow.
NDF

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A cracking story about how people deal with the worst moments of their life. When any ordinary day becomes a defining moment in your life.
Leigh Sales is the host of 7:30 on ABC and she writes so beautifully. Even better, listen to this on Audible as she reads it.
I have a copy if anyone needs it.
NDF

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Despite being a 36 year old man, I have the book tastes of a senior citizen.
I am a self confessed lover of a Murder Mystery, especially if it is set in the depths of an English countryside village.
For those of you who are new to Agatha Christie, this is by far her best story. Do yourself a favour, read this!
NDF

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Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.

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This was a previous CJS Book Club read and one of my favourites.

A novel of love, crime, magic, fate and coming of age, set in Brisbane's violent working class suburban fringe - from one of Australia's most exciting new writers. A story of brotherhood, true love and the most unlikely of friendships, Boy Swallows Universe will be the most heartbreaking, joyous and exhilarating novel you will read all year.