Alyson

The only bookshop worker who reads crime/thrillers... so definitely ask Alyson for her recommendations.

More about me

1. Who are your auto-buy (you'll buy absolutely anything they write - even their shopping list) authors?

Sally Hepworth, Kate Grenville, Stacey Halls, David Sedaris, and Nigel Slater - an eclectic bunch that would feed all my appetites.

2. What's your favourite genre/s?

Right this minute it's historical crime fiction with female protagonists. I'm deep in the Edwardian era at the moment!

3. Do you judge a book by its cover?

I do even thought I should know better and I'm always happy to be shown the error of my ways.

4. What's your most anticipated release of 2024?

Whatever Gabbie Stroud and Stacey Halls have coming up.

5.How do you organize your personal bookshelves?

TBR/borrowed books/books I am keeping and I won't let out of my sight ever/reference books/books I'm saving for full immersion/Books for giving away.

6. What books are high on your TBR (to be read pile) this year?

Any of Gabbie Stroud's books, A Room Made of Leaves, The Benevolent Society of Ill Mannered Women (so much gothic fun), Shuggie Bain (devastating).

Favourites of 2024 so far:

The Painter's Daughters, Emily Howes

SELECTED FOR THE BBC RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB
WINNER OF THE MSLEXIA NOVEL COMPETITION
'Beautifully written . . . I raced through it' HILARY MANTEL
'As exquisitely and tenderly rendered as a Gainsborough painting' TRACY CHEVALIER
'A wonderfully powerful and haunting novel with a hugely gripping plot' DEBORAH MOGGACH
'A rich evocation of secrets, art, sisterhood and class' i PAPER
1759, Ipswich. Sisters Peggy and Molly Gainsborough are the best of friends and do everything together. They spy on their father as he paints, they rankle their mother as she manages the books, they tear barefoot through the muddy fields that surround their home. But there is another reason they are inseparable: from a young age, Molly has had a tendency to forget who she is, to fall into confusion, and Peggy knows instinctively that no one must find out.
When the family move to Bath, Thomas Gainsborough finds fame as a portrait artist, while his daughters are thrown into the whirl of polite society. Here, the merits of marriage and codes of behaviour are crystal clear, and secrets much harder to keep. As Peggy goes to greater lengths to protect her sister, she finds herself falling in love, and their precarious situation is soon thrown catastrophically off-course. The discovery of a betrayal forces her to question all she has done for Molly - and whether any one person can truly change the fate of another . . .
Inspired by true events and told with irresistible vibrancy and wit, Emily Howes' award-winning debut is a captivating and deeply moving novel about art, sisterhood and the price we pay for love.
'Vividly imagined and exquisitely brought to the page' RACHEL JOYCE
'A beautiful debut' JO BROWNING WROE
'An incredible first novel that'll leave you scouring the real-life paintings for clues' STYLIST
'Fascinating' WASHINGTON POST

Pheasants Nest, Louise Milligan

A gripping, propulsive and brilliantly original debut by award-winning investigative journalist and writer Louise Milligan.

She wonders if they have discovered she is missing yet? Has it broken as a story? Who has been assigned to cover it? Have they started spooling through her social media to pull out photographs? Constructing a narrative about who she is and what possible reason any person might have to kidnap or (let's be frank) kill her? She tries not to let out the whimper that is building in her sternum, at the thought that he might. Kill her, that is. He might kill her.

Kate Delaney has made the biggest mistake of her life. On a girls' night out, she picked the wrong sleazy guy to publicly humiliate in a bar and now she is living every woman's worst nightmare.

She finds herself brutalised, bound and gagged in the back of a car being driven god knows where by a man whose name she doesn't know, and petrified about what is in store for her.

As a journalist who is haunted by the crimes she's had to report over her career, Kate is terrifyingly familiar with the statistics of women who go missing - and the fear and trauma behind the headlines. She knows only too well how those stories usually end.

Kate can only hope the police will find her before it's too late, but she's aware a random crime is hardest to solve. As the clock ticks down, she tries to keep herself sane by thinking about her beloved boyfriend and friends, escaping into memories of love and happy times together. She knows she cannot give way to despair.

As the suspense escalates, Kate's boyfriend Liam is left behind, struggling with his shock, fear and desperation as the police establish a major investigation. The detectives face their own feelings of anguish and futility as they reflect on the cases they didn't solve in time and the victims they couldn't save. They know Kate's chances of survival diminish with every passing hour.

Acclaimed and award-winning writer and journalist Louise Milligan has written a stunning and surprising thriller with a gigantic heart: a gripping, propulsive and brilliantly original debut.

The Glass House, Anne Buist, Graeme Simsion

A compelling, addictive novel for readers of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine told with heart, humour and insight by Anne Buist and The Rosie Project's Graeme Simsion
Psychiatry registrar Doctor Hannah Wright, a country girl with a chaotic history, thought she had seen it all in the emergency room. But that was nothing compared to the psychiatric ward at Menzies Hospital.
Hannah must learn on the job in a strained medical system, as she and her fellow trainees deal with the common and the bizarre, the hilarious and the tragic, the treatable and the confronting. Every day brings new patients: Chloe, who has a life-threatening eating disorder; Sian, suffering postpartum psychosis and fighting to keep her baby; and Xavier, the MP whose suicide attempt has an explosive story behind it. All the while, Hannah is trying to figure out herself.
With intelligence, frankness and humour, eminent psychiatrist Anne Buist tells it like it is, while co-writer Graeme Simsion brings the light touch that made The Rosie Project an international bestseller and a respected contribution to the autism conversation.
'Highly engaging. Brings alive the frontline of mental health care' PROFESSOR PATRICK MCGORRY AO, AUSTRALIAN OF THE YEAR 2010
'Embraces a standout cast of characters - patients, clinicians and family members are so beautifully individuated and the story overflows with compassion, insight and humour. Entertaining, enlightening, it embraces the complexity of what it means to be human' MEREDITH JAFFE
'A remarkable expose about mental illness and its treatment . . . told with an engaging, light touch reminiscent of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine and Simsion's The Rosie Project. The Glass House is a timely, innovative book' BOOKS + PUBLISHING
'Gripping, rich and insightful, and brimming with compassion. Shines a light on the grit and dedication of frontline workers, while giving a voice to everyone impacted by mental illness' ARIANE BEESTON, author of Because I'm Not Myself, You See
'A great read that combines laugh-out-loud moments as well as bringing tears to your eyes. Anne Buist skilfully writes from her own experiences and co-author Graeme Simsion adds his inimitable Rosie Project style. An honest, sensitive look into mental health care in Australia' PROFESSOR JAYASHRI KULKARNI AM, Psychiatrist, Monash University

The Frozen River, Ariel Lawhon

From the bestselling author of Code Name HÉlÈne comes a gripping historical mystery inspired by the life and diary of Martha Ballard, a renowned 18th-century midwife who investigates a shocking murder that unhinges her small community.

Maine, 1789: When a man is found entombed in the frozen Kennebec River, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As the local midwife and healer, Martha is good at keeping secrets. Her diary is a record of every birth, death and debacle that unfolds in the town of Hallowell. In that diary she has also documented the details of an alleged rape that occurred by one of the town’s most esteemed gentlemen – the same man who has now been found dead in the ice.

While certain townspeople are eager to put both matters to rest, Martha suspects that the two crimes are linked, and that there is more to both cases than meets the eye. Over the course of one long, hard winter, whispers and prejudices mount, and Martha’s diary lands at the centre of the scandal, threatening to tear both her family and her community apart.

In her newest offering, Ariel Lawhon brings to life a brave and compassionate unsung heroine who refused to accept anything less than justice on behalf of those no one else would protect. The Frozen River is a thrilling, tense and tender story of a remarkable woman who had the courage to take a stand, and in the process wrote herself into history.

Bone Lands, Pip Fioretti

The origin story of outback noir: a dark, gritty and suspenseful dive into Australia's past, through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator

'Isn't it your job to stop people being murdered?'1911, on a winter's night in arid New South Wales wool country, mounted trooper Augustus Hawkins discovers the bodies of three young people. They are scions of the richest family in the district, savagely murdered on a road that Hawkins should have been patrolling, had he not been busy bedding the local schoolteacher.
Detectives arrive from Sydney and the disgraced Hawkins, a traumatised veteran of the Boer War, comes under fierce scrutiny. With his honour and sanity at stake, he becomes hell-bent on finding the murderer. But as ever darker secrets are revealed about the people he thinks of as friends, Hawkins is forced to confront an uncomfortable question: who is paying the price for the new nation's prosperity?

The Husband Poisoner, Tanya Bretherton

**Shortlisted for the 2021 Ned Kelly Award for True Crime**
Shocking real-life stories of murderous women who used rat poison to rid themselves of husbands and other inconvenient family members. For readers of compelling history and true crime, from critically acclaimed, award-winning author Tanya Bretherton.
After World War II, Sydney experienced a crime wave that was chillingly calculated. Discontent mixed with despair, greed with callous disregard. Women who had lost their wartime freedoms headed back into the kitchen with sinister intent and the household poison thallium, normally used to kill rats, was repurposed to kill husbands and other inconvenient family members.
Yvonne Fletcher disposed of two husbands. Caroline Grills cheerfully poisoned her stepmother, a family friend, her brother and his wife. Unlike arsenic or cyanide, thallium is colourless, odourless and tasteless; victims were misdiagnosed as insane malingerers or ill due to other reasons. And once one death was attributed to natural causes, it was all too easy for an aggrieved woman to kill again.
This is the story of a series of murders that struck at the very heart of domestic life. It's the tale of women who looked for deadly solutions to what they saw as impossible situations. The Husband Poisoner documents the reasons behind the choices these women made - and their terrible outcomes.

Bright Young Women, Jessica Knoll

January 1978. A serial killer has terrorized women across the Pacific Northwest, but his existence couldn't be further from the minds of the young women at the top sorority on Florida State University's campus in Tallahassee. Tonight is a night of promise, excitement, and desire, but Pamela Schumacher, president of the sorority, makes the unpopular decision to stay home, a decision that unwittingly saves her life. Startled awake at 3 a.m. by a strange sound, she makes the fateful decision to investigate. What she finds behind the door is a scene of implausible violence-two of her sisters dead; two others, maimed. Over the next few days, Pamela is thrust into a terrifying mystery inspired by the crime that's captivated public interest for more than four decades.

On the other side of the country, Tina Cannon has found peace in Seattle after years of hardship. A chance encounter brings twenty-five-year-old Ruth Wachowsky into her life, a young woman with painful secrets of her own, and the two form an instant connection. When Ruth goes missing from Lake Sammamish State Park in broad daylight, surrounded by thousands of beachgoers on a beautiful summer day, Tina devotes herself to finding out what happened to her. When she hears about the tragedy in Tallahassee, she knows it's the man the papers refer to as the All-American Sex Killer. Determined to make him answer for what he did to Ruth, she travels to Florida on a collision course with Pamela, and one last impending tragedy.

A Room Made Of Leaves, Kate Grenville

Kate Grenville's latest bestselling novel, now in a smaller format and featuring a beautiful updated cover design

What if Elizabeth Macarthur-wife of the notorious John Macarthur, wool baron in the earliest days of Sydney-had written a shockingly frank secret memoir? And what if novelist Kate Grenville had miraculously found and published it?;;Marriage to a ruthless bully, the impulses of her heart, the search for power in a society that gave women none- this Elizabeth Macarthur manages her complicated life with spirit and passion, cunning and sly wit. Her memoir lets us hear-at last!-what one of those seemingly demure women from history might really have thought.;;A Room Made of Leaves is set in the past, but it's just as much about the present, where lies have the dangerous power to shape reality. This book is historical fiction turned inside out, a stunning sleight of hand by one of our most original writers.;

The Foundling, Stacey Halls

From the bestselling author of The Familiars, and set against the vibrant backdrop of Georgian London, The Foundling explores families, secrets, class, equality, power and the meaning of motherhood.

From the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Familiars.

London, 1754. Six years after leaving her illegitimate daughter Clara at London's Foundling Hospital, Bess Bright returns to reclaim the child she has never known. Dreading the worst - that Clara has died in care - the last thing she expects to hear is that her daughter has already been reclaimed - by her. Her life is turned upside down as she tries to find out who has taken her little girl - and why.

Less than a mile from Bess' lodgings in the city, in a quiet, gloomy townhouse on the edge of London, a young widow has not left the house in a decade. When her close friend - an ambitious young doctor at the Foundling Hospital - persuades her to hire a nursemaid for her daughter, she is hesitant to welcome someone new into her home and her life. But her past is threatening to catch up with her and tear her carefully constructed world apart.

A Bride's Story, vol. 1, Kaoru Mori

Acclaimed creator Kaoru Mori (Emma, Shirley) brings the nineteenth-century Silk Road to lavish life, chronicling the story of Amir Halgal, a young woman from a nomadic tribe betrothed to a twelve-year-old boy eight years her junior. Coping with cultural differences, blossoming feelings for her new husband, and expectations from both her adoptive and birth families, Amir strives to find her role as she settles into a new life and a new home in a society quick to define that role for her.

Currently Reading:

The Rosie Project

By raeme Simsion

The international bestseller. Over three million copies sold worldwide.

Don Tillman is getting married. He just doesn't know who to yet.

But he has designed the Wife Project, using a sixteen-page questionnaire to help him find the perfect partner. She will most definitely not be a barmaid, a smoker, a drinker, or a late-arriver.

Rosie Jarman is all these things. She is also fiery and intelligent and beautiful. And on a quest of her own to find her biological father—a search that Don, a professor of genetics, might just be able to help her with.

The Wife Project teaches Don some unexpected things. Why earlobe length is an inadequate predictor of sexual attraction. Why quick-dry clothes aren't appropriate attire in New York. Why he's never been on a second date. And why, despite your best scientific efforts, you don't find love: love finds you.

'An extraordinarily clever, funny, and moving book about being comfortable with who you are and what you're good at. I'm sending copies to several friends and hope to re-read it later this year. This is one of the most profound novels I've read in a long time.' Bill Gates

Winner, Australian Book Industry Awards, Book of the Year, 2014
Winner, Australian Book Industry Awards, General Fiction Book of the Year, 2014
Winner, Victorian Premier's Award for Best Unpublished Manuscript, 2012
Shortlisted, ABA Nielsen BookData Booksellers Choice Award, 2014
Shortlisted, Fiction Book of the Year, Indie Awards, 2014
Shortlisted, Waverton Good Read Award, 2014
Longlisted, International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, 2015