Is your mum’s idea of the perfect Mother’s Day a breakfast in bed and a great new book to read? You’re on your own with the breakfast part, but we can help with the book. Load up Mum’s e-reader with something from our selection today.
Songbird (GriffinSong Trilogy #1)
A twentieth century woman is lost in a fantasy world with nothing but the clothes on her back and her innate humanity. This is the story of her compelling need to redefine herself.
When Irenya O’Neil suffers a panic attack and falls into the realm of Dar Orien, a world with a failed MageGate system, she finds herself unable to return home to her infant son – she is trapped in a nightmare that tests her sanity.
Will appeal to: mums wanting to escape the real world for a while, but can relate to the determination of wanting to returning home to their children.
Isobel, a settler of ten years, waits for her sister to cross the ocean to join her. Separated by distance, disappointments and secrets, the women reunite in a land where the rules of home do not apply. Women push for the vote and the land offers opportunity and a future for those brave enough to take it. But some secrets run too deep, some changes too shocking to embrace. Against this backdrop of uncertainty and promise, Isobel and Esther have to determine what – and who – means most. Beyond the Bay is a novel of hope, redemption, and the unbreakable bond of family.
Will appeal to: mums wanting a compelling tale of sisterhood, loyalty, and feminine strength.
When a young, unidentified woman is pulled alive and well from Sydney Harbour in 2013, the connections to another woman — found in similar circumstances forty years earlier — present psychiatrist Kathryn Brookley with a terrible decision as the events of the present and past begin to mirror each other and the gap between truth and illusion shrinks.
Will appeal to: mums who want to challenge their perception of the world through a spiritual journey and mystic philosophies.
Keeper of the Way (Crossing the Line #1)
After news of grave robbing and murder in Dun Ringall, the ancient stronghold of Clan McKinnon on the Isle of Skye, Rosalie realises it is time to share her family’s secrets. Descendants of the mystical Ethne M’Kynnon, Rosalie tells of a violent rift that occurred centuries earlier, splitting Ethne from her sisters forever and causing relentless anguish and enmity between ancient families.
In the grounds of Sydney’s magnificent Garden Palace, danger grows as an ages-old feud of queens and goddesses heats up.
Will appeal to: mums who love historical fiction, magic realism, and urban fantasy.
When No One Is Watching is a compilation of poems about love and the loss thereof, trauma and the dark reflections that come with it. It is a depiction of sides that people don’t readily show, sides of vulnerability, insecurity and tiny amounts of hope. One could say it is the result of shedding light into a world of secrecy, escapism, an alternate reality belonging to an alternate version of an individual.
Will appeal to: mums who love poetry that embodies hope and femininity and women’s reactions and desires for love and the traumas that sometimes occur in the searches.
The sedentary and impractical Hoyle meets Sybil Alvaro in a used bookstore, and she invites him to follow in the footsteps of her favourite author in a search for the mysterious Bloodwood Staff. He’s spent his entire life reading vintage adventure action, and thinks he knows how these things should go.
A deliberate subversion of adventure, fantasy, and satire tropes, After the Bloodwood Staff is a brilliant and unexpected ride.
Will appeal to: mums who want a sassy older heroine to go on an adventure with. “If you’re thinking that I’m just a middle-aged woman who should stay at home with her cats and her book club for a couple of decades until its time to go into a hospice and die, then you can think again.”
Mother and the Tiger: A Memoir of the Killing Fields
Mother and the Tiger is the true story of one small girl, who struggled to survive one of the most ruthless regimes in human history. Six-year-old Hui Lim was trapped by the madness around her and cast into a seemingly endless nightmare. Her family was cursed as a member of a hated ethnic minority and targeted by the murderous Khmer Rouge.
To survive where so many others died, Hui had to tap an inner strength that she never knew she possessed. Despite her youth she was determined to find her scattered family, no matter the odds.
Will appeal to: mums looking for inspiring true stories in which hope can endure.