Book picks similar to
The Hambledown Dream by Dean Mayes


romance
reviewed
fantasy
australian-authors

Lighthouse Bay


Kimberley Freeman - 2012
    The only survivor is Isabella Winterbourne, who clutches a priceless gift meant for the Australian Parliament. This gift could be her ticket to a new life, free from the bonds of her husband and his overbearing family. But whom can she trust in Lighthouse Bay?Fast-forward to 2011: after losing her lover, Libby Slater leaves her life in Paris to return to her hometown of Lighthouse Bay, hoping to gain some perspective and grieve her recent loss. Libby also attempts to reconcile with her sister, Juliet, to whom she hasn’t spoken in twenty years. Libby did something so unforgivable, Juliet is unsure if she can ever trust her sister again.In these two adventurous love stories, both Isabella and Libby must learn that letting go of the past is the only way to move into the future. The answers they seek lie in Lighthouse Bay.

The Look of Love


Sarah Jio - 2014
    Jane has emerged from an ailing childhood a lonely, hopeless romantic when, on her twenty-ninth birthday, a mysterious greeting card arrives, specifying that Jane must identify the six types of love before the full moon following her thirtieth birthday, or face grave consequences. When Jane falls for a science writer who doesn’t believe in love, she fears that her fate is sealed. Inspired by the classic song, The Look of Love is utterly enchanting.

All the Breaking Waves


Kerry Lonsdale - 2016
    The art history professor crafts jewelry as unique and weathered as the surf-tumbled sea glass she collects, while raising her daughter in a safe and loving environment—something Molly never had. But when Cassie is plagued by horrific visions and debilitating nightmares, Molly is forced to return to the one place she swore she’d never move back to—home to Pacific Grove.A riveting exploration of love, secrets, and motherhood, All the Breaking Waves is the poignant story of a woman who discovers she must confront her past, let go of her guilt, and summon everything in her power to save her daughter.

While You Were Reading


Ali Berg - 2019
    Love is messier.A hilarious, insightful new novel from the creators of Books on the RailMeet Beatrix Babbage – 29-year-old dog-earer of books and accidental destroyer of weddings.After ruining her best friend's nuptials, Bea relocates to the other side of the country in search of a fresh start, including meeting new people, living life to the fullest and finally pulling off balayage.But after a few months, life is more stagnant than ever. Bea’s job is dead-end. Her romantic life? Non-existent. And her only friends are her books, her barista and her cleaning lady.​Then Bea stumbles across a second-hand novel, inscribed with notes. Besotted with the poetic inscriptions, Bea is determined to find the author ... and finds herself entangled in one hell of a love quadrangle.Funny, poignant and insightful, While You Were Reading reveals that there’s no such thing as perfection, the value of true friendship and, most importantly, the power of not living in fiction, but still reading it … Often.A love story for book lovers that celebrates much more than romance.

Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor


Lisa Kleypas - 2010
    And since that night, she has never again spoken a word.ONE SINGLE MAN NEEDS A WIFE The last thing Mark Nolan needs is a six-year-old girl in his life. But he soon realizes that he will do everything he can to make her life whole again. His sister’s will gives him the instructions: There’s no other choice but you. Just start by loving her. The rest will follow.SOMETIMES, IT TAKES A LITTLE MAGIC… Maggie Collins doesn’t dare believe in love again, after losing her husband of one year. But she does believe in the magic of imagination. As the owner of a toy shop, she lives what she loves. And when she meets Holly Nolan, she sees a little girl in desperate need of a little magic.…TO MAKE DREAMS COME TRUE Three lonely people. Three lives at the crossroads. Three people who are about to discover that Christmas is the time of year when anything is possible, and when wishes have a way of finding the path home…BONUS MATERIAL INCLUDED:  1st chapter of Lisa Kleypas’s newest novel RAINSHADOW ROAD, coming February 2012.

Chasing Amanda


Melissa Foster - 2011
     One child murdered, another missing. Potentially lethal small town secrets revealed. Dealing with parenting, a mother's love, and trusting one's faith--CHASING AMANDA comes at you at breakneck speed and just a touch of the paranormal. *** Nine years ago, Molly Tanner witnessed a young girl's abduction in the busy city of Philadelphia, shifting her occasional clairvoyance into overdrive. Two days later, the girl's body was found, and Molly's life fell apart. Consumed by guilt for not acting upon her visions, and on the brink of losing her family, Molly escaped the torturous reminders in the city, fleeing to the safety of the close-knit rural community of Boyds, Maryland. Molly's life is back on track, her son has begun college, and she and her husband have finally rekindled their relationship. Their fresh start is shattered when a seven-year-old girl disappears from a local park near Molly's home. Unable to turn her back on another child and troubled by memories of the past, Molly sets out to find her, jeopardizing the marriage she'd fought so hard to hold together. While unearthing clues and struggling to decipher her visions, Molly discovers another side of Boyds, where the residents--and the land itself--hold potentially lethal secrets, and exposes another side of her husband, one that threatens to tear them apart. CHASING AMANDA has the emotional draw of a Jodi Picoult book, with the family drama and suspense of Lisa Scottoline.

According to Jane


Marilyn Brant - 2009
    From nowhere comes a quiet 'tsk' of displeasure. The target: Sam Blaine, the cute bad boy who's teasing Ellie mercilessly, just as he has since kindergarten. Entirely unbidden, as Jane might say, the author's ghost has taken up residence in Ellie's mind, and seems determined to stay there. Jane's wise and witty advice guides Ellie through the hell of adolescence and beyond, serving as the voice she trusts, usually far more than her own. Years and boyfriends come and go - sometimes a little too quickly, sometimes not nearly fast enough. But Jane's counsel is constant, and on the subject of Sam, quite insistent. Stay away, Jane demands. He is your Mr. Wickham. Still, everyone has something to learn about love - perhaps even Jane herself. And lately, the voice in Ellie's head is being drowned out by another, urging her to look beyond everything she thought she knew and seek out her very own, very unexpected, happy ending.

Better Homes and Hauntings


Molly Harper - 2014
    She never expects that her new client, software mogul Deacon Whitney, would see more in her than just a talented gardener. Deacon has paid top dollar to the crews he’s hired to renovate the desolate Whitney estate—he had to, because the bumps, thumps, and unexplained sightings of ghostly figures in nineteenth-century dress are driving workers away faster than he can say “Boo.”But Nina shows no signs of being scared away, even as she experiences some unnerving apparitions herself. And as the two of them work closely together to restore the mansion’s faded glory, Deacon realizes that he’s found someone who doesn’t seem to like his fortune more than himself—while Nina may have finally found the one man she can trust with her bruised and battered heart.But something on the island doesn’t believe in true love…and if Nina and Deacon can’t figure out how to put these angry spirits to rest, their own love doesn’t stand a ghost of a chance.

Don't Tempt Me


Lori Foster - 2016
    But his nights are another story… And when his lovely new neighbor, Honor Brown, reluctantly accepts his help in remodeling her house, Jason finds himself wishing his handyman skills could knock down the defenses she keeps building around herself. Martial arts teacher Sullivan Dean knows real danger when he sees it—even when it takes the form of the gorgeous blonde helping her friend move in across the street. After putting his wayward past behind him to focus on teaching control to troubled kids, Sullivan has learned to avoid party girls like Lexie Perkins. But Sullivan can't seem to keep his hands off the real woman behind that flirty charm—or keep his heart from landing at her feet…

The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club


Sophie Green - 2017
    Five very different women come together in the Northern Territory of the 1970s by an exceptional new Australian author.In 1978 the Northern Territory has begun to self-govern. Cyclone Tracy is a recent memory and telephones not yet a fixture on the cattle stations dominating the rugged outback. Life is hard and people are isolated. But they find ways to connect.Sybil is the matriarch of Fairvale Station, run by her husband, Joe. Their eldest son, Lachlan, was Joe's designated successor but he has left the Territory - for good. It is up to their second son, Ben, to take his brother's place. But that doesn't stop Sybil grieving the absence of her child. With her oldest friend, Rita, now living in Alice Springs and working for the Royal Flying Doctor Service, and Ben's English wife, Kate, finding it difficult to adjust to life at Fairvale, Sybil comes up with a way to give them all companionship and purpose: they all love to read, and she forms a book club.Mother-of-three Sallyanne is invited to join them. Sallyanne dreams of a life far removed from the dusty town of Katherine where she lives with her difficult husband, Mick. Completing the group is Della, who left Texas for Australia looking for adventure and work on the land.If you loved The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society, The Little Coffee Shop Of Kabul and The Thorn Birds you will devour this story of five different women united by one need: to overcome the vast distances of Australia's Top End with friendship, tears, laughter, books and love.

Walking on Trampolines


Frances Whiting - 2013
    'That,' she announced, 'is a seriously glamorgeous name.'From the day Annabelle Andrews sashays into her classroom, Tallulah 'Lulu' de Longland is bewitched by Annabelle, by her family, and their sprawling, crumbling house tumbling down to the river.Their unlikely friendship intensifies through a secret language where they share confidences about their unusual mothers, first loves, and growing up in the small, coastal town of Juniper Bay. Their lives become as entwined as Annabelle's initials engraved beneath the de Longland kitchen table.But the euphoria of youth rarely lasts, and the implosion that destroys their friendship leaves lasting scars and a legacy of self-doubt that haunts Lulu into adulthood.Years later, Lulu is presented with a choice: remain the perpetual good girl who misses out, or finally step out from the shadows and do something extraordinary. And possibly unforgiveable.It's not how far you fall, but how high you bounce.

You Were There Too


Colleen Oakley - 2020
    But she has other dreams too — unexplained, recurring ones starring the same man. Still, she doesn’t think much of them, until a relocation to small-town Pennsylvania brings her face to face with the stranger she has been dreaming about for years. And this man harbors a jaw-dropping secret of his own—he's been dreaming of her too. Determined to understand, Mia and this not-so-stranger search for answers. But when diving into their pasts begins to unravel her life in the present, Mia emerges with a single question—what if?Acclaimed author Colleen Oakley delivers a heart-wrenching and unforgettable love story about a woman who must choose between the man she loves and the man fate has chosen for her in a novel that reminds us that the best life is one led by the heart.

The Night Mark


Tiffany Reisz - 2017
    From Tiffany Reisz, the international bestselling storyteller behind The Bourbon Thief and The Original Sinners series, comes an enthralling new novel about a woman swept away by the tides who awakens to find herself in 1921, reunited with the husband she's been mourning for four years. Fans of Kate Morton and Diana Gabaldon will fall in love with the mystery, romance, and beauty of an isolated South Carolina lighthouse, where a power greater than love works its magic.

Me Without You


Kelly Rimmer - 2014
     A story of how love can break our hearts – and heal them. A year ago I met the love of my life. For two people who didn’t believe in love at first sight, we came pretty close. Lilah MacDonald – beautiful, opinionated, stubborn and all kinds of wonderful in ways that words could never quite capture. The woman who taught me to live again. My Lilah, who gave me so much, and yet kept from me a secret that she knew would break my heart. My name is Callum Roberts, and this is our story. Me Without You is a book to make you smile, bring you to tears and remind you to hold on tightly to those you love. What people are saying about Me Without You… ‘I was hooked right from the start, and it was just the most beautiful portrayal of falling in love I've ever read. It's the type of love you dream of and want for yourself… Kelly Rimmer has done an outstanding job with Me Without You, it's engaging, it warmed my heart to the very core, and then tore it out and stomped all over it. (Quite meanly, may I add?) I knew it was coming, I knew the ending was inevitable before the first page, but the depth of Rimmer's writing and Callum's narrative slated me, and I ended up in tears. It was both sad and beautiful at the same time, and I admire Lilah for living her entire life on her own terms. I will miss Callum and Lilah. They stole into my heart, their story is one I will long remember and Me Without You is an unforgettable tale that I couldn't recommend more.' 5/5 GirlsLovetoRead.com ‘I fell in love with this amazing book after the first sentence and would read it all over again. A wonderful mixture of emotions, real love, secrets, laughter and sadness.’ Sky’s Book Corner ‘Me Without You is the beautiful, moving story of Callum and Lilah and they turned me into a complete emotional wreck. I loved the banter and the chemistry between them both right from the first, brilliant chapter and then as the book went on, it warmed and broke my heart all at the same time… It’s an incredible novel. Reviewed the Book ‘It’s been a while since I’ve read a book that made me ‘ugly cry.’ You know what I mean… big, fat tears rolling down your cheeks leaving you with eyes so puffy you look like you’ve had an allergic reaction. Think Claire Danes in… well… pretty much any role she’s ever been in. Kelly Rimmer’s Me Without You certainly broke that dry spell… Told in alternating points of view from Lilah and Callum, Me Without You is a heartbreaker of a book that has great characters and a gut-wrenching ending that left me feeling a weird mix of bereft and yet hopeful.’ 4/5 JudgingCovers.co.uk ‘There's not much I can say without giving the story away, other than how much I adore Callum and Lilah.

Home to Turtle Bay


Marion Lennox - 2018
    Dr Jennifer Kelly has reached the pinnacle of her career as a successful Manhattan obstetrician, complete with ambitious, blue-blooded fianc�. After a desolate childhood with a distant grandmother, life seems everything she's ever wanted.When a grandfather she's never heard of leaves her a dairy farm on an isolated Australian island - plus one depressed dog, thirty geriatric cows and a bunch of ancient surfboards - she plans a quick trip to put the farm up for sale. Her aloof, socialite grandmother Muriel is appalled, yet insists on accompanying her.Once there, Jenny finds herself caught, by cows, by turtles - and by Jack McLachlan, the overworked island doctor who desperately needs her help. Muriel's caught too, with ghosts of her wartime past threatening to crack the shell she's built with such dedication and care.But isn't Manhattan their home? How can two women give up the perfect world they've worked so hard for by taking a chance on...life?'Joyous and breathtaking, a story to touch your heart, make you smile and see the world as a better place.' - Barbara Hannay