Book picks similar to
The Far Away Girl by Sharon Maas


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Bury Me Deep (Detective Rozlyn Priest #1)


Jane A. Adams - 2021
    TWO MILLENNIA. ONE TIMELESS WEAPON.Theadingford dig site, present-day.Detective Rozlyn Priest never expected to find herself here. Teetering on the brink of an ancient grave. She takes a breath, willing herself to look down.Old bones, broken relics. That’s what should be buried here. Not the dead man staring back at her now.He is Charlie Higgins, a petty criminal Roz once called on for help.Is she the reason he’s dead? Slashed with a spear that belongs in the Dark Ages?Roz won’t rest until she finds the truth. But her investigation is leading nowhere. And now she’s seeing things — visions of a flame-haired Saxon warrior who shares her thirst for justice.But just how much deeper is Roz prepared to dig?

The Secret Diary


Anna Stuart - 2021
    One house. And a secret that spans decades…The past merges with the present in an unforgettable, poignant story of love, loss and courage in this beautifully written story set between World War Two and the present day.She steps into the room and it’s like going back in time.Catapulting her right into the heart of the 1940s.The spindle of the record player frozen and ready to play. The flowery wallpaper faded but intact. A soldier’s uniform pressed and hung on a door, coal still in the fireplace.A floorboard creaks beneath her and she notices a small desk in the corner of the room. She opens the top drawer and runs her hands along the edges, something catching at her fingertips. A hidden compartment. And behind it, the soft edges of a book.As she dusts it off, she can see it has a red leather covering, the pages yellowing with age. She realizes it’s a diary. Some of the pages have been torn out. The first entry has 16th June 1945 printed in neat little letters at the top. Below it, in hurried, untidy script are the words:‘My name is Nancy Jones. And I have a secret…’

Lumberjack Daddy - A Single Dad Romance (Men of the Mountains Book 3)


Layla Valentine - 2021
    

The Lost Book of Adana Moreau


Michael Zapata - 2020
    The novel earns rave reviews, and Adana begins a sequel. Then she falls gravely ill. Just before she dies, she destroys the only copy of the manuscript.Decades later in Chicago, Saul Drower is cleaning out his dead grandfather’s home when he discovers a mysterious manuscript written by none other than Adana Moreau. With the help of his friend Javier, Saul tracks down an address for Adana’s son in New Orleans, but as Hurricane Katrina strikes they must head to the storm-ravaged city for answers.What results is a brilliantly layered masterpiece—an ode to home, storytelling and the possibility of parallel worlds.

The Tenth Muse


Catherine Chung - 2019
    Still, I never tried to hide or suppress my mind as some girls do, and thank God, because that would have been the beginning of the end.From childhood, Katherine knows she is different, and that her parents are not who they seem to be. But in becoming a mathematician, she must face the most human of problems—who is she? What is the cost of love, and what is the cost of ambition? On her quest to conquer the Riemann Hypothesis, the greatest unsolved mathematical problem of her time, she turns to a theorem with a mysterious history that holds both the lock and key to her identity, and to secrets long buried during World War II in Germany. Forced to confront some of the most consequential events of the twentieth century and rethink everything she knows of herself, she strives to take her place in the world of higher mathematics and finds kinship in the stories of the women who came before her—their love of the language of numbers connecting them across generations.In The Tenth Muse, Catherine Chung offers a gorgeous, sweeping tale about legacy, identity, and the beautiful ways the mind can make us free.

The Pursuit of Ordinary


Nigel Jay Cooper - 2018
    Longlisted, The Guardian's Not The Booker Prize.Dan saw her husband die. So why can he still hear him?Is Dan ill or has he been possessed? Homeless and afraid, he decides the only way to find out is to track down the man’s widow, Natalie. Can he convince her that her husband Joe lives on inside him? Can they both fight their growing feelings for one another as Joe, trapped inside Dan, feels evermore marginalised, alone and afraid?

My Silent Daughter


Emma Robinson - 2019
    Her smiles are magically rare, her building blocks are always colour-coded, and she communicates only in gestures. Sometimes, being Ruby’s mother is hard, but the way she sees the world makes it new for Sara every day.When Sara’s husband walks out on them, Sara’s world falls apart, and her mother-in-law, Barbara, is the only person Sara can turn to for help. But Barbara thinks Ruby’s problems are all in Sara’s head; that she just doesn’t know how to raise a child right.Sara can’t see how she’ll cope alone. Barbara won’t listen. Can a girl who doesn’t speak show them the way?A powerful emotional page-turner about motherhood, friendship and family. Guaranteed to take your breath away. Perfect for fans of A Boy Made of Blocks, Jodi Picoult and Jojo Moyes.This novel was previously titled Where I Found You.

Protecting the Single Mother


Leslie North - 2021
    Single mom Nicole Zito may have been the love of his life, but he’s confident his second chance rule will keep him and his heart perfectly safe. But he can’t deny his protective instincts when Nicole shows him the threatening email she received that disturbingly included a picture of her young son, Grant.They both agree to keep things on a professional level. But protecting Nicole means being with her, and being with her and ignoring his heart is turning out to be a lot tougher than he thought.Even though Nicole still has feelings for Michael, she knows he’s the best man for the job. No one is more focused than he is. No one is better at shutting down his emotions. One thing she never expected, though, was how perfect it would feel to be with him again, tucked away in a quiet cabin with him and her son…almost like a real family.It’s everything she wants, but she doesn’t know if it’s something she can have. If they ever get rid of the danger chasing her, will their fragile new bond come to an end, too? She’s falling fast for her sexy SEAL, all she has to do is convince him their love is worth a second chance…USA Today Bestseller Leslie North invites you to indulge in a heart-pounding military romance with a hot, super-alpha Navy SEAL protecting the woman he loves at all costs...

Looking for the Durrells


Melanie Hewitt - 2021
    . .After a year that sees a broken-off engagement and the death of her beloved father, Penny is desperate to get away.Fulfilling a childhood dream, she sets off on a month-long pilgrimage to Corfu--an island idyll she knows only through the pages of Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals.On the island, Penny quickly finds herself drawn into the lives of a tight-knit circle of strangers. Exploring--searching for the places the Durrells knew decades before--she makes unexpected discoveries about the hopes, fears, and secrets of the people living there today.And as strangers start to be friends, lives past and present become entwined in ways none of them could have predicted. . .

Scary Monsters


Michelle de KretserMichelle de Kretser - 2021
    Now, in the 1980s, she's teaching in the south of France. She makes friends, observes the treatment handed out to North African immigrants and is creeped out by her downstairs neighbour. All the while, Lili is striving to be A Bold, Intelligent Woman like Simone de Beauvoir.Lyle works for a sinister government department in near-future Australia. An Asian migrant, he fears repatriation and embraces 'Australian values'. He's also preoccupied by his ambitious wife, his wayward children and his strong-minded elderly mother. Islam has been banned in the country, the air is smoky from a Permanent Fire Zone, and one pandemic has already run its course.Three scary monsters - racism, misogyny and ageism - roam through this mesmerising novel. Its reversible format enacts the disorientation that migrants experience when changing countries changes the story of their lives. With this suspenseful, funny and profound book, Michelle de Kretser has made something thrilling and new.'Which comes first, the future or the past?'

Last Impressions


Joseph Kertes - 2020
    "When I die, I'll leave my luck to you."Zoltan Beck is dying. His devoted but long-suffering sons, Ben and Frank, are trying to prepare themselves and their families for Zoltan's eventual departure...but they can't quite bring themselves to believe that the end is really at hand, and neither can Zoltan himself. The head of a family marked by war and tragedy for decades, he "can't stand to be in a room with a miserable person" and has done his best to keep the pain of his refugee past from his beloved children. But as he faces the end of his life, he discovers a heartbreaking secret from the War that will ultimately bring the family together--or irrevocably disrupt it. Set in both mid-20th century Hungary and contemporary Toronto, this is a deeply moving novel that revels in the energy of its extraordinary characters. It is the story of lost love and newfound connections, of a father and his sons desperately reaching out to bridge an ever-widening gap...even as their time together ebbs away.

Slow Burn on Riverside


Chad Lutzke - 2021
    But when her teenage son shows up, things take a very dark turn.

The Talk of Pram Town


Joanna Nadin - 2020
    . .It’s 1981. Eleven-year-old Sadie adores her beautiful and vibrant mother, Connie, whose dreams of making it big as a singer fill their tiny house in Leeds. It’s always been just the two of them. Until the unthinkable happens.Jean hasn’t seen her good-for-nothing daughter Connie since she ran away from the family home in Harlow – or Pram Town as its inhabitants affectionately call it – aged seventeen and pregnant.But in the wake of the Royal Wedding, Jean gets a life-changing call: could she please come and collect the granddaughter she’s never met?We all know how Charles and Diana turned out, and Jean and Sadie are hardly a match made in heaven – but is there hope of a happy ending for them?Written in Joanna Nadin’s trademark dazzling prose, The Talk of Pram Town tells the story of three generations of Earnshaws and asks whether it always has to be like mother, like daughter . .

Little Nothing


Marisa Silver - 2016
    Her arrival, fervently anticipated and conceived in part by gypsy tonics and archaic prescriptions, stuns her parents and brings outrage and disgust from her community. Pavla has been born a dwarf, beautiful in face, but as the years pass, she grows no further than the edge of her crib. When her parents turn to the treatments of a local doctor and freak sideshow proprietor, his terrifying cure opens the floodgates persecution for Pavla. Little Nothing unfolds across a lifetime of unimaginable, magical transformation in and out of human form, as this outcast woman is hunted down and incarcerated for her desires, her body broken and her identity stripped away until her soul is strong enough to transcend all physical bounds. Woven throughout is the journey of Danilo, the young man entranced by Pavla, obsessed only with protecting her. Part allegory about the shifting nature of being, part subversive fairy tale of love in all its uncanny guises, Little Nothing spans the beginning of a new century, the disintegration of ancient superstitions and the adoption of industry and invention. With a cast of remarkable characters, a wholly shocking and original story, and extraordinary, page-turning prose, Silver delivers a novel of sheer electricity.

The Orphanage


Lizzie Page - 2021
    Now they are hers. A gritty, heartbreaking and unforgettable story of love and hope in the darkest of times.Clara Newton is the new Housemother of Shilling Grange Orphanage. Many of the children have been bombed out of their homes and left without families, their lives torn apart by the war, just like Clara’s. Devastated by the loss of her fiancé, a brave American pilot, she is just looking for a place to start again.But the orphans are in desperate need of her help. Funds are short, children cry out in the night, and tearful Rita tells Clara terrible stories about the nuns who previously ran Shilling Grange. Clara cannot bear to see them suffer, but what does she know about how to look after eight little ones?Clara can’t get anything right, and then she accidentally ruins Rita’s only memento of her mother. Overwhelmed, she wonders if they’d be better off without her. But she’s not completely alone. Living next door is Ivor: ex-Shilling Grange resident, war hero, and handyman with deep brown eyes. He doesn’t trust Clara and she is fiercely independent, but he has a way with the children. And with his support and the help of other locals, Clara begins to find her way.As she heals from her grief and adjusts to her new life, Clara wonders if she has finally found her home and family among the orphans. Can she find the strength to fight for them when nobody else will? And dare she open her heart to love again?An absolutely heartbreaking, unforgettable and unputdownable read. Fans of Before We Were Yours, Diney Costeloe and The Orphan Sisters won’t be able to put this book down.