Are you bored and wondering what some great books to read right now are? Well, you’ve landed in the right place, because I’m rounding up 7 of my current bookshelf titles – mostly modern contemporary reads, you’ll find a solid mix of romance, drama, history and mystery.
Immersing yourself in a great book can not only help improve our memory and empathy, but research has shown that it also makes us feel more positive too… And that’s certainly what we need right now as new coronavirus shutdown measures are coming into force in Melbourne, across Australia, and the world.
7 great fiction books to read in lockdown
AN ALMOST PERFECT HOLIDAY
by Lucy Diamond
Published December 31, 2019
Summer is here, and down in Cornwall Lorna’s holiday cottages are fully booked. The sun loungers are lined up beside the swimming pool, the sky is blue and a new set of arrivals are on their way… Em’s planned the perfect break with her teenagers plus her new boyfriend, George… but now his difficult six-year-old is coming too. Will their romance survive the realities of parenthood?
Maggie’s hoping a seaside holiday will bring her and her daughter closer together, but when her ex makes a surprise reappearance, it changes everything. Can she trust the man who broke her heart?
Olivia has escaped the domestic grind, only for the past to catch up with her. Maybe the time has come to confess all – if she can find the courage… Meanwhile, the teenagers are running wild and love is in the air. With friendship, heartache and secrets in the mix, will this holiday turn out to be a scorcher – or simply too hot to handle?
Melbourne Girl Rating
★★★★☆
As a huge Lucy Diamond fan I was very keen to read her latest title. It’s an easy read, and very entertaining as always. Not as amazing as some of her other books – I highly recommend The House of New Beginnings and One Night in Italy.
HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD
by J. K. Rowling, John Tiffany and Jack Thorne
Published July 25, 2017
It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn’t much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband, and father of three school-age children. While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son, Albus, must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted.
As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: Sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.
The playscript for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was originally released as a “special rehearsal edition” alongside the opening of Jack Thorne’s play in London’s West End in summer 2016. Based on an original story by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, and Jack Thorne, the play opened to rapturous reviews from theatergoers and critics alike, while the official playscript became an immediate global bestseller.
Melbourne Girl Rating
★★★★★
I admit it… I am a die-hard Harry Potter fan and I have seen the Melbourne play twice! Do yourself a favour, and read this book before you watch the play!
NB. At time of publishing this blog post (23/03/20), it has been announced in the COVID-19 Latest Update, that all Melbourne performances of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child the Play will be suspended until further notice..
SUCH A FUN AGE
by Kiley Reid
Published January 7, 2020
Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her young black babysitter, Emira Tucker, is accused by a security guard of kidnapping the Chamberlains’ toddler at the supermarket one night. A small crowd gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make it right. But Emira herself is aimless, broke and wary of Alix’s desire to help. When the video of Emira unearths someone from Alix’s past, both women find themselves on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know about themselves, and each other. With empathy and piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age explores the awkwardness of transactional relationships, what it means to make someone ‘family’, the complicated reality of being a grown-up and the consequences of doing the right thing for the wrong reason.
Melbourne Girl Rating
★★★★☆
This book came highly recommended by a book club member and took me a while to pick up… When I did, I was hooked! Smashed it out in three evenings.
Thoroughly enjoyed the story, which unfolds with a ‘bang’ in the first chapter. However I wasn’t particularly a fan of the ending. Would love to hear other readers thoughts!
THE LIFE-CHANGING MAGIC OF NOT GIVING A F**K
by Sarah Knight
Published January 12, 2016
A practical parody, self-help guide on how to stop spending time you don’t have with people you don’t like doing things you don’t want to do. A brilliant, hilarious homage to The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, showing how to shed your mental clutter for good. Aimed at overachieving but dissatisfied people everywhere.
Sarah’s inspirational two-step “NotSorry” program shows how unleashing the power of not giving a fuck will help you shed unwanted guilt and obligations to redirect time, energy, and enthusiasm to your true priorities.
Melbourne Girl Rating
★★★★☆
I read this book a couple of years ago and have pulled it down off the bookshelf to re-read.
It’s a beauty!
WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING
by Delia Owens
Published December 13, 2019
For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say.
Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life–until the unthinkable happens.
Melbourne Girl Rating
★★★★★
This book took me a chapter or few to get into… then WOW!
Despite being written a little differently to most novels, his story is entertainment plus, keeps you on the edge of your seat until the very end.
Do yourself a favour and read it… now!
BOY SWALLOWS UNIVERSE
by Trent Dalton
Published March 18, 2019
1983: A lost father, a mute brother, a mum in jail, a heroin dealer for a stepfather and a notorious crim for a babysitter. It’s not as if Eli’s life isn’t complicated enough already. He’s just trying to follow his heart, learning what it takes to be a good man, but life just keeps throwing obstacles in the way – not least of which is Tytus Broz, legendary Brisbane drug dealer. But Eli’s life is about to get a whole lot more serious. He’s about to fall in love. And, oh yeah, he has to break into Boggo Road Gaol on Christmas Day, to save his mum.
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 – an instant Australian classic.
Melbourne Girl Rating
Currently Reading – Stay Tuned
THE CLOCKMAKER’S DAUGHTER
by Kate Morton
Published August 5, 2019
In the depths of a nineteenth-century winter, a little girl is abandoned in the narrow streets of London. Adopted by a mysterious stranger, she becomes in turn a thief, a friend, a muse and a lover. Then, in the summer of 1862, shortly after her eighteenth birthday, she retreats with a group of artists to a beautiful house on a quiet bend of the Upper Thames…
Tensions simmer and one hot afternoon a gun-shot rings out. A woman is killed, another disappears, and the truth of what happened slips through the cracks of time. Over the next century and beyond, Birchwood Manor welcomes many newcomers but guards its secret closely-until another young woman is drawn to visit the house because of a family secret of her own…
As the mystery of The Clockmaker’s Daughter begins to unravel, we discover the stories of those who have passed through Birchwood Manor since that fateful day in 1862. Intricately layered and richly atmospheric, it shows that, sometimes, the only way forward is through the past.
Melbourne Girl Rating
Currently Reading – Stay Tuned
Continue your literary journey, with these other great reads…
