
PAST TITLES 2024:
Here are the books we’ve read and enjoyed! Want to read them in your own book club? Contact library@wls.org.nz about checking out a free book club set of any title.
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Nov 2024
Eddie Winston is looking for Love by Marianne Cronin
Eddie Winston is ninety years old. He has lived and he has loved, but he has never been kissed. A true gentleman and incurable romantic, Eddie spends his days volunteering at a charity shop, where he sorts through the donations of the living and the dead, preserving letters and tokens of love along the way. It is here that he meets Bella, a troubled young woman who, aged twenty-four, has just lost the love of her life. When Bella learns that Eddie is yet to have his first kiss, she resolves to help him finally find love, sparking an adventure that will take them to unexpected places and, they hope, bring Eddie to the moment he has waited for all his life. As Bella helps Eddie and Eddie helps, well, everyone, a soul-stirring story of friendship and kindness unfolds as we see how those we love are never forgotten and it is never too late to try again​.​

Oct 2024
​​1843. On a remote Scottish island, Ivar, the sole occupant, leads a life of quiet isolation until the day he finds a man unconscious on the beach below the cliffs. The newcomer is John Ferguson, an impoverished church minister sent to evict Ivar and turn the island into grazing land for sheep. Unaware of the stranger’s intentions, Ivar takes him into his home, and in spite of the two men having no common language, a fragile bond begins to form between them. Meanwhile on the mainland, John’s wife Mary anxiously awaits news of his mission.
Against the rugged backdrop of this faraway spot beyond Shetland, Carys Davies’s intimate drama unfolds with tension and tenderness: a touching and crystalline study of ordinary people buffeted by history and a powerful exploration of the distances and connections between us. Perfectly structured and surprising at every turn, Clear is a marvel of storytelling, an exquisite short novel by a master of the form.

Sept 2024
At the Grand Glacier Hotel by Laurence Fearnley.
It’s Fearnley’s thirteenth novel, and the third in her series which deals with the five senses, the first being Scented and the second Winter Time.
Following a disastrous family holiday, Libby and Curtis make a promise: If they ever visit the West Coast of the South Island again, it will be to stay at the majestic Grand Glacier Hotel.
Twenty years later, Libby is recovering from cancer and the couple finally return to the resort. Except the glacier has retreated, nothing goes to plan, and after a storm separates her from Curtis, Libby finds herself alone in the isolated hotel. Disappointed, she tentatively begins to explore her surroundings. Could the inaccessible hotel and its curious collection of staff and guests hold the key to Libby reconnecting with the person she once was?

Aug 2024
​​Audition by Pip Adam
Audition is A genre-bending new novel from the winner of the Acorn Prize and the author of Nothing to See.
A spaceship called Audition is hurtling through the cosmos. Squashed immobile into its largest room are three giants: Alba, Stanley and Drew. If they talk, the spaceship keeps moving; if they are silent, they resume growing.​

July 2024
8 Lives of a century-old trickster by Mirinae Lee​
​Mook Miran relates the story of her life to an obituarist, exploring a century of Korean history along the way. How much of it can be true? Is Ms Mook telling the truth, or is she re-inventing herself for a willing listener?​


May 2024
Irresistibly funny, wise and thought-provoking, The Bee Sting is a tour de force about family, fortune, and the struggle to be a good person when the world is falling apart.
The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie's once-lucrative car dealership is going under, and while his wife is frantically selling off her jewellery on eBay, he's busy building an apocalypse-proof bunker in the woods. Meanwhile their teenage daughter is veering off the rails, in thrall to a toxic friendship, and her little brother is falling into the black hole of the internet...
Where did it all go wrong? The present is in crisis but the causes lie deep in the past. How long can this unhappy family wait before they have to face the truth? And if the story has already been written, is there still time to find a happy ending?
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April 2024
Villages are full of tales: some are forgotten while others become a part of local folklore. But the fortunes of one West Country village are watched over and irreversibly etched into history as an omniscient, somewhat crabby, presence keeps track of village life.

March 2024
Kabuto is an ordinary guy: stressed with work, hassled by his wife and disrespected by his son. No wonder he visits his doctor so often. Except the 'Doctor' is actually his handler, and Kabuto is a hired assassin.
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February 2024
On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her step. Two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police are here to interrogate her husband, a trade unionist.
