Double blind by Edward St Aubyn

I won’t lie to you, this was probably a bit too clever for me, but somehow I didn’t mind. Francis, whose job is to rewild a property in Sussex, meets Olivia at a conference and they become lovers. Olivia’s friend Lucy returns to London after some years in New York to work for the super-rich Hunter on one of his scientific projects before receiving some unexpected news that binds them all together. The settings are glorious, the characters engaging, sometimes over the top, and the language complex and lyrical. Richly detailed, Double Blind ruminates on the environment, the brain, genetics, and relationships, and is darkly humorous, thought-provoking, touching, and marvel-inducing.

In the clearing by J.P. Pomare

This story was both disturbing and compelling. The issue of life in a cult (including child abuse) was at times hard to read, but the story held the tension throughout and made me want to keep reading. The ending was unexpected and chilling. Will definitely read more from this author.

The Nickel boys by Colson Whitehead

Elwood Curtis is a bright young African-American, living with his strict grandmother, in Florida in the 1960s. Full of promise and dreams of college, Elwood is literally in the wrong place at the wrong time, and is sent to the Nickel Academy, a reform school and dream workplace for cruel and racist people. Shifting back and forth from the 60s to the present, it is based on true stories, and is about the shocking suffering of the boys at the school, the bonds of friendship, the fight for freedom and what is right, and the lasting impact of abuse and racism. It is powerful, moving, and clever, and the audiobook is very well done.

Any ordinary day by Leigh Sales

After a series of events in her personal and work life rocked her, Leigh Sales set out to investigate how people cope with the very worst of days. Sales revisited people involved in high profile incidents, such as Walter Mikac, who lost his family at Port Arthur, Stuart Diver, who lost one wife in the Thredbo landslide and another to cancer, and people from the Lindt Café siege, and many others who had experienced incredible trauma and loss. What results is a life-affirming book about resilience, strength, faith, understanding and kindness. A good companion book for Julia Baird’s Phosphorescence.

Ash Mountain by Helen Fitzgerald

This was an unsettling read for me and I almost gave up on it, but I am glad that I kept with the story. From the beginning we are thrown right into the story and it took a while for me to get used to the style of writing and the characters. The reader is taken to different time periods as the town’s secrets are effectively revealed. It is a dark story covering topics such as religion, abuse, drugs and sexuality but is broken up by some lighter moments. Adding to this unsettling feeling is the authors use of characters, many only named by a tag such as boarder #1 and a bushfire threatening to wipe out the town.

Engleby by Sebastian Faulks

Four and a half stars for this utterly compelling story of a complicated, clever, perplexing man’s life, from childhood, through his student days at Cambridge, and working life in London. Mike Engleby tells his own story, and he is a brilliantly unreliable narrator. As well as the murder mystery which unfolds slowly, the book is about politics, psychology, philosophy, Cambridge life in the 1970s, the nature of friendship, and of self. It’s funny, disturbing, thought-provoking, clever, and enthralling.

See what you made me do by Jess Hill

A confronting but important book about domestic abuse in Australia. It looks at the many different types of abuse, the people who perpetrate it, and the truly complex reasons why this is a national crisis. I found it gave a much fuller picture about why domestic abuse occurs, and how society as a whole contributes to an environment where it occurs so frequently, and is so difficult to deal with.

A high mortality of doves by Kate Ellis

A solid mystery with a good twist at the end. The story is set just after World War I, when Inspector Lincoln from Scotland Yard is sent out to investigate a series of murders. How the war, its death and injuries, has affected people is a big focus of the story, and one which I found interesting.

Regeneration by Pat Barker

I first read, and loved, The Regeneration trilogy many years ago. Though it seems slightly perverse, WWI, between the wars, and WWII are my favourite time setting, and I particularly enjoy this story, which like most of Pat Barker’s books that I have read, is a fictional account of real people. In this case it is the work of Dr Rivers with those suffering from shell shock, including the poets, Sassoon and Owen. It is about the nature of war, and how a man must think in order to participate in it. There are some true horrors of the trenches, but it is set largely in a hospital, and the battles are of the mind. So powerful, moving, and tragic.

This mournable body by Tsitsi Dangarembga

Having read both Nervous Conditions and The Book of Not, many years ago, I was keen to revisit Tambudzai and see what she was up to. Well, nothing good I’m afraid. The years have been unkind, and all of the promise of Tambu’s youth has come to nothing. She so desperately wants the success she feels owed, and struggles to get by. Life is hard in Zimbabwe, especially for women, and terribly complicated. This is a complex book, pretty bleak, sometimes hard to understand, and sad, but thought provoking, clever, and moving.