Deceived - Sarah Smith with Kate Snell

A harrowing and incredible true story about a young woman who lost 10 years of her life on the run, hiding in poverty and terror from her would-be killers, thinking the man who'd taken her away was a British secret agent protecting her from IRA terrorists. One naturally wonders how the people involved could so gullibly have given away their trust and so much money, but reading this helps you understand the mechanics of brainwashing, fear, and the charisma of a con man.

The Last Chinese Chef - Nicole Mones

I prefer the Australian book cover art (not the one shown here) -it evokes the delicacy and poetry of the food and love written about so beautifully in the book. The book is a captivating journey into food - the layers of meaning, history and literary allusions there are in the Chinese-Chinese food that the protaganist an American food writer begins to fall in love with, so different to the American-Chinese food she has known, and the life she has known.

Deja Vu - Susan Fraser

A debut by an Australian author married to a French man, like in the story. I thought of The Time Traveller's Wife when I first saw this, but it's quite different. The couple have found themselves with their current awareness but in the bodies & circumstances of their past about 14 years back, when they first met, retracing past events with new and painful revelations and with the benefit of hindsight & foresight, possibly with a different outcome. It's quite evocative. I enjoyed it.

What the Dead Know - Laura Lippman

My first Laura Lippman experience, and not disappointed. After fleeing a car accident, a middle-aged woman with no ID is questioned by police and hints that she is the younger of two sisters, Heather and Sunny Bethany, who disappeared decades ago. She knows both too much and not enough about the case, leading Baltimore police on wild goose chases. The narrative tracks back & forth in time, with suspenseful little glimpses into the mystery of what really happened.