Litty Committee: June’s Here So Pop On Yr Fuzzy Socks & Curl Up With These Winter Warmer Books

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In case you hadn’t noticed the howling winds and icy blasts chillier than a Frozen Coke dumped upon your head, it’s officially winter.

But there’s no time for winter blues when you could instead have winter books! Oh yes, we’ve got you covered with some toasty reads to curl up by the electric heater with.

And in case you missed is last month, there’s still time to get involved in the Richell Prize for Emerging Writers. The prize opened on April 21 and will close on July 8.

The winner will score a cool $10,000 donated by Hachette Australia and a 12-month mentorship. If you’re an Aussie citizen or resident who’s over 18 and loves to write, this one’s for you.

It’s open to anyone who has never had their work published by a commercial publishing house.

You can suss out all the details at the website.

Now chuck on your thermal longjohns and whip out your bookmarks because these books are sure to warm your soul, if not your feets.

Best Aussie fiction books to read this month The Family String by Denise Picton Ultimo Press

About this book:

This is Denise Picton’s debut novel and if you’re into complex depictions of mother-daughter relationships this one’s for you.

Set in 1960s Adelaide, The Family String follows Dorcas, a 12-year-old born into a family of Christadelphians. Dorcas is her mum’s least favourite child — at the bottom of the family’s string of beads, which she and her siblings Ruthy and Caleb change depending on their mum’s moods.

Dorcas, an aspiring vet, dreams of having a dog, or failing that, a guinea pig named Thruppence. Ruthy wants to attend writing school, and Caleb wants to play footy with the local team. But Christadelphians aren’t allowed to be ‘of the world’ and when their older brother Daniel is exiled to door knock and spread the good word in New South Wales after being caught making out with Esther Dawlish at youth camp, each try their hardest to suppress their dreams for a bigger life.

But for a girl like Dorcas, dreams have a habit of surfacing at the most inopportune moments, and as she strives to be the daughter her mother desires, a chain of mishaps lead to a tragedy no one could have foreseen.

Release date: May 1, 2022

Where to buy: 

The Eulogy by Jackie Bailey Hardie Grant

About this book:

Another debut novel, this is set in the deep winter of south-east Queensland. A fitting read for this time of year.

It’s winter in Logan, south-east Queensland, and still warm enough to sleep in a car at night if you have nowhere else to go. But Kathy can’t sleep. Her husband is on her blocked caller list and she’s running from a kidnapping charge, a Tupperware container of 300 sleeping pills in her glovebox.

She has driven from Sydney to plan a funeral with her five surviving siblings (most of whom she hardly speaks to) because their sister Annie is finally, blessedly, inconceivably dead from the brain tumour she was diagnosed with twenty-five years ago, the year everything changed.

Kathy wonders – she has always wondered – did Annie get sick to protect her? And if so, from what? In writing Annie’s eulogy, Kathy attempts to understand the tangled story of their family.

Release date: June 1, 2022

Where to buy: 

The Woman In The Library by Sulari Gentill Ultimo Press

About this book:

Enter your Ms Marple era with this new murder mystery by Aussie writer Sulari Gentill. You might recognise her from her fantasy series The Hero Trilogy too.

Hannah Tigone, bestselling Australian crime author, is crafting a new novel that begins in the Boston Public Library: four strangers; Winifred, Cain, Marigold and Whit are sitting at the same table when a bloodcurdling scream breaks the silence. A woman has been murdered. They are all suspects, and, as it turns out, each character has their own secrets and motivations – and one of them is a murderer.

While crafting this new thriller, Hannah shares each chapter with her biggest fan and aspirational novelist, Leo. But Leo seems to know a lot about violence, motive, and how exactly to kill someone. Perhaps he is not all that he seems…

Release date: June 1, 2022

Where to buy: 

Best general fiction books to read this month Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen HarperCollins

About this book:

This novel’s already received glowing reviews from writers like Celeste Ng and Kevin Kwan. It’s been compared to Hustlers if you can’t get enough of that vibe. Counterfeit follows two Asian American women who decide to grow a counterfeit handbag business into a worldwide phenomenon.

Meet Ava: rule-abiding lawyer who has ticked all of life’s boxes. She’s married to a successful surgeon and has just taken an indefinite career break to raise her adorable toddler. 

Meet Winnie: Ava’s old college roommate. Once awkward, quiet and apparently academically challenged, she left Stanford in a shroud of scandal. But now, she is charismatic, wealthy and has returned to town dripping in designer accessories.  

When the two women bump into one another at a local coffee shop, it seems like fate has intervened: Winnie’s new-found success is courtesy of a shady business and she needs a favour; Ava is realising she is not built for the stay-at-home life. But what starts as one favour turns into two, then three, and soon Ava is in far deeper than she ever imagined. 

Release date: June 9, 2022

Where to buy: 

The Ghosts of Paris by Tara Moss HarperCollins

About this book:

The newest novel in Tara Mos’ Billie Walker mysteries, The Ghosts of Paris is set in 1947 Paris (duh).

The world continues to grapple with the fallout of the Second World War, and former war reporter Billie Walker is finding her feet as an investigator. When a wealthy client hires Billie to track down her missing husband, the trail leads Billie back to London and Paris, where her own painful memories also lurk.

Jack Rake, Billie’s wartime lover and briefly, husband, is just one of the millions people who went missing in Europe during the war. What was his fate after they left Paris together?

As Billie’s search for her client’s husband takes her to both the swanky bars at Paris’s famous Ritz hotel and to the dank basements of the infamous Paris morgue, she’ll need to keep her gun at the ready, because something even more terrible than a few painful memories might be following her around the city of lights.

Release date: June 15, 2022

Where to buy: 

Best fantasy books to read this month New South Books Wicked Beauty by Katee Robert

About this book:

This is absolutely one for horny Greek mythology fans which, I think we can agree is most people. Wicked Beauty is the third in the Dark Olympus trilogy so make sure you catch up before diving in. This one is a retelling of the myths of Achilles, Patroclus and Helen of Troy.

Achilles Kallis vowed that he’d do whatever it took to claw his way into Olympus’s inner circle. Now that the former Ares is gone and the coveted role has opened to anyone with the strength to claim it, he and his partner, Patroclus Fotos, plan to both compete and double their odds of winning. Neither expect the infamous beauty Helen Kasios to be part of the prize…or for the sparks that fly when the three of them meet.

Zeus may have decided Helen is his to give away, but she has her own plans. She enters the competition as a middle finger to the meddling Thirteen, effectively vying for her own hand in marriage. The only people she can trust are the ones she can’t quite keep her hands off ― Achilles and Patroclus. But even they might not be strong enough to help her face the worst Olympus has to throw at them.

Release date: June 1, 2022

Where to buy: 

Ordinary Monsters by J.M. Miro Bloomsbury

About this book:

This book follows an institute for gifted children — and no, not the ones who got their pen licenses early. Think more ooky spooky fantasy, like a ye olde Umbrella Academy.

1882. North of Edinburgh, on the edge of an isolated loch, lies an institution of crumbling stone, where a strange doctor collects orphans with unusual abilities. In London, two children with such powers are hunted by a figure of darkness a man made of smoke.

Charlie Ovid discovers a gift for healing himself through a brutal upbringing in Mississippi, while Marlowe, a foundling from a railway freight, glows with a strange bluish light. When two grizzled detectives are recruited to escort them north to safety, they are confronted by a sinister, dangerous force that threatens to upend the world as they know it.

What follows is a journey from the gaslit streets of London to the lochs of Scotland, where other gifted children the Talents have been gathered at Cairndale Institute, and the realms of the dead and the living collide. As secrets within the Institute unfurl, Marlowe, Charlie and the rest of the Talents will discover the truth about their abilities and the nature of the force that is stalking them- that the worst monsters sometimes come bearing the sweetest gifts.

Release date: June 1, 2022

Where to buy: 

Best Young Adult books to read this month Forging Silver into Stars by Brigid Kemmerer Bloomsbury

About this book:

This new novel by Brigid Kemmerer picks up where the New York Times bestselling Cursebreaker trilogy left-off. You can add them all to your binge reading list.

Tycho of Rillisk has been a lot of things: son and brother, stablehand, prisoner, soldier and friend to the king. Now, four years after Grey took the throne of Emberfall, Tycho has taken on a new role: courier and spy. As the only person the king can trust, Tycho carries secret messages back and forth between the kingdoms of Emberfall and Syhl Shallow.

But even though the war is over, peace still seems far away. A dangerous anti-magical faction is rising, and when Tycho discovers a plot to assassinate Grey and Queen Lia Mara, ruler of Syhl Shallow, he must fight for everything he believes in.

Release date: June 7, 2022

Where to buy: 

My Mechanical Romance by Alexene Farol Follmuth Penguin Random House

About this book:

Romance? Yes. Romance centred on a a high school battle-robot-building team? Even more yes. Romance that also features young women in STEM? The ultimate yes.

Bel would rather die than think about the future. But when she accidentally reveals a talent for engineering at school, she’s basically forced into joining the robotics club. Even worse? All the boys ignore Bel—and Neelam, the only other girl on the team, doesn’t seem to like her either. Enter Mateo Luna, captain of the club, who recognises Bel as a potential asset—until they start butting heads. Bel doesn’t care about Nationals, while Teo cares too much. But as the nights of after-school work grow longer and longer, Bel and Teo realize they’ve made more than just a combat-ready robot for the championship: they’ve made each other and the team better. 

Release date: June 28, 2022

Where to buy: 

Best non-fiction books to read this month Currently Between Husbands by Cathrine Mahoney Simon & Schuster

About this book:

In this memoir, Cathrine Mahoney details her divorce from rugby league player Andrew Johns with humour and self-deprecation.

Having a relationship in the spotlight is hard enough, but in Currently Between Husbands, Cathrine Mahoney details the unique experience of breaking up with one of Australia’s highest profile sport stars. Even for a self-confessed over-sharer, the breakdown of her marriage to rugby league player Andrew Johns was more public than she was used to. 

Currently Between Husbands is the equivalent of having a chat with your bestie over a drink or two, with all the inappropriate confessions, front bottom revelations and teary moments that entails.

Release date: June 1, 2022

Where to buy: 

The Escape Artist by Jonathan Freedman Hachette

About this book:

This book follows the story of Rudolf Vrba, a teenager who engineered an escape from the Auschwitz concentration camp.

After hiding in a pile of timber planks for three days while 3,000 SS men and their bloodhounds searched for him, Vrba and his fellow escapee Fred Wetzler would eventually cross Nazi-occupied Poland on foot, as penniless fugitives. Their mission: to tell the world the truth of the Final Solution.

Vrba would produce from memory a breathtaking report of more than thirty pages revealing the true nature and scale of Auschwitz – a report that would find its way to Roosevelt, Churchill and the Pope, eventually saving over 200,000 Jewish lives.

 In telling his story, Jonathan Freedland ensures that Rudolf Vrba’s heroic mission will also escape.

Release date: June 14, 2022

Where to buy: 

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