Issue link: http://viewer.e-digitaleditions.com/i/85232
072: pinkbeauty BOOKS Pink Picks The Mystery of Mercy Close Marian Keyes Penguin Group (NZ), $38 Meet Helen — youngest of the Walsh sisters and a law unto herself. She's easily bored, has an inability to filter her thoughts and was fired from every job she ever had before she found her true calling as a private investigator. But times are tough for PIs and Helen has had no choice but to take on the search for AWOL boyband has-been, Wayne Diffney — The Wacky One. It's not all bad this game of Where's Wayne. It may have brought her charming crook of an ex Jay Parker back into her life, but it's giving her an excuse to avoid the usual Walsh family dramas and the intense looks from her gorgeous boyfriend Artie that make her heart beat wildly with lust and panic in equal measure. But most of all, it's an excellent distraction from the huge swarm of black vultures gathering over her head. If she hides out in her target's empty house on Mercy Close for long enough, maybe they'll go away. But as Helen begins to unravel the mysteries secreted on Mercy Close she discovers a kindred spirit in a man unwilling to be found. Could someone be telling her to look a little closer to home? GREAT READS TO GET YOU THROUGH THE SUMMER AND INTO 2013 A Cat, a Hat and a Piece of String Joanne Harris Random House New Zealand, $34.99 Conjured from a wickedly imaginative pen, here is a new collection of short stories that brilliantly showcases Joanne Harris's exceptional storytelling art. Sensuous, wicked, mischievous, uproarious and wry, the sixteen tales here combine the everyday with the unexpected; wild fantasy with bittersweet reality. Over half of the stories have not been published before, including Cookie (a newborn baby created from sugar and spice and all things nice), Muse (an old fashioned station cafe´ provides inspiration as a creative hotspot to its clientele), and The Game (concerning the perils of playing an addictive internet game). Though seemingly unconnected at first, many of the stories are linked in all kinds of ways to each other and to Joanne Harris's novels. Some take place in familiar locations such as Malbry, the village setting for Gentlemen Players and Blue Eyed Boy; others feature characters we have met before such as Faith and Hope, the two indomitable old ladies living in a retirement home who appeared in Harris' previous bestselling short story collection, Jigs & Reels. Behind the Sun Deborah Challinor Harper Collins, $36.99 Irreverent and streetwise prostitute, Friday Woolfe, is in London's notorious Newgate gaol, awaiting transportation. There, she meets three other girls: intelligent and opportunistic thief, Sarah Morgan, naive young Rachel Winter, and reliable and capable seamstress, Harriet Clarke. On the voyage to New South Wales their friendship becomes an unbreakable bond - but there are others on board who will change their lives forever. Friday makes an implacable enemy of Bella Jackson, a vicious woman whose power seems undiminished by her arrest and transportation, while Harriet is taken under the wing of an idealistic doctor, James Downey. Rachel catches the eye of a sinister passenger with more than honour on his mind, whose brutal assault leaves her life hanging in the balance. When they finally arrive on the other side of the world, they are confined to the grim and overcrowded Parramatta Female Factory. But worse is to come as the threat of separation looms. In the land behind the sun, the only thing they have is each other ...