Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. 

But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office.

Beautifully written and with a dry humour this book is about friendship and human connection and how one small act of kindness can change a persons life.

The Shadow of Your Smile by Mary Higgins Clark

At age eighty-three and in failing health, Olivia Morrow knows she has little time left. The last of her line, she faces a momentous choice: expose a long-held family secret, or take it with her to her grave. 

Olivia has in her possession letters from her deceased cousin Catherine, a nun, now being considered for beatification by the Catholic Church. These letters reveal that, at the age of seventeen, Catherine gave birth to a son and gave him up for adoption and they identify the father as Alex Gannon, a world-famous doctor, scientist and inventor of medical patents. 

Now, two generations later, thirty-one year old paediatrician, Dr. Monica Farrell, Catherine's granddaughter, stands as the rightful heir to what remains of the Gannon family fortune. But in telling Monica who she really is and getting what is lawfully hers, Olivia would have to betray Catherine's wishes and reveal the story behind Monica's ancestry. 

But as the pressure of Olivia's impending choice weighs down on her, little does she realize that Alex Gannon's grand-nephews - who are currently exploiting the Gannon inheritance to fund their profligate lifestyles - will stop at nothing to silence Olivia and prevent Monica from learning the secret, even murder.

It isn't a mystery where the reader has to figure out "who done it," we know at the beginning, nor does the reader have to figure out "why," we also know that from the beginning. Rather, we have to wait in suspense to see who will become the victims and who will make it out alive. It is a good, suspenseful story.

Outback Midwife by Beth McRae

Outback Midwife is the story of Beth McRae's 40 years as a midwife, from her terrifying first day witnessing a birth as a na�ve student nurse to her training as a midwife - the days when the words 'birth plan' were unheard of and what women wanted was a long way from being part of any plan - to the outback. 

Beth's career of catching babies takes her from the city to the bush, bonding with people from all walks of life at one of the most important moments in their lives. But there was one more frontier she was determined to conquer.

At a time when most people are thinking about slowing down, Beth decides to move to a remote Aboriginal community in Arnhem Land to embark on a whole other adventure.

I wouldn't like to live in Maningrida but admire those like Beth and her husband Ian who do work there.

 Beth's story is inspirational and insightful. Beth must be a person of great empathy, compassion and patience. Her stories of being a midwife, both in country Victoria and in the outback, are interesting and resound with the passion Beth has for her calling

Tumbledown Manor by Helen Brown

Lisa undergoes a far-reaching life change when at her 40th birthday celebration she discovers her husband of over twenty years is having an affair, she finds out when a huge bunch of roses is delivered to her but with another woman’s name on it. Once caught out he announces that he no longer loves Lisa – and her marriage is over – just like that. Lisa is alone in her New York apartment – both children have left home – so on impulse she decides to pack up and fly back to her homeland of Australia. Her son and sister live in Melbourne, but she soon realises that while she would like to be near her son, staying near her bossy sister is not a good plan. So she surrenders to yet another impulse and buys a crumbling old house in the country that used to belong to her family – Trumperton Manor.

A very enjoyable, feel-good read full of quirky characters.

Ocean Light by Nalini Singh

Security specialist Bowen Knight has come back from the dead. But there's a ticking time bomb in his head: a chip implanted to block telepathic interference that could fail at any moment - taking his brain along with it. With no time to waste, he should be back on land helping the Human Alliance. Instead, he's at the bottom of the ocean, consumed with an enigmatic changeling . . . 

Kaia Luna may have traded in science for being a chef, but she won't hide the facts of Bo's condition from him or herself. She's suffered too much loss in her life to fall prey to the dangerous charm of a human who is a dead man walking. And she carries a devastating secret that Bo could never imagine . . . 

But when Kaia is taken by those who mean her deadly harm, all bets are off. Bo will do anything to get her back - even if it means striking a devil's bargain and giving up his mind to the enemy.

I really love this series.  Strong alpha men who adore their mates. Adventure, mystery, action and well written sex scenes.

The Family Next Door by Sally Hepworth

Do you ever really know your neighbours? 

The safest suburbs often hold the deepest secrets. Such is the case for Essie, a mother of two. In a moment of maternal despair she once made a terrible mistake, one she will always regret. Essie has since recovered, but she fears what may still lurk inside her.

Her neighbours in Pleasant Court have their own issues. Driven and organised, Ange appears to have everything under control, except perhaps her husband. Practical, intellectual Fran can't stop running. For exercise, or something else?

One day in February, during an unprecedented Melbourne heatwave, someone new arrives. Isabelle is single and childless, when everyone else is married with kids. She is renting, when everyone else owns. Her job is mysteriously vague. Strangest of all, Isabelle is very curious about her neighbours. Too curious, some might say.

It soon becomes clear that Isabelle's choice of neighbourhood was no accident. And her presence might bring even more secrets to light ...

The premise is good. Three women and their husbands and families. Each chapter takes you to one of them and their story line.  Very much  a "nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors" story.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Along the way, Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite. . . . Abruptly, the action jumps to Belgium in 1931, where Robert Frobisher, a disinherited bisexual composer, contrives his way into the household of an infirm maestro who has a beguiling wife and a nubile daughter. . . . From there we jump to the West Coast in the 1970s and a troubled reporter named Luisa Rey, who stumbles upon a web of corporate greed and murder that threatens to claim her life. . . . And onward, with dazzling virtuosity, to an inglorious present-day England; to a Korean superstate of the near future where neocapitalism has run amok; and, finally, to a postapocalyptic Iron Age Hawaii in the last days of history.

But the story doesn’t end even there. The narrative then boomerangs back through centuries and space, returning by the same route, in reverse, to its starting point. Along the way, Mitchell reveals how his disparate characters connect, how their fates intertwine, and how their souls drift across time like clouds across the sky.

Six separate scenarios span the past, near present, future and far future in vastly different situations but each related to each other, (some funny and some chilling). Then, the order reversed concluding each of the six stories.
It all came together again in the last scenario, which returned to the first situation.

 The way that Mitchell changed up the writing styles giving each story a very different voice kept me intrigued.