You are never completed isolated with a book in your hand
You are never completely socially isolated with a book in your hand.
And publishers have a plethora of new and forthcoming novels to help while away the weeks at home as the virus winds down.
Pan MacMillan presents You are Not Alone by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen among its' list of must reads.
The story revolves around Shay Miller who becomes involved with a group of women after witnessing a stranger leap in front of a train. Shay meets the women after doing some research into the jumper in a bid to understand what she saw. Inadvertently, Shay wants to emulate the women, but as she is drawn into their lives, she starts to uncover just why the woman jumped.
There is something a little obsessive about Shay and she is an easy target who willingly succombs to the moulding and maniulation of her new found friends.
Those she turned to were those who were working against her.
Authors Hendricks and Pekkanen first began working together in 2010 when Greer became Sarah's editor.
MacMillan also presents international bestselling author, Diane Chamberlain who has written Big Lies in a Small Town, a moving and emotional novel about two women in different times, connected by a painting that holds many dark secrets.
Morgan Christopher's dream of a career in art has been put on hold when she takes the fall for a motoring crime with her in the driver's seat. While serving a three-year stint in the North Carolina Women's Correctional Centre, she is asked to restore an old post office mural.
Morgan knows nothing of art restoration, but accepts in order to leave prison. In uncovering the grime of the painting, she also discovers her past. The dual stories of Morgan's life and that of the original artist Anna Dale become intrinsically linked as the tale unfolds.
Chamberlain writes suspenseful stories that combine romance, drama and intrigue, touching both the heart and mind.
Pan MacMillan's latest offering is The Sin Eater by Megan Campisi, a fascinating story woven from early superstition.
Its basis is that Sin Eaters hear the private confessions of the dying, specifying various foods for various sins and ultimately consuming them in order to take the sins on themselves.
May Owens is an innocent girl when she is sentenced to become a sin eater, a position where she is shunned and must live in exile, only coming out to do her duty at the bedside. She must first learn her trade from another sin eater and discover a new life that is foreign to this socially garrulous girl.
She discovers that there is a certain amount of power in becoming invisible and uses her position to learn the truth about a few mysterious deaths, involving foods that were not confessed but which speak volumes.
Megan Campisi is a playwright and novelist. The Sin Eater is her first novel.
All of these books come in paperback and retail for $29.99
