STAY WITH ME by Ayobami Adebayo

Wow, another exquisite beautiful story, so unbearably sad. Set against the backdrop of civil unrest in Nigeria in 1985, Akin and Yejide are a young couple who met while at university. They have now been married for four years, and Yejide has not yet produced the expected first child. Having already agreed that Akin was never going to take a second wife as is the norm, Yejide is horrified and distraught to one day find her in laws marching up to the house with a beautiful young second wife for her husband.

As one would expect, life becomes very complicated for the three marrieds. Yejide knows she now has to get pregnant, and fast to keep this new wife away from her husband's bed. Such a drastic decision leads to great complications, sorrow, and betrayal. Life can be a complicated web that we unwittingly weave for ourselves, and when we are doing it to protect the ones we love, the complexities and deceits are greater with consequences that never seem to end.

Simply and beautifully written, this is a story of great love, hope, and battling against the never ending and awful pressure of being in a society where you are a failure until you have produced a child, preferably a boy. The chapters are told alternately by Akin and Yejide, giving both a husband and wife perspective of the marriage, their intimacy and the pressures from his family. Not a big book, but it does not need to be. 

FORCE OF NATURE by Jane Harper

This was a bit of page turner, and reminded me yet again, how Australia continues to produce really good authors and great stories. This has everything  a top thriller should have - good plot, believable characters and narrative, enough to keep the excitement factor up, and some unexpected twists, with clues popped in during the story that you just never fully twig onto till the resolution.

I haven't read the author's first novel - The Dry, which I understand is better than this one. This seems to pick up where the first one ended with Federal Police Agent and his colleague Carmen Cooper now on the trail of some dodgy dealings in a local corporate business. Their whistle blower Alice Russell has gone missing in dense bush during a company team building exercise with four other women.

Falk and Cooper race to the scene and over a few days the mystery of Alice is revealed. A toxic work culture, limited outdoors experience, the four other women and their relationships with each other, Alice herself, the past history of the bush and terrain where the women were including it being the haunt of a now dead serial killer. And at the centre of it all the rugged and unforgiving Giralang ranges - dense bush, over grown tracks, rain, cold, wind - all the elements that like a piece of Gruyere cheese have the holes all lining up at the same time to create perfect crisis.

There is an air of doom, danger and despair hanging over the entire story, which kept me turning those pages. This is an easy intelligent read, and if this is the weakest of the author's three novels, I can't wait to read the others. 

A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW by Amor Towles

Such a bland, dull looking cover hides a delightful and most heart warming story, with plenty of surprises and chutzpah. I knew the reviews of this were good, but was still surprised and charmed with how this really is a such a great book.

From the beginning the premise is unusual. It is Moscow, 1922 and Count Alexander Rostov is in court, his position as an aristocrat just too difficult for the authorities to deal with. So he is sentenced to live the rest of his life under house arrest in his current residence, the grand and very upmarket Metropole Hotel. Unfortunately he is not allowed to live in his suite of rooms, instead banished to an attic room. Being only in his early thirties, and a true man about town, this really is quite some punishment. But at least he is alive, not put up against a wall and shot! So he takes all this in his stride, with enormous dignity and some considerable intellect. What unfolds is a most unusual and joyous life as the Count builds a most marvellous life for himself.

He makes his existence in the hotel meaningful, developing relationships with other guests, the staff from the porter up to the head chef, and trying to stay on the good side of the managment. He is constantly finding ways to outwit and work around whatever the regime of the day maybe, which over some thirty years is a lot of politics and bureaucracy to deal with. Just think from Lenin, to Stalin, the war, the post-Stalin years, then Krushchev, the hotel being the scene of many meetings, dinners and parties for these leaders and their hangers-on.

There is humour, some of it black, some of it just plain funny. There is sadness, loneliness and grief. But through out Count Alex remains a true gentleman, reminding us that whatever our circumstances at the heart of any success in life is our relationships with those around us, as well as maintaining our own personal dignity and self respect. This was immensely enjoyable.

NINE PERFECT STRANGERS by Liane Moriarty

It sounds wonderful, spending ten days being pampered at a luxury health retreat, some distance away from city life, and plenty of distance away from reality. What could possibly go wrong?

In the hands of zealot retreat owner Masha, with her two assistants Delilah and Yao, you just know that plenty is going to go wrong. And what about the paying guests? The talent the writer has in creating her characters is that they could be any of us, they are so unbelievably normal in so many ways, so easy to relate to. Their journeys and life events that bring them to the retreat are all quite different, quite diverse, but they are as human as you and I underneath all the veneer and trappings of life. It is the nine perfect strangers that make this book such a treat to read, such a page turner.

A romance writer dealing with her own failed romance and bruising her ego has taken; a health retreat junkie who can't decide to have a baby with his partner; a mother whose husband has traded her in for a younger model; a washed up football star; a young couple who have recently won the lottery; a married couple and their 20 year old daughter dealing with a shocking family tragedy. And at the centre of it all is Masha, flawed herself, in need of looking after too.

From the beginning there is a sinister air, a slightl frission, nervousness as to what is going to happen at this beautiful place in the northern New South Wales country side. A 3 day silence starts the retreat, testing all the participants, forcing them to begin to face themselves, yet at the same time build relationships with others. We know this is not going to be an easy time for any of the guests. And watching over everything is Masha. What is she going to do? As the reader you never really know where the story line is going, how the characters will behave, the unexpected little turns. It's great, a real page turner. I was reading this every opportunity I could. Apparently Reese Witherspoon has bought the rights to make a film/TV series - can't wait. 

ORPHAN X by Gregg Hurwitz

Here is a great bit of escapist reading, with a new type of hero, someone who supposedly does not exist, trained in an off the books programme which may be under the auspices of the CIA, but who would know.... . Evan Smoak is an orphan, taken from the orphanage as a 12 year old by a mysterious man, to a new and unknown future. All he knows is that he will sometimes get hurt. What an understatement. The programme he is put into basically trains him to be the best type of killer, as well as teaching him every single survival, subterfuge, secretive and combatant skill he could ever need to keep him alive and safe from those who seek to kill him in retaliation.

Following a tragic incident, Evan withdraws himself from his role as a highly priced assassin. He builds himself a solitary but safe life, where he deals to the baddies taking advantage of the vulnerable, damaged, frightened and powerless in our society. A good man in other words, but living off the grid, and known as The Nowhere Man. Until following a good act, his past begins to catch up with him. Will he live or will he die? Who can he trust? Who will end up also dying?

Great read, fast paced, plenty of action. Plus lots of reflection of Evan's unusual life, and how he currently lives to keep himself below the radar. This is a pretty straightforward action packed thriller. I think 'I am Pilgrim' by Terry Hayes which is very similar with its lone hero is a better book, but this is still pretty exciting and gripping. Plus there is sequel - The Nowhere Man - where Evan again finds himself in a pretty dangerous predicament. Can't wait.