In a year when travel went out the window, my 2020 Christmas shopping list takes you vicariously around the world. With settings ranging from Singapore to New Zealand and China, here are ten book ideas from interviews I’ve done with authors throughout the year. There’s something for everyone: crime, contemporary, women’s fiction and memoir. End 2020 on a high for your book-lover friends.
Crime Fiction
Author: Kirsten Alexander
After the atmospheric Half Moon Lake, Kirsten Alexander is back with Riptides, a novel exploring actions and consequences, and how personal deeds can have ramifications at a far greater level.
Title: Riptides
Age group: adult
Interview: Kirsten Alexander on Riptides
Brief description: One bad decision can tear your world apart …
December 1974. Abby Campbell and her brother Charlie are driving to their father’s farm on a dark country road when they swerve into the path of another car, forcing it into a tree. The pregnant driver is killed instantly.
In the heat of the moment, Abby and Charlie make a fateful decision. They flee, hoping heavy rain will erase the fact they were there. They both have too much to lose.
But they have no idea who they’ve just killed or how many lives will be affected by her death. Soon the truth is like a riptide they can’t escape, as their terrible secret pulls them down deeper by the day.
Contemporary Literary Fiction
Author: Amanda Niehaus
The Breeding Season deals with a couple’s grief after having a stillborn baby. Elise, a scientist, and Dan, a writer, are torn apart as they each mourn for William in a different way.
Title: The Breeding Season
Age group: adult
Interview: Amanda Niehaus on the Intersection Between Science and Art
Brief description: The rains come to Brisbane just as couple Elise and Dan descend into grief. Elise, a scientist, believes that isolation and punishing fieldwork will heal her pain. Dan, a writer, questions the truths of his life, and looks to art for answers. Worlds apart, Elise and Dan must find a way to forgive themselves and each other before it’s too late.
An astounding debut novel that forensically and poetically explores the intersections of art and science, sex and death, and the heartbreaking complexity of love. The Breeding Season marks the arrival of a thrilling new talent in Australian literature.
Women’s Fiction
Author: Lisa Beazley
In a light-hearted book with a message about modern life, in Keep Me Posted, Lisa writes about sisters living very different lives – one in New York and one in Singapore.
Title: Keep Me Posted
Age group: adult
Interview: Lisa Beazley, From New York to Singapore, PR to Author
Brief description: Two sisters share the surprising highs and cringeworthy lows of social media fame, when their most private thoughts become incredibly public in this fresh and funny debut novel.
The once-close Sunday sisters have not done a bang-up job of keeping in touch. Cassie is consumed with trying to make her life work as a Manhattan wife and mom to twin toddlers, while her bighearted sister, Sid, lives an expat’s life of leisure in far-off Singapore. So Sid, who shuns social media, challenges Cassie to reconnect through old-fashioned letters.
Soon, the letters become a kind of mutual confessional that have real and soul-satisfying effects. They just might have the power to help Cassie save her marriage, and give Sid the strength to get her life back on track.
But first, one of Cassie’s infamous lapses in judgment comes back to bite her, and all of the letters wind up in the one place you’d never, ever want to see them: the Internet…
Author: Karien van Ditzhuijzen
Long-term expat, Karien, has written a compelling tale about a young expat coming to grips with the privilege of having domestic staff and learning about compassion and kindness.
Title: A Yellow House
Age group: adult
Interview: Karien Van Ditzhuijzen on Expat Life, Writing and Migrant Domestic Workers
Brief description: Ten-year-old Singaporean Maya is lonely: her grandmother is dead, her mother is focused on her career and her best friend has become a bully. When Aunty M, a domestic worker from Indonesia, joins the family to take care of Maya and her baby sister, Maya is ready to hate her. Aunty M smiles a lot but says little. However, after Aunty M rescues a fellow maid living in the same building and beaten by her employer, Maya discovers a side of Singapore hitherto unknown to her. She and Aunty M grow closer as they meet more and more women in need. What will happen when Mama finds out about Maya and Aunty M s growing involvement with the aunties? Will Maya lose Aunty M too? After all, Mama did say she hates busybodies …
This poignant coming-of-age story, told in the voice of inquisitive Maya, explores the plight of migrant domestic workers in Singapore and the relationships they form with the families they work for.
Author: Enni Amanda
Enni has two books on my list, romantic comedies set in New Zealand that are just perfect for summer reads.
Interview: Enni Amanda Tuomisalo on Self-Publishing
Title: A Tiny House on Wheels
Age group: adult
Brief description: Ready to start fresh, 36-year-old Nina packs her bags and heads for the New Zealand countryside. Equipped with only a tiny house and a not-so-green thumb, life in the bush isn’t quite what she expected — but the cute farmer on the plot next door might brighten her outlook!
After his father’s death, Jay is used to a solitary life and he’s more comfortable with the veggies than with people. But who needs social skills? In the backside of Raglan, nothing ever happens. Until a cute, Finnish blonde moves into the neighbouring lot, in a ridiculous tiny house. Can Jay work out his issues and take a chance on the most exotic thing that’s ever walked into his life?
Title: Coffee on Waihi Beach
Age group: adult
Brief description: After uprooting her life in Finland, Ingrid travels to New Zealand to track down her long-lost father. The last thing on her mind is romance — until she lands a job at a local café and meets gorgeous barista Declan. Ingrid’s holiday heats up in this charming read set in dreamy Waihi Beach!
A law student from a wealthy family, Declan attracts women without even trying. To ease his guilt over a past incident, he decides to help his awkward friend Kurt win the girl for once, this time the cute traveller Ingrid – a girl with secrets, and a penchant for getting in trouble. Declan can be a good friend and let this one go. Or can he?
Memoir
Author: Cassie Lane
Cassie’s frank memoir about life as a model explores how the fashion and beauty industries objectify and exploit women.
Title: How to Dress Like a Dummy
Age group: adult
Interview: Cassie Lane on Writing Memoir
Brief description: How to Dress a Dummy casts an unwavering eye at the myriad ways in which women are taught that they’re not enough.
For as long as she could remember, Cassie Lane yearned to be somebody else. Not only was she socially awkward, she was odd-looking. Miraculously, at sixteen, Cassie’s prayers were answered and she got boobs – big ones! Suddenly the centre of attention, she went from gawky bogan to international model, strutting catwalks from Milan to LA. But beneath the gloss she discovered a world of exploitation, where living off your looks can attract as much scorn as admiration. Her search for a version of herself she could actually like took her from Hollywood parties, to an island ashram, and reluctantly back into the spotlight as an AFL ‘WAG’, a position where one wrong step can get you labelled a ‘slut’, ‘skank’ and ‘stripper’.
In time the gawky bogan came full circle, and Cassie grew to understand that beauty is not about high cheekbones or a 24-inch waist. True beauty is found in the imperfect and vulnerable.
Author: Nicole Webb
In Nicole’s memoir about her experiences from six years in Hong Kong and then Xi’an, China, she shares the transformative nature of expat life.
Title: China Blonde
Age group: adult
Interview: Nicole Webb From Newsreader to Author
Brief description: From a TV newsreader in Sydney to a hotelier’s wife in the heart of China – this is a true story of reinvention, love, and finding your place in the world.
Nicole Webb and her husband, James, are always up for an adventure, so when James is offered a job in the ancient city of Xi’an in north-west China, they jump at the chance. Nicole, James and three-year-old Ava pack up their home in Hong Kong and fly into a world they know nothing about – a place where they know no one.
CHINA BLONDE gives us a very personal insight, told with a journalist’s eye view, into the lives of those who embraced Nicole with open arms. Her experience along the way will resonate with anyone who’s ever built a life in a new home – be it across the city or across the world.
Author: Patti Miller
The Joy of High Places, narrative nonfiction, weaves together Patti’s long-distance treks and her brother learning to walk again after breaking his spine in a paragliding accident.
Title: The Joy of High Places
Age group: adult
Interview: Patti Miller on the Art of Life Writing
Brief description: In this extraordinary and unexpected book, Patti tells the story of her own long-distance walking over hundreds of kilometres in Europe and of her brother’s obsession with paragliding.
As adults, a tragic accident changes their relationship. One day, Barney’s wing collapses and he plummets to earth, breaking his spine. The story of his struggle to walk again intersects Patti’s long-distance journeys, creating an intense narrative of determination and triumph.
For Patti, walking is a radical act – a return to what has made us all human — that bestows a connection to wild nature and to creativity it self. But as she listens to her pragmatic and methodical brother tell his story, she learns that flying is his door to untrammelled joy too. She realises that she is ‘meeting’ him for the very first time.
This beautiful and inspiring book tells their story and reveals that the siblings share a willingness to take risks and an indefatigable determination. With rare insight and poetic writing, The Joy of High Places combines physical adventure with a powerful emotional journey.
Author: Alexandra Paucescu
Alexandra’s memoir is like sitting down over a cup of tea to share her experiences as a diplomatic spouse.
Title: Just a Diplomatic Spouse
Age group: adult
Interview: Alexandra Paucescu, a Diplomatic Spouse
Brief description: Alexandra Paucescu is an educated Romanian woman who, at the age of 30, changes her whole life when she marries a diplomat and embarks on a lifelong journey as a trailing spouse.
She presents the diplomatic life, which appears from outside as a privileged one – she travels the globe, meets lots of interesting, powerful people and has incredible experiences. She lives in a protected world that gives her immunity… only diplomatic, not for her soul and feelings. It is a roller coaster of emotions and mixed feelings.
She learns to be strong, to adapt, to understand the rules and to make the best of it. This book is a diary, a book on diplomatic etiquette, a lifestyle and travel blog, all in one.
Best of luck with your Christmas shopping. I hope you can find something here for someone you love.
Next time: Short Fiction: The End of the Line
Here’s the last year’s list: Christmas Book List 2019
Here’s the next year’s list: Christmas Book List 2021
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