July Newsletter
Author Spotlight:
Kristin Hannah
Kristin Hannah is the award-winning and bestselling author of more than 20 novels including the international blockbuster, The Nightingale, which was named Goodreads Best Historical fiction novel for 2015 and won the coveted People’s Choice award for best fiction in the same year. Additionally, it was a selection of the Reese Witherspoon Book Club in 2023. It was named a Best Book of the Year by Amazon, iTunes, Buzzfeed, the Wall Street Journal, Paste, and The Week. In 2018, The Great Alone became an instant New York Times #1 bestseller and was named the Best Historical Novel of the Year by Goodreads.
The Four Winds was published in February of 2021 and immediately hit #1 on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Indie bookstores’ bestseller lists. Additionally, it was selected as a book club pick by the both Today Show and the Book Of the Month club, which named it the best book of 2021.
The Nightingale is currently in production at Tri Star, with Dakota and Elle Fanning set to star. Tri Star has also optioned The Great Alone and it is in development. Firefly Lane, also a popular tv show staring Katherine Heigl and Sarah Chalke, is Hannah’s beloved novel about two best friends, and was the #1 Netflix series around the world, in the week the series came out.
A former attorney, Kristin lives in the Pacific Northwest.
Out Tuesday 15 July
Summer Island
Originally published in March 2001 in New York, Kristin Hannah’s Summer Island will now be released for the first time in Australia on 15 July 2025, and we couldn’t be more eager for its arrival.
Years ago, Nora Bridge walked out on her marriage and left her daughters behind. She has since become a famous radio talk-show host and newspaper columnist beloved for her moral advice. Her youngest daughter, Ruby, is a struggling comedienne who uses her famous mother as fuel for her bitter, cynical humour. When the tabloids unearth a scandalous secret from Nora’s past, their estrangement suddenly becomes dramatic. Nora is injured in an accident and a glossy magazine offers Ruby a fortune to write a tell-all about her mother. Under false pretences, Ruby returns home to take care of the woman she hasn’t spoken to for almost a decade. Nora insists they retreat to Summer Island, to the lovely old house on the water where Ruby grew up, a place filled with childhood memories of love and joy and belonging. There Ruby is also reunited with her first love and his brother. Once, the three of them had been best friends, inseparable. Until the summer that Nora had left and everyone’s hearts had been broken.
Books of the Month
FICTION
Reviewed by Belinda
The River is Waiting is a harrowing account of a tragic family accident, that is all too real and believable. Corby and Emily are parents doing their best to juggle two-year old twins, new unemployment, and a creeping drug and alcohol issue that ultimately unravels their family unit. What follows though is an exploration into the justice system, and the small acts of hope, kindness, forgiveness and an ability to look for the light.
A hefty 460-page read that I flew through and couldn’t put down. Lamb has a way with words, that pulls you completely into his story and leaves you reeling long after the final page.
The River Is Waiting by Wally Lamb
Corby Ledbetter is struggling. New fatherhood, the loss of his job, and a growing secret addiction have thrown his marriage to his beloved Emily into a tailspin. And that’s before he causes the tragedy that tears the family apart. Sentenced to prison, Corby struggles to survive life on the inside, where he bears witness to frightful acts of brutality but also experiences small acts of kindness. As he counts down the weeks, months, and years of his incarceration, he develops elemental kinships with a tenderhearted cellmate, a troubled teen desperate for a role model, and a prison librarian who sees and nurtures his light. Buoyed by them and by his mother’s enduring faith in him, Corby begins to transcend the boundaries of his confinement, sustained by his hope that mercy and reconciliation might still be possible. Can his crimes ever be forgiven by those he loves?
NON FICTION
Reviewed by Tenniell
From the hosts of the popular Minding Your Mind podcast, Ian Hickie & James O’Loghlin have come together to create a powerful mental health toolkit for anyone at any stage of life. With a holistic approach, A User’s Guide to the Mind brings together an all-in-one guide to not only help us navigate life’s challenges and bring about a deeper understanding of happiness, but shows us how to not just get by, but flourish!
A User’s Guide to the Mind by Prof Ian Hickie & James O’Loghlin
From the hosts of the popular Minding Your Mind podcast comes an empowering book that examines the key moments in our mental health journey – from the first search for identity and belonging, through to our most important relationships, our hopes and ambitions, and inevitable times of crisis. The result is a practical guide that will put you on a path to deeper happiness, better relationships and a life of greater meaning.
We’ve all heard advice for physical longevity – the steps we can take with our nutrition, exercise and lifestyle choices to maximise our number of years on earth. But what about our mental longevity? How do we fill those years with a better understanding of who we are and how our mind works? How do we achieve deeper happiness, better relationships and a life lived according to our values?
Drawing from the wide array of topics covered in their popular mental health podcast Minding Your Mind, psychiatrist Ian Hickie and broadcaster and author James O’Loghlin bring their signature compassion and curiosity, intelligence and humour, to this practical ‘user’s guide’ to our evolving mind and selves.
It takes an empowering, holistic approach to mental health, acknowledging that every season of life brings its own ups and downs, unique challenges and breakthroughs. Feelings of anxiety, stress, self-doubt, loss, longing and stagnation are inevitable, but those times are also opportunities to find out what works for us, so that we not only ‘get by’ but actually flourish. So, whether you’re looking for a wealth of practical tools to carry with you through the tough times, or want to develop an overall strategy for lasting mental wellbeing, A User’s Guide to the Mind meets you wherever you are along life’s journey.
KIDS & YA
Reviewed by Kate
I really enjoyed the quirky world O’Donoghue has built in this pacey, funny and very readable teen novel. A series of interconnected worlds, where wealth is defined by the number of hours in a day in your world – “Because a day is a day is a day and you will only live for so many…so a 10 hour day is a better life than a 2 hour day”. Margot has slipped through a gap between worlds and found herself on the run and scrambling to catch up. With a romantic arc between the two main characters, this is firmly in the 14+ age bracket, though there is nothing overly explicit included. The first in a duology, with book 2 out in 2026.
Skipshock by Caroline O’Donoghue
Margo is on a train to a new boarding school when she slips into another dimension, passing from the height of Irish summer into the chill of an alien winter, from a 24-hour day to one that begins and ends in just six hours. From a stranger on the train – a travelling salesman by the name of Moon – she learns that New Davia is part of a world scarred by uprisings, travel bans and world sealings. Power is determined by time – who has it, who doesn’t, and who has the freedom to travel between time zones.
Can Margo find a way to get back home – or will she choose to stay in a world where her teenage-hood is slipping away faster than ever before, but where she may have found the only person with whom she would choose to spend eternity?
July New Release Highlights
Fiction
Non-Fiction
Kids & YA
Staff Spotlight:
Sage
- Favourite place to read a book? – On the beach or by the pool.
- Which book character would you prefer to be trapped in an elevator with? – Xaden Norson from Fourth Wing. He’s a hunk and I’m sure he would pry the doors open and save me.
- Hardback, paperback, eBook or audiobook? – Paperback
- The last book you loved? – Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
- Which book character do you think you’d be best friends with? – Eileen from The Switch by Beth O’leary. Newly single, eighty year old Eileen seems like an absolute hoot and I think she would have some great life advice to share.
- Greatest book of all time? – It has to be Harry Potter doesn’t it?
- One fun fact about you? – I have a Christmas Tree tattoo.
Staff Spotlight:
Justine
- Favourite place to read a book? – On a deckchair, poolside in a tropical climate.
- Which book character would you prefer to be trapped in an elevator with? – Xaden from Fourth Wing because the banter alone would be next level and help the time pass by.
- Hardback, paperback, eBook or audiobook? – Audiobook while sewing.
- The last book you loved? – Molly by Rosalie Ham
- Which book character do you think you’d be best friends with? – Martha Friels from Sorrow & Bliss. She’ll make you laugh when everything’s falling apart. She’s sharp & funny with just the right amount of chaotic. A resilient soul and a great sister. Endearingly messy, wildly relatable. Who wouldn’t want to be friends with her?
- Greatest book of all time? – To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. The book captures the innocence of childhood colliding with the complexities of adulthood. Scout Finch’s’ voice adds warmth and humour to an otherwise serious story.
- One fun fact about you? – I am a co-founder / one half of a creative sewing club called Sew Much Fun!
Events
Book Club 2025
Competitions
Our 10th Anniversary of the Farrells Bookshop Kids’ Story Writing Competition.
It’s that time of year again! Time to dust off your pens, pencils, keyboards, chalk or quill and ink – whatever your tool of choice – and GET WRITING!!
We are celebrating the 10th Anniversary of our Kids’ Story Writing Competition (we have no idea where the time went either), and we can’t wait to see what wonderous adventures you create for us this time around. This year we continue the theme of a sentence prompt to be included in your story or poem.
“As I opened the letter, a ticket fell out…”
As usual, the competition is being run for Mornington Peninsula Preps to Year 12s. The kids have all of these school holidays and one week of term 3 left to hone your stories, with entries closing on Sunday 27 July.
Winners will be announced at an in store event with special guest author, Amelia Mellor, on Saturday 16 August (the very start of Children’s Book Week). And guess what? Amelia grew up on the Peninsula and became a real life published author! So who knows?! With practice and patience and lots of creativity, maybe this could be the start of your writing careers as well…
Check out the full Entry Guidelines and competition details as well a link to last year’s winners for some inspiration: HERE.
HAPPY WRITING!!
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