Perfect for fans of Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah, and Sal by Mik Kitson, with its celebration of the natural world, its misunderstood central characters living on the outside of society's norms, their survival in the wilderness, and the ultimate fight for justice. Before the Swallows Come Back is a story of love, found family, and redemption that will break your heart and have it soaring time and time again as you sit on the edge of your seat desperately hoping.Tommy struggles with people, with communicating, preferring solitude, drifting off with nature. He is protected by his Tinker family who keep to the old ways. A life of quiet seclusion under canvas is all he knows. Charlotte cares for her sickly father. She meets Tommy by the riverside and an unexpected friendship develops. Over the years it becomes something more, something crucial to both of them. But when tragedy strikes each family they are torn apart. Charlotte is sent far away. Tommy might have done something very bad. What people are saying ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ This is a truly lovely book, full of heart. It's a gripping and moving plot about two young people separately affected by devastating life-changes which uproot them and force them to learn self-reliance. All this against a backdrop of the most beautiful, lyrical description of the natural world of woodlands and streams, and good people. All of this brings them together and helps to heal them. Reading Before the Swallows Come Back feels like forest bathing on a stiflingly hot day, or being borne up in the gloss and buoyancy of a river running clean and clear. This is total immersion in the natural world. All this as background to a storyline that’s epic in scale and characters rendered so intensely that hours go by before you realise you really should pull yourself out of their world and back into your own. What a mesmerising treat! This is total immersion in the natural world. An absolutely heart-filling and lyrical novel. Fiona Curnow has crafted an immense story, and an incredibly rich one. Carol McKay ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ It is impossible to avoid falling under the spell of Before the Swallows Come Back. K Bookish Life ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I absolutely LOVED this book. I was mesmerised by all the beautiful and vivid descriptions. I was rooting for the two main they were quite innocent (and slightly naive) young people who lived on the outskirts of society, a bit different from the others. A beautifully written book with lyrical and poetic passages. Monika Reads ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ It's very rare that I would reread a book but this is one I can imagine doing so. I adored this book! It was lyrically beautiful with its lush descriptions of nature but it was the characters that make it stand out. Books By Bindu ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ As an animal lover, I found the relationship Tommy had with his animal family beautiful.. Andrew Lees ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ This was a story that really moved me. From the get-go I was so devoted to the main characters and their journey through hell and back and the hardships they had to endure!!…I absolutely loved it. It’s so beautifully written and I was completely invested in it! It felt like I was there, in Scotland, amongst the countryside and surrounded by nature!! Perfect escapism!! Jade Nomura&l

SHE LIVES BY HER INTUITION. HE FEEDS ON HER PLEASURE. Long ago, the world was destroyed by gods. Only nine cities were spared. Separated by vast wilderness teeming with monsters and unimaginable dangers, each city is now ruled by a guardian―royalty who feed on mortal pleasure. Born with an intuition that never fails, Calista knows her talents are of great value to the power-hungry of the world, so she lives hidden as a courtesan of the Baron of Archwood. In exchange for his protection, she grants him information. When her intuition leads her to save a traveling prince in dire trouble, the voice inside her blazes with warning―and promise. Today he’ll bring her joy. One day he'll be her doom. When the Baron takes an interest in the traveling prince and the prince takes an interest in Calista, she becomes the prince’s temporary companion. But the city simmers with rebellion, and with knights and monsters at her city gates and a hungry prince in her bed, intuition may not be enough to keep her safe. Calista must follow her intuition to safety or follow her heart to her downfall.

The madness is a game between gods and kings. But it is not the gods and kings who are mad. So, we play their games. Ekara Amaare is the Crown Princess of the House of Blood. One of the four Crown Royals of Itakaa. She is set on marriage with no aspirations to the crown. But on the day she is preparing for the prancing Ceremony, the royal marriage ritual to find an eligible partner, The Oracle Asylum opens. A call from the gods to participate in the trials to choose a ruler for Itakaa. Kazani rises as the 19th Oracle of Itakaa. The first Oracle chosen by the gods in almost a century, to mediate the choosing trials. But he has a secret and so do the gods. He has a personal interest in the trials while harbouring secrets which could destroy Itakaa. Everything depends on the trials which the crown Royals of Itakaa must participate in. The Oracle Asylum is Open.

In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there's only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates' bullying, but before she ends it all, Nao plans to document the life of her great-grandmother, a Buddhist nun who's lived more than a century. A diary is Nao's only solace—and will touch lives in a ways she can scarcely imagine. Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox—possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami. As the mystery of its contents unfolds, Ruth is pulled into the past, into Nao's drama and her unknown fate, and forward into her own future.  Full of Ozeki's signature humour and deeply engaged with the relationship between writer and reader, past and present, fact and fiction, quantum physics, history, and myth, A Tale for the Time Being is a brilliantly inventive, beguiling story of our shared humanity and the search for home.