From thrillers to a saucy romance, here are the best can’t-put-down winter reads

What Happened to Nina?; Pheasants Nest; Piglet.

Dervla McTiernan’s gripping thriller What Happened to Nina? (Harper Collins), follows a mother on a desperate quest to find her missing daughter. Bright, beautiful 20-year-old Nina was last seen with boyfriend Simon at his family’s holiday home in Vermont. After her mysterious disappearance, the story goes viral, the media descends, and Simon’s powerful family closes ranks. Nina’s mother doesn’t know whom to trust but won’t stop until the truth is uncovered.

Investigative journalist Louise Milligan drew on her experience working in Australian crime for her brilliant debut novel Pheasants Nest (Allen & Unwin). It sees journalist Kate Delaney experience the horror she usually reports on firsthand when she’s assaulted and abducted after a night out with friends. At once a compulsive thriller and an exploration of the ripple effects of violent crime.

Food-themed fiction is having a moment with Asako Yuzuki’s brilliant bestseller Butter just one notable example. Another is Lottie Hazell’s taut tale of a woman on the brink, Piglet (Doubleday). It follows a woman whose seemingly perfect life is upended when her fiancé reveals a betrayal in the lead-up to their wedding. Determined not to let it ruin her life, she turns to food to repress her turmoil, but her growing rage cannot be contained. Simmering with suspense and culinary descriptions that leave you ravenous.

Safe Haven; You Are Here; All Fours; Appreciation.

Shankari Chandran’s powerful novel Safe Haven (Ultimo Press), is about the human toll of Australia’s mandatory detention centres. After fleeing the horrors of Sri Lanka’s civil war and surviving a near-death experience at sea, Fina is settled into the welcoming town of Hastings. However, when a couple of suspicious deaths have her speaking out about the abysmal conditions at the detention centre, a media storm follows, and she soon finds herself back in detention awaiting deportation. A heart-wrenching yet hopeful tale.

David Nicholls’ latest, You Are Here (Sceptre), is a delightful romance novel about midlife love. Geography teacher Michael is set to embark on a solitary Lake District hike to distract himself from the misery of his recent divorce. But his well-meaning friend Cleo has a bit of matchmaking in mind, and invites a few others along. Plans go awry when her single friend Marnie pursues the handsome pharmacist Conrad rather than kind and dependable Michael. However, as the walk progresses so do their affections.

In Miranda July’s saucy novel All Fours (Canongate) the unnamed narrator, an artist, leaves her husband and small child in Los Angeles and heads off on a road trip to New York for a taste of freedom and a creativity reboot. However, a chance meeting with a young man sees her checking into a dive motel in a nearby town, where a journey of self-discovery and sexual awakening begins.

Liam Pieper’s hilarious satire of the Australian art scene, Appreciation (Hamish Hamilton), follows enfant terrible Oliver Darling. The “queer artist from the country” is promoting his new exhibition on a live television panel while under the influence of drugs, when he veers dangerously off-script and ends up cancelled. Left floundering to redeem his reputation and career, Oli is finally forced to look within. Witty and razor-sharp, the author takes aim at prominent figures and well-known art institutions.

To Sing of War; Splinters; The Friday Afternoon Club.

Set against the backdrop of World War II, Catherine McKinnon’s novel To Sing of War (4th Estate), deftly weaves the stories of three people across the globe. In the jungle of New Guinea, a young Australian nurse finds love; in New Mexico, two young physicists join Oppenheimer to work on a weapon of mass destruction; elsewhere, in Japan, a mother attempts to keep her family safe. A beautifully written story that poses the question, can one person’s actions change the world?

Leslie Jamison’s moving memoir about motherhood Splinters (Granta), tells of the writer’s unexpected experience of raising her first child while simultaneously ending her marriage. She recounts the early baby days, bitter divorce and determination to bolster her career as a single parent while also reflecting on her own relationships – such as that with her own mother through a new lens – and boyfriends past.

Griffin Dunne’s captivating memoir The Friday Afternoon Club (A&U UK), is full of juicy titbits about Hollywood and the literary glitterati – he counts Carrie Fisher as his best friend and Joan Didion as his aunt – but it is also a tender portrayal of his beloved family with all their failings and foibles. Nothing is out of bounds, from his famous father Dominick’s substance abuse to the tragic death of his sister Dominique – a rising film star who died at the hands of her boyfriend at just 22 years old. (Available June 4).

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