My Favourite Mistake by Marian Keyes. Many of her novels have been about the Walsh family with its five daughters - Rachel’s Holiday was the first and then last year came a sequel – Again, Rachel. In this book, the sister Anna takes centre stage – she’s had a great career and a boyfriend in New York,but throws it all away to go back to Ireland where suddenly she’s 48, living with her parents and with no obvious future. When she’s asked to use her PR skills to help resolve a dispute in a small village she gets into far more than she’d bargained for. This is genuinely funny and charming with a wonderful cast of connected characters who all have something to say about everyone else’s lives. 

  

The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour and Jude Dobson. Pippa Latour was recruited as a Special Operations Agent during WW2 , was parachuted in to Normandy, and was one of the last Agents in France to get out alive after its liberation. Like so many in the Resistance, she was incredibly brave and heroic but never mentioned what she’d done to anybody, including her own children who found out about her wartime activity on the Internet. She made her home here in New Zealand, and died in 2023 at the age of 102 after telling her story to Jude Dobson.