Text publishes a number of perfect book club reads. These are the stories that will engage you, challenge your thinking and prompt interesting debate. To help get the conversation flowing, download our book club notes for your next meeting.

Book of the Month

Shelter

A spine-tingling psychological thriller where everything is not as it seems, from one of Australia’s best writers of suspense.

Shelter

Catherine Jinks

$32.99

Meg lives alone: a little place in the bush outside town. A perfect place to hide. That’s one of the reasons she offers to shelter Nerine, who’s escaping a violent ex. The other is that Meg knows what it’s like to live with an abusive partner.

Nerine is jumpy and her two little girls are frightened. It tells Meg all she needs to know where they’ve come from, and she’s not all that surprised when Nerine asks her to get hold of a gun. But she knows it’s unnecessary. They’re safe now.

Then she starts to wonder about some little things. A disturbed flyscreen. A tune playing on her windchimes. Has Nerine’s ex tracked them down? Has Meg’s husband turned up to torment her some more?

By the time she finds out, it’ll be too late to do anything but run for her life.

‘[Jinks] is a masterful storyteller, able to easily carry the narrative exigences of plot and character regardless of genre…[she] knows how to dole out the tension, letting the suspense slacken and then ramping up the terror lest you become complacent for a few minutes.’ Guardian

Download the bookclub notes