Welcome to our Contemporary collection, where you'll find spectacular titles by Australian authors ready to ignite your imagination...
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One hot summer, a group of university students gathers in an orchard to rehearse a play.
Veronika is born for a life on the stage while Felix seizes his last chance for creative freedom. Sebastian woos Veronika, and Cassie longs for Sebastian. Josh and Gloria each carry a secret they are unable to share.
Passion, rivalry and enduring connections will bind the Players across years and continents, long after the final curtain falls and they leave university behind.
From Perth to Paris, Cambridge, London, Berlin and Dili the friends search for meaning in their careers and friendship, discover love and endure heartbreak.
Forty-year-old Alice Kaczmarek has lost so much. She wants a baby, but her husband Daniel is serving a life sentence, accused of orchestrating an accident on Sydney’s new transport system.
When T, the subject of medical experimentation, crawls up the front steps of her house, Alice learns of a strange connection between T and Daniel. In this psychological novel of threat and intrigue, it seems everyone is involved in a scam, even a respected surgeon colleague. After she is followed, and her home invaded, Alice no longer knows who to rely on and must navigate this corrupt, murky world alone. In the process, she draws ever closer to Daniel’s friend, Lowell.
After the Great Storm is a novel imbued with both darkness and light, sadness and joy; its characters refuse to give up on love regardless of the cost. Ultimately it asks an urgent question for our times. When corruption becomes endemic how can we save our own moral code?
Fame is a double-edged sword, and nowhere is this more precarious than in the cutthroat world of television hosting.
Molly Edwards and Emma Bears Jones are inseparable—two powerhouses of television, hosting rival shows on Shine Ch33 and BBS12.
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But years of friendship crumble in a single night, a scandal sparked by a reckless decision at an industry party that sends their lives spiralling out of control.
Every picture tells a story, but it’s not always the one we expect, or remember, in this festive drama about family and forgiveness.
Kate Cavendish: Photographer, mother, sister, wife, daughter, friend, and pet wrangler. Not great in the kitchen or at wearing heels. Like walking a tightrope, Kate’s life requires focus and balance. She’s also stuck in a rut. That is until a former colleague contacts her and offers her a chance to fulfil her lifelong dream of becoming a successful photographer.
But with her focus pulled in all directions by her children, her sister, her newly-dating mother, and the niggling worry that her husband may be having an affair, Kate is filled with self-doubt. And with one tiny miscalculation, Kate’s about to topple, and bring her world and all who she loves, crashing down.
As the countdown to Christmas begins, and memories of her Kate’s childhood resurface, Kate’s anxiety deepens – both personally and professionally. Can she move on from past events and rebuild her future? And can the power of social media finally stop hindering her family, and help her create something successful?
Christmas Actually is a snapshot of modern family life; addressing Instagram to motherhood, and everything in between.
Golden is the story of a man who learns to listen to his dog while he’s trying to solve the mysteries of his life and the cryptic community he finds himself living within.
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"SS Turner weaves a tale of adventure with twists and surprises, including Mia, a golden retriever with extraordinary communication skills. If you’ve ever wondered what your dog is thinking, then Golden is a must-read!" Gregory Burns author or How Dogs Love Us.
Described as one of the most honest and comical pictures of relocating to Australia that's ever been written.
Two ambitious graduates, Jon and Kate, navigate their careers and an emerging romance in the bustling city of Sydney in a story that will have you cheering them until the very end.
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Fresh out of university, Jon Williams moves from the country to Sydney for a coveted graduate sales role with a large company. A new city, housemates and a new job with a big company combine for a steep learning curve. When he attends a graduate orientation day, he meets Kate, a girl he can't stop thinking about.
Ambitious and focused, Catherine (Kate) Pieterson is an HR graduate in the same company, happy with Jacques, her boyfriend of more than three years. Despite Kate's boyfriend, Jon decides he can't be her friend if he ever wants to have a chance with her. Eighteen months later, Kate and Jon are working together. Kate is now single and is interested in Jon.
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A night of dancing proves they have chemistry, but will either be brave enough to overcome their previous relationship mistakes and make a move? Will avoiding the friend zone work for Jon? Will he have a chance with Kate? Or will he end up losing her forever?
After living in a Singapore dog shelter for five years, Gucci – a vaguely Dalmatian-like crossbred – is losing hope of ever being rescued.
One day to his surprise he is adopted by her, a writer, and moves to inner city Sydney. On arrival, however, an anti-dog war breaks out in their apartment block; Gucci’s adopter receives a letter threatening the possibility of ‘euthanasia’. The incident triggers nightmares in her and brings back distressing childhood memories.
My Name Is Gucci is a charming novel about the relationships between pets and their owners and about how the past shapes the present.
Shifts in tone, setting and narration create a sense of the uncanny in Beam of Light, Kinsella’s haunting collection of stories.
A man is disturbed by the sight of a familiar dining table and chairs atop an impending bonfire of bulldozed trees, a girl finds a fox skeleton and feels compelled to protect its spirit by dispersing its bones over the valley, a couple are invited to dinner by Christians new to town –an occasion that quickly turns heavy and strange, two men awkwardly meet again when their daughters attend the same ballet class, and a man and woman struggle to balance the threats of addiction and poverty with the joys and hopes of a new baby.
Stories range in location from Ireland to Germany to Greece to the Australian countryside – threatened by catastrophic heat, land clearing, housing estates and strip malls – and Kinsella’s characters, so often on the edge, sear the consciousness.
Mural is a haunting ‘confession’ by a psychopath known only as D. Held in a secure facility, he has been asked by his psychiatrist to write down his thoughts, admissions, anxieties and uncertainties.
They are at first revealed through the stories of other people’s lives and obsessions. Specifically, D is preoccupied with a British man who spent his early years as a schoolteacher in Australia before becoming a renowned sexologist. D is also consumed by Australia’s most prolific public artist, a man whose highly erotic watercolours are at odds with his stained-glass church windows. D writes of his meeting with a boyhood friend. He recounts the true tale of a Frenchman who went mad because he believed prehistoric stones in Brittany were shifting.
Downes navigates the real and the imagined, traversing fact and fiction. Mural is daring, acknowledging the influences of European writers such as Thomas Bernhard and W.G. Sebald while moving into new and original territory. It is both provocative and tender, a highly explosive fable about sexuality, religion, art and obsession.
It’s 1974 when 20-year-old Grace arrives in London determined to shrug off her Australian past and reinvent herself.
While embracing her new life in the Free Republic of Beltonia, a street of communal squats, she’s haunted by the unbearable thought that she might be a lesbian – a fate she considers almost worse than death. Before long, she falls (secretly) in love with Marigold, upper class, enigmatic and avowedly straight. When Marigold mysteriously disappears without a trace, the search for her leads Grace to a life-changing epiphany.
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Evoking the spirit of 1970s London through the world of squatting and political protests, street parties, encounter groups and gurus, and the mayhem of a rackety publishing outfit where Grace gets a job, Grace and Marigold is both witty and moving in its exploration of the inner turmoil, and ultimate liberation of a young woman’s journey to self-acceptance.
For girls, the tween years are like The Hunger Games—for their mothers, it’s worse.
Food photographer, Rebecca, and her tween daughter, Willow, move from Alaska to Boca Raton, leaving behind their terrible secret about the death of Rebecca’s husband. They’re ready to start anew in the warmth of the sunshine state, hoping it will help vanquish Willow’s night terrors.

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As her daughter becomes controlled and bullied by the popular group, Rebecca is drawn closer to the charismatic head of school, Mr. Brady. A hot and steamy—though uncertain—relationship begins. Soon, lies, deception, and secrets cause everything to spiral out of control and both mother and daughter find themselves on the wrong side of their gated community with devastating repercussions.


Full of dark twists and turns, Weekend Friends makes you grateful you’re no longer a tween…or the parent of one.
Lyrical and atmospheric.
As the influence of the West falls away, an unnamed narrator drifts through the East’s floating world of non-places – chain hotels, airports, mega-cities – finalising often covert operations and deals.
When he meets the enigmatic and beautiful Tien, a 21st-century floating world courtesan, he becomes involved with people and events that threaten his plan to escape life via various forms of oblivion.
Evocative and sparely written, in the tradition of The Mary Smokes Boys, Oblivion is a novel where the journey becomes the story, filled with acute observation, desire and dreams.
He’s in a new home, turning his bag upside down, emptying the contents onto the rug in the middle of the room. It was there, he knows he packed it, the framed picture of his mum, he saw it inside his bag in the social worker’s car.
Faith and Evelyn are close friends, neighbours, and single mothers of Luke and of Mitch – and both bear the scars of the trauma of colonisation and the Stolen Generations. When Faith dies unexpectedly, Luke’s childhood in Sydney is severed into a ‘before’ and ‘after’ and a chain of catastrophic events is unleashed that will alter the course of his life.
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Navigating the upheaval of a broken foster system (that serves as a pipeline to poverty and incarceration in ‘juvie’), The Leaves is a bittersweet meditation on motherhood and loss, on the power of female friendship, and the role of the state in perpetuating violence.
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Through the pursuit of unattainable justice for Luke, The Leaves raises larger questions about a society that is yet to take responsibility for its own historical crimes.
Samantha and Annie Callahan are successful doubles champions – the toast of the Olympics, Wimbledon and Flushing Meadow. But their winning partnership spirals out of control when Annie’s new boyfriend announces their engagement at the Australian Open in Melbourne.
He persuades her to ditch Samantha in favour of a singles career, but her game and rankings plummet. Samantha is left floundering. Disillusioned, her only sweet spot is the growing passion between her and Bear, the sisters’ coach.
Amidst rising anger and betrayal, Samantha changes both their destinies when she does the unthinkable after a devastating Wimbledon loss. The sisters are driven to create new lives by confronting the past and taking control of the present. But can Samantha and Annie both win?
What happens, when at the pinnacle of fame, it all falls apart? With dreams shattered and egos destroyed, how do they cope?
As a young girl in Sydney, Rachel pays more attention than she perhaps should to a cartoon character who accesses different personas on separate adventures, each time he goes into the changing room of a London costume shop.
Then at an opportune moment the owner of the shop taps the gentleman on the shoulder, excusing him to go back to being himself.
In her early twenties, Rachel sets off for London with the aim of having a few adventures of her own. But unlike her childhood character, life irrevocably changes for Rachel once she leaves the safety and familiarity of home. Does she become the victim of a mysterious mental health illness while she is in Israel and Egypt, or is something else at play?
Rachel is forced to accept there’s no coming back from some adventures, and that coming to terms with reality is perhaps her only real chance of accessing the life she craves most.
Ouyang Yu’s first collection of stories in English is both assured and tender and at times surprisingly funny.
It includes stories set in China and Australia that revel in the truth and candour of lived experience and the joys and constraints of language.
In The White Cockatoo Flowers Ouyang Yu deftly peels back the layers on what it means to move from one culture to another, and what it means to be a writer, a husband, a parent and a stranger on foreign and familiar ground.
The Unexpected Heiress is an enthralling family saga of one man’s journey from the horrors of a Polish concentration camp to the top of the Forbes Australia rich list.
Abe Silver arrives in the lucky country with literally only a shirt on his back.
Fast forward and he is the founder and the majority owner of multi-billion-dollar gold mining conglomerate. In a twist of fate, Abe’s galloping terminal cancer forces him to disinherit the son he has groomed as his successor and thrust the management of colossal riches to his daughter Ellie. Shocked Ellie, a budding lawyer busy building her own career, promises to execute Abe’s wishes. Being the ‘chosen one’ unveils a toxic legacy of ambition, betrayal, and buried secrets in a deeply dysfunctional family.
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As a grieving daughter, Ellie grapples with her newfound responsibilities. She confronts the opposition of her family, the constraints of the glass ceiling, and her deeply hidden secret – her sexuality.
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Set against the iconic backdrop of Sydney Harbour in 2010, a time of scarce LGBTQ+ acceptance, Ellie's journey adds a poignant layer of complexity to this riveting ‘rags to riches’ tale.
An exhilarating and unforgettable love song for our world.
Heartbroken and in fear for his life, corporate whistle blower, Jagger Eckerman, escapes to hide out in a remote cave, but kick-arse radical, Nia Moretti, is furious a ‘capitalist suit’ has taken over her cave. It is hatred at first sight. Yet Nia is hiding for reasons of her own, ones that drag Jagger closer to death as they are forced on the run together and he is unwittingly pulled deeper into Nia’s reckless mission to help save the planet. But who can save Jagger from the relentless pursuit of the man who wants him dead?
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Both an electrifying cat-and-mouse-chase and an odd couple love story, The Rewilding captures the essence of what it means to be alive today in this cusp of change pulsing with possibilities. It is a passionate intimation of hope.
The Carnal Fugues is a wayward, wanton selection of stories grounded in displacement, desire, and the wish coursing through us to accede to the state of love.
There is torment and illness, crude reality and distant fragrant places, peopled by characters that reside close to our bones, our psyches, our flesh. Are we an unthinking species, condemned to misunderstand one another? Or do our near misses amount to valid templates for modern existence?
There is diseased love, frugal love, contorted love, where the inroads of the past – and convention – colour and confine us; there is the love of life in the face of death, and the persistence of our carnal compulsions.
​At twenty-eight, Marlene Ellis finds herself pregnant, abandoned by Jack—the married man she was having an affair with—and alone in a city that’s not her home.
Sitting at an abortion clinic, she receives a call from Grace, her twin sister. Mum is dead. Shock propels Marle to leave the clinic and take the next bus back to Baymoore—the small town that she has shunned since the day she left. Marle works hard to pick up the pieces of the life she left behind, but it's no easy task and there are many obstacles along the way.
From shadows of the past to Jack and her pregnancy, will Marle succeed in finding her way back home?
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In an Australian beachside suburb, climate change can no longer be ignored…
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An eye-opening book set on the Australian East Coast a few years from now. None of us know exactly when the sea level rises will start to force change - whole families moving en masse away from their coastal communities - but we know it will happen eventually.
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Powerfully relevant and gripping, High Rise delivers a bold and haunting vision of the not-so-distant future. The terrifying question all readers will ask: is this science fiction or history written ahead of its time?
Author Vanessa Lee wants to create awareness and action for climate change policies by engaging readers with compelling fiction rather than statistics and news reports.
A prestigious nightclub. An aging hostess battling to retain her marquee. A beautiful and enigmatic woman with unparalleled ambition. A noble widower searching for love. Two irreverent barflies who may not be what they seem.
Three couples whose relationships will be tested until they question everything they know. A jaded stripper trying to find her self-respect. A modest twenty-something man gambling on a shortcut to fortune. And a mysterious old man who will reach into their hearts and twist and pervert everything they hold dear. Over the course of one night, temptation, seduction, and rage will touch each of them.
And their lives will never be the same.
Prudence is a dark psychosexual thriller that explores human boundaries, the desires they define, and the secret acts that shatter them.
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An American actress, renowned for being late, is living with her two cats in a modernist clifftop apartment in Sydney in the late 1980s.
The recounting of her story is prompted by the arrival of an old typewriter and a book addressed to Zelda Zonk. And by the arrival of a young man called Daniel, who is locked out while house-sitting her neighbour’s apartment.
Together Zelda and Daniel form an unlikely but close bond as they go walking, prepare dinner for Shabbat, traverse Sydney Harbour on a ferry and talk about their lives. Part of their bond is the discovery that they are both orphans. Daniel is also a habitué of the nearby sandstone cliffs where men have mysteriously gone missing.
In Late, Michael Fitzgerald superbly captures the literary spirit and sensibility of an ageing woman and icon who has escaped celebrity.
It is a haunting and lyrical novel about art, friendship, and confronting our fears.
Rachel Matthew's stunning novel, Never Look Desperate, is Sedaris meets Fleabag, a tragi-comedy romance set in Melbourne 2023.
It features: cremation bling, pineapple underwear, grief and vaccinated cruise ships. The central characters Bernard, Goldie and Minh are everything TED Talks tell you not to be.
The story tackles the absurdity of despair in a recovering world, the liberation from isolation and the wild frontier of middle-aged Tinder.
In the one tumultuous day, Ch’anzu loses hir job and finds wife Scarlet in bed with a stranger.
As life unexpectedly spirals out of control, Ch’anzu turns to hir charismatic Aunt Maé for comfort and wisdom, and makes the bold move to work on a project in Serengotti, a migrant African outpost in rural Australia.
In a novel haunted by the strangeness and yearnings of a displaced community – both beautiful and fractured – Ch’anzu is forced to confront hir many demons.
Back in the city, brother Tex has gone missing. In Serengotti violence and infidelity simmer. This is a novel bathed in sensuous, original language, a love letter to the strong women who bind families together despite everything.
It’s also a tender remembrance of the many who haven’t or couldn’t survive the dislocations and tragedies of their turbulent pasts.
The thought comes to me: This is how I die. Dally is going to lose control and crash us into a pole or a house and we will be killed on impact.
The justice system characterises Jamie Langton as a 'danger to society', but he's just an Aboriginal kid, trying to find his way through adolescence.
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Jamie lives in Dalton's Bay with Aunty Dawn and Uncle Bobby. He spends his downtime hanging out with his mates, Dally and Lenny. Mark Cassidy and his white mates - the Footy Heads - take every opportunity they can to bully Jamie and his friends. On Lenny's last night in town before moving to Sydney, after another episode of racist harassment, Jamie, Dally and Lenny decide to retaliate by vandalising Mark Cassidy's car. And when they discover the keys are in the ignition... Dally changes the plan. Soon they are all in Mark Cassidy's stolen car cruising through town, aiming to take it for a quick spin, then dump it.
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But it's a bad plan. And as a consequence, Jamie ends up in the youth justice system where he must find a way to mend his relationships with himself, his friends, his family and his future.
It’s a hot summer, and life’s going okay for Jackson and his family on the Mish.
It’s almost Christmas, school’s out, and he's hanging with his mates, teasing the visiting tourists, and avoiding the racist boys in town. Just like every year, Jackson’s Aunty and his annoying little cousins visit from Sydney – but this time, a boy named Tomas comes with them.
Tomas is quiet, from a troubled background, and he’s artistic – more into his writing than he is willing to admit. And as both boys let down their guard, and their friendship evolves, Jackson must confront the changing shapes of his relationships with his friends, family and community.
He must face his darkest secret – a secret that could shatter the careful persona he has built for himself on the Mish.
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The past. Sometimes we can’t escape it.
After a bad break-up, August is trying to piece his life back together. It’s not perfect – his flat is small, he works in a call centre, he can’t finish the book he’s working on, and he’s hopelessly awkward when it comes to relationships.
When August meets Julie, he finds she’s everything he isn’t – confident, composed, and purposeful, despite her troubled childhood. With her, August finally feels he can be himself.
But Julie has a secret – one that threatens to plummet August right back into the miseries of his past.
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Casper Gray goes to bed a happily married man.
He wakes up questioning whether everything is a lie.
Life in suburbia holds few surprises for Casper. He and his wife Jane are still trying for a baby after seven years. His neighbours have their quirks to be navigated. And his job as a high school teacher, while satisfying, comes with its challenges.
Every day is much like the one before – that is, until Casper makes a discovery that threatens everything he knows…
As Casper’s fears grow into obsessions, his world starts to unravel.
The Crying Room movingly explores family boundaries and stories, finding original ways to express the contradictory experience of belonging to a family, and being an individual at the same time.
When Bernie Rodgers and her husband move to the coastal town of Ballina, she finds that there is more than a physical distance separating her from her adult daughters. Bernie loves her daughters, but the problem she realises is with the way she loved them.
Bernie’s daughter Susie is professionally successful, but her feelings remain distant, even to herself. When she takes on the responsibility for caring for her niece, the pieces of her life finally snap into place. The inexplicable disappearance of an aeroplane though, plunges her life into mystery once again.
Morally acute and dazzlingly accomplished, The Crying Room is an affecting novel about loneliness, love, family and the need to feel.
A gripping exploration of modern greed as bestselling Australian author Fiona Lowe unpicks the moral quagmire of those who trade on the bonds of their closest friendships and family for money.
Izzy Harrington's fiance is a successful entrepreneur and everyone's friend, but today she's waiting for him to get home so she can tell him they're over. Except Brad never arrives.
Instead, three angry men knock on the door and insist on talking to Brad.
When the police arrive asking difficult questions and demanding to see his passport, Izzy's packed suitcases suddenly take on a whole new meaning.
What does it feel like to know you are dead? Can you trust the voice that is apparently guiding you? Will it speak in a language you can follow or baffle you with cryptic utterances?
Text Messages from the Universe draws inspiration from The Tibetan Book of the Dead, re-imagining in a contemporary Western vernacular its evocation of the dislocated state of consciousness in the ‘Bardo’. It starts with a car crash, but don't worry...
‘You are not going to die. You are not going to die. You are not going to die. You are already dead.’
The three Chirnwell sisters are descended from the privileged squattocracy in Victoria’s Western District — but could a long-held secret threaten their family?
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Harriett Chirnwell has a perfect life — a husband who loves her, a successful career and a daughter who is destined to become a doctor just like her. Xara has always lived in Harriet’s shadow; her chaotic life with her family on their sheep farm falls far short of her older sister’s standards of perfection and prestige, and Georgie, the youngest sister and a passionate teacher, is the only one of the three to have left Billawarre.
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Despite all three sisters having a different and sometimes strained bond with their mother, Edwina, they come together to organise a party for her milestone birthday — the first since their father’s death.
But when Edwina arrives at her party on the arm of another man, the tumult is like a dam finally breaking.
Is an inheritance a privilege or a right? Does it show love?
Margaret, the matriarch of the wealthy Jamieson family, has always been as tight-fisted with the family money as she is with her affection. Her eldest daughter, Sarah, is successful in her own right as a wife, mother and part owner of a gourmet food empire.
But it’s not enough to impress her mother.
Always in the shadow cast by the golden glow of her younger brother, Sarah feels compelled to meet Margaret’s every demand to earn her love.
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As their mother’s health deteriorates, will long-held secrets and childhood rivalries smash this family into pieces?
From the winner of the Russell Prize for Humour Writing. David Cohen’s most wryly humorous and disturbing work of fiction yet.
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A public memorial’s name is changed to avoid any mention of the tragedy it has been set up to commemorate. Two attention-seeking activists campaign against exclusionary policies adopted by the gift shop at a suburban shopping mall.
A customer service representative becomes obsessed with a colleague who has worked from home for so long, nobody in the company remembers her. A middle-aged father loses his marriage and falls in love again with a cherished but damagedchildhood toy. An academic’s research into roadside memorials takes a peculiar turn.
David Cohen’s sometimes bizarre yet pitch-perfect stories capture everyday horrorsbut are always shot through with a profound empathy and generosity.
From the bestselling Australian author of Daughter of Mine and Birthright.
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When a lethal bushfire tore through Myrtle, nestled in Victoria's breathtaking Otway Ranges, the town's buildings - and the lives of its residents - were left as smouldering ash. For three women in particular, the fire fractured their lives and their relationships.
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Eighteen months later, with the flurry of national attention long past, Myrtle stands restored, shiny and new. But is the outside polish just a veneer? Community stalwart Julie thinks tourism could bring back some financial stability to their little corner of the world and soon prods Claire, Bec and Sophie into joining her group.
But the scar tissue of trauma runs deep, and as each woman exposes her secrets and faces the damage that day wrought, a shocking truth will emerge that will shake the town to its newly rebuilt foundations...
As Freddy gazes at the majestic river gushing past him in the depths of an icy winter, he's ready to jump in and end his life.
But what happens next is not what Freddy expects. From the moment he enters the river, Freddy starts a journey which is more beautiful, funny, and mysterious than he could have imagined. And through this journey Freddy's story becomes interwoven with a cast of unforgettable characters who are equally lost and in search of answers.
Eventually they all unite in their quest for an answer to the biggest question of them all: will the river take them where they want to go?
In the tradition of inspirational works of fiction like The Alchemist and Life of Pi, Secrets of a River Swimmer is at once a profound exploration into living with meaning and an affecting story of people on the cusp of change.
Every family has its secrets...
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Alice Hunter is smarting from the raw deal life has thrown her way: suddenly single, jobless and forced to move home to her parents' tiny seaside town. And now she faces an uncomfortable truth. She wants her twin sister Libby's enviable life.
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Libby's closest friend Jess Dekic has been around the Hunter family for so long she might as well be blood. She's always considered herself a sister closer to Libby than Alice ever could be...
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Libby Hunter has all of life's boxes ticked: prominent small-town doctor, gorgeous husband and two young daughters.
But when she is betrayed by those she loves most, it reveals how tenuous her world is...
A picturesque small town, a cosy community garden, a facade of tolerance and acceptance - but when three women with wildly different loyalties come together, what secrets and lies will be revealed?
A timely novel exploring prejudice and privilege, from bestselling Australian author Fiona Lowe.
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Tara Hooper is at breaking point. With two young children, a business in a town struggling under an unexpected crime wave, and her husband more interested in his cricket team than their marriage, life is a juggling act.
Then, when new neighbours arrive and they are exactly the sort of people the town doesn't want or need, things get worse...
Benny Basilworth makes connections.
A rare intellect, he sees things that others don't see and draws conclusions that others completely fail to grasp. He has the kind of mind that can make a person a national sensation on the television gameshow "The Connection Game"- and the kind of mind that can be the target of predators.
Despite his brilliance, Benny and his family find themselves destitute, living in a basement apartment with one tiny window that affords them only the view of the feet of passersby on the street above.
It is from this vantagepoint that Benny once again starts making connections. Mad, inconceivable connections. Connections that can change lives . . . and turn the entire world upside down.
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Humorous, surprising, wise, and remarkably perceptive,
The Connection Game is a novel unlike any other and one that you are unlikely to forget..
How can you know so little about those you love?
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With a coveted promotion dangling within reach, the last thing Addy Topic needs to be is wasting precious time singing in Rookery Cove's choir. But when she's reminded how much music meant to her late mother, she can't say no. The building pressure raises the ghosts that sent her running from Rookery Cove years earlier - memories she's spent decades keeping hidden, silencing them with work, alcohol, and sex.
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For Stephanie Gallagher, Rookery Cove was meant to be a new beginning in the slow lane. A place where she and her husband can embrace community, parenthood, and evenly share the load. But the sea-change is changing everything.
How much longer can they survive as a family?
Recently widowed Mary feels something needs to change, but she is not sure what ?
She decides to sell her home in Sydney and move to a retirement village in sunny Queensland. Mary has always enjoyed her own company and struggles with the many personalities she encounters in the village.
There are two things Mary won’t tolerate. Idiots, and nasty women. Unfortunately for her, the village is full of them.
Has Mary made a mistake, or will she find something wonderful?
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This daring, irreverent short-story collection dissects and explores the conundrums of contemporary life and what it is to be human, through a world very like our own.
A corporate satire follows a pair of dark operatives working for a chicken franchise as they take careful revenge on counterfeiters. A coder calculates the odds of her husband's cold developing complications and killing him, in a story told in code. A relationship at breaking point is told via a scrambled timeline of events that works like a puzzle. A man spends his inheritance on technology that will allow him to fly. And an archeologist working for mining companies against the interests of Indigenous communities develops a mysterious psychological condition that causes her to black out and commit extreme acts of generosity.
"At turns dreamlike, luminously satirical, fever-pitched and achingly mortal, the scope of Andrew Roff's debut collection is utterly refreshing and a joy to linger in." - Josephine Rowe
A group of school-leavers free at last, ready to party, expectations high.
A remote island on the Western Australian coast wasn’t exactly the plan, but they’re not going to let that hold them back.
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Blame, fear, mistrust, coverups, power plays and dark secrets tear the group apart and expose the deadly tensions beneath the surface. And each teen is forced to confront demons that will lead them either to devastating tragedy or transformative triumph. Whoever survives the week will never be the same again...
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The Brink is a raw, powerful novel that pulls no punches in its authentic exploration of masculinity, sexuality, mental health, drug and alcohol use, relationships and sex.
In a small town, everyone thinks they know you:
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Charlie is a hardcore rocker, who’s not as tough as he looks. Hammer is a footy jock with big AFL dreams, and an even bigger ego. Zeke is a shy over-achiever, never macho enough for his family.
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But all three boys hide who they really are.
When the truth is revealed, will it set them free or blow them apart?
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Invisible Boys (Fremantle Press, 2019) is Holden Sheppard's multi-award winning debut novel. A raw, confronting upper YA novel, it tackles homosexuality, masculinity, anger and suicide with a nuanced and unique perspective.
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Joe’s isn’t the only life transformed when he discovers, in mid-life, that he was born a twin, and goes on a journey to find his long-lost sibling.
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Will uncovering the truth about his birth bring him much needed peace, or lead to further heartache? As he unravels the mystery surrounding his birth, and the separation of the twins, Joe makes peace with himself.
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But can he find a way to unite all the threads of his life to find true happiness?
Weaving Words is an anthology of diverse short stories written by women, about women.
It emerged through the collaboration of eight passionate writers who got together to share ideas, offer advice, and give each other support. Their passion and creativity fuelled their efforts and culminated in a book filled with unique and fascinating tales, as varied as the authors themselves.
This eclectic collection spans a range of genres from murder to travel, from comedy to mysticism.
Meet Willa Waters, aged 8 . . . 33 . . . and 93.
On one impossible day in 1965, eight-year-old Willa receives a mysterious box containing a jar of water and the instruction: ‘One ocean: plant in the backyard.’ So she does - and somehow creates an extraordinary time-slip that allows her to visit her future selves.
In 1990, Willa is 33 and a mother-of-two when her childhood self appears in her backyard. She’s also a woman haunted by memories and is on the brink of a decision that will have tragic repercussions . . .
In 2050, Willa is a 93-year-old whose memory is fading fast. Yet she knows there’s a warning she must give her past selves. If only she could recall what it was.
Can the three Willas come together, to heal their past and save their future,?
This book by Naomi Downie and Bee Williamson is an exciting collaboration of two women’s art making and poems.
Gathered over a period of time when they were exploring personal and universal expressions of identity, intimacy, sexuality, spirituality and nature, The Hidden Self is both a stunning and important collection.
Our project is also about the process of dreams coming true, friendship, celebrating and honoring the creative self, sharing our hidden beauty, strength and struggles with you.
From the author of A Lifetime of Impossible Days (winner of The Courier-Mail People's Choice QLD Book of the Year Award) comes this beautiful and uplifting story, that will make you laugh and make you cry.
Welcome to The Emporium of Imagination, a most unusual shop that travels the world offering vintage gifts to repair broken dreams and extraordinary phones to contact lost loved ones. But, on arrival in the tiny township of Boonah, the store's long-time custodian, Earlatidge Hubert Umbray, makes a shocking realisation. He is dying . . .
The clock is now ticking to find his replacement, because the people of Boonah are clearly in need of some restorative magic.
Like Enoch Rayne - a heartbroken ten-year-old boy mourning the loss of his father, while nurturing a guilty secret. Like Ann Harlow, who has come to the town to be close to her dying grandmother. Though it's Enoch's father who dominates her thoughts - and regrets . . .
The balance of power in a marriage shifts, with shocking consequences.
An elderly woman recounts a chilling childhood memory on the family farm. A taxi driver with a missing wife reveals unexpected skills. An inherited painting brings an eerily troubling legacy.
Subtle, compelling and unsettling, Amanda O'Callaghan’s stories work at the edges of the sayable, through secrets, erasures and glimpsed moments of disclosure.
They shimmer with unspoken histories and characters who have a ‘taste for silence'.
In 2010 Melbourne poet Bee Williamson set herself a challenge.
After publishing several slim volumes of poetry it was time, she thought, to tackle the big issues in life: God, War, Love, Nature, Life and Madness.
As a Café Poet for Australia Poetry Ltd, she’d sit down with her café latte at the cosy Pheast48 in Armadale to write a new suite of poems that would form the backbone of Torment & Soul.
A beautifully transcribed, designed and illustrated book of nature poems and botanical illustrations by Bee Williamson.
Written in 2010 during residency as Cafe Poet at Pheast48 in Armadale, with Australian Poetry Ltd., this book contains a collection of nature poems and art work lovingly designed and crafted by Melbourne-based artist, Bee Williamson.
The work huddles around her love of Nature, where she finds peace, joy and the inspiration to write and draw, deep within the source and solace of nature's gentle hand.
The Fault Lines Founding Liberty explores the tensions inherent in growing up and moving on from faith, family, and past versions of ourselves.
With unanswered questions and hovering guilt, a young woman comes to confront the specters of her past through dialogue with an unexpected companion. This process is as uncomfortable as it is transformative.
Freedom is discovered not by eliminating life’s loose ends nor running away from them, but in gathering them bravely and continuing to put one foot in front of the other despite everything—a process made hopeful in the solidarity of unexpected friendship.
Also available on Audible as an audiobook narrated by the author.
Comfort for Every Sorrow is an all-encompassing title that begs the question – is it humanly possible to find comfort for every sorrow?
This collection of sensitive poetry by Bee Williamson, certainly gives us hope to believe there is. Segmenting her poetry into themes on The Divine, Nature, Creativity, Intimacy, The Feminine, Suffering, Conflict and Ancestors, Bee covers the spectrum of emotions, fears, and anxieties of human belief and the subsequent consequences and inequality of our inaction, Bee writes with breathtaking honesty. She wears her heart, mind and soul on her sleeve.
She understands the nuances of contemplation, introspection and silence..
Will is sixteen year old Lucy’s best friend. Their lives intersect in dreams, where destiny pulls them together through different times in history.
Even though their meetings are more real to Lucy than the present, Lucy is uncertain if Will exists outside her mind. Lucy’s mum thinks there is something wrong when Lucy sleeps for days at a time. She is so caught up with finding a cure she doesn’t see the real problem.
Lucy is bullied at school and is thinking of ending her life. When the bullying goes too far and Lucy ends up in a coma, only Will can reach her.
But how do you live when the only person who can save you doesn’t exist?
Starting Over is a contemporary novel set in a small coastal town in South Australia.
When three feisty young women, Erin, Rebecca and Gabby, arrive in a quiet rural backwater, they bring with them a world of complication and trouble.
A heart-warming novel, the story arc follows their growing friendship as they start new lives in Woolshed Bay. Here they encounter quirky locals, drug-running gangsters, a religious sect, new challenges at every turn, and also, life changing relationships.
Overcoming danger and prejudice, they each find love and happiness with three very different men, in unexpected ways.
Park Court is a fairly typical Melbourne neighborhood, hosting a very diverse, multicultural community.
Africans, Indians, Chinese, Lebanese, Sri Lankans, Christians, Muslims, straight and gay people, they all live there, and not always peacefully. What is lacking, however, is a White family to complete the diversity.
But when one finally moves into the court, it is more than what anyone had bargained for.
Reason and Passion is a collection of poetry pieces crafted through a meditative and unique lens.
Within this book lie writings of philosophy, perceptions of the world, and personal experience. Through these short poems, there is a hope to revivify others with a newfound love of the world, a love of language and intentional living.
Among the hills, where the trees grow in purposeful harmony, it is clear that reason rests in the forest.
Yet, through the harsh forest fire that blazes through the innocent leaves, it is clear that passion rests in the forest.
Like an arcane forest at the mercy of the elements, you too shall rest in the cool shade of reason and move with passion's fire...
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Free agents or captives of our past? In Life, Bound, characters find themselves caught in situations not of their own making, or trapped by ingrained habits, walking in grooves carved out by past events.
An artist’s progress is pleasingly channelled into a pattern laid down a century earlier. A solitary man’s story is almost preordained, but is indecipherable to researchers looking back some sixty years later. Karma mops up in the wake of a mousy clerk. A local legend falls foul of the town gossip. Spouses are constrained or liberated by love.
Sexuality, gender, resentments, attachments and perversities all play a part. Yet the grip of the past needn’t always hold firm.
Many protagonists are offered a potentially life-changing moment; whether or not they grasp it is up to them.
At sixteen, neurodivergent Peta Lyre is the success story of social training. That is, until she finds herself on a school ski trip and falling in love with the new girl.
Peta will need to decide which rules to keep, and which rules to break… 'I'm Peta Lyre,' I mumble. Look people in the eye if you can, at least when you greet them. I try, but it's hard when she is smiling so big, and leaning in.
Peta Lyre is far from typical. The world she lives in isn't designed for the way her mind works, but when she follows her therapist's rules for 'normal' behaviour, she can almost fit in without attracting attention.
When a new girl, Sam, starts at school, Peta's carefully structured routines start to crack. But on the school ski trip, with romance blooming and a newfound confidence, she starts to wonder if maybe she can have a normal life after all. When things fall apart, Peta must decide whether all the old rules still matter.
Does she want a life less ordinary, or should she keep her rating normal? A moving and joyful own voices debut.
Driving Into The Moon is a compilation of poetry and narrative ranging in context from the final stages in our lives to the highs and lows of parenthood, the various aspects of the natural world to the life lessons learned in our modern universe.
The day was almost over as, I turned out of the drive.
I left behind the homestead, My home for most my life.
The road stretched out before me, Proceeding through the gloom. Driving away from sunset, Driving into the moon.
The book also includes a short preview of a Science Fiction novel to be released in the future called "Quadron Fire".
Life in a small mining town can be like living in a fishbowl, where everyone knows everybody else's business.
Fifteen-year-old Jodi's mother wants her father to quit his binge drinking and his dangerous job at the mine - even more so after a collapse leaves two miners dead and three trapped deep underground.
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As tensions escalate both at home and around the town, Jodi seeks comfort with her friends but soon faces a double betrayal. As Jodi struggles to gain autonomy over her life, she begins to discover the person she really is.
But with everything around her spiraling out of control, it may not be the right time to let her family, friends, and ultimately the whole town know - no matter how much she wants to.
Karen Romano met and fell in love with John Pascoe when she was eighteen.
He was her first love and she thought they would last forever. But like so many first loves, they didn’t last forever, and Karen was devastated when it ended. Martin Cosgrove, a country boy born in far western New South Wales, who moved to the city and became a highly paid executive working for the Australian government, fell in love with Karen at their first meeting and courted her until she agreed to marry him.
He turned out to be a devoted and loving husband.
When Adelaide is rocked by an earthquake, no one is left more shaken than David Burrows.
A recently completed apartment building suffers severe structural damage and collapses, leaving 26 people dead and countless injured. The building should never have collapsed and sparks a furore of condemnation by the press and public alike. David receives an alarming phone call from Alice Springs where the steel used in the construction was manufactured and the race is on across the country to uncover the truth.
As the plot unravels we learn that the failure of the structure is the result of something far more sinister.
If she screamed, he wonders, would they hear her up there, up there in the houses? If she ran, he wonders, could I catch her?
And if I caught her, could I ...?
He coughs again, furious. Would I?
These unsettling short stories, which include the prize-winning novella 'Quarry', expose an anatomy of worry in its many guises—unease, fear, dread, and terror.
Through a multitude of distinct voices, H.C. Gildfind’s startling tales explore the absurd, macabre, surreal—and too-real—whilst wrestling with the irrevocable acts, immutable facts, and relentless uncertainties that lie at the dark heart of every life.
When Callie Taylor was eighteen she eloped with her high school sweetheart.
Then they broke up. On the same day. And they never told anyone that they were married.
Almost a year later, Bill Darcy is back, living in the house next door and caring for his recently-orphaned sister. And he's determined to win Callie back. Over the course of a single day, Callie finds herself learning some huge life lessons as she struggles to reconcile her head with her heart.
Can she forgive Bill? Or, more importantly, does she even want to?
NATE AND THE NEW YORKER
Nate once had the love of his life, but he’s met Cameron, a New York millionaire with an eccentric cross-dressing butler. Cameron is keen to share his world of classy restaurants, Broadway shows, and fabulous parties, and while Nate’s friends see the makings of a fantasy romance, it’s Nate who has to learn how to open his heart again. But is Cameron simply second best?
NATE'S LAST TANGO
Nate’s life couldn’t be better. He’s living with his rich boyfriend, Cameron, in New York while being wined and dined all over the city. But when Nate decides to visit his friends back in Sydney, Cameron suggests they break it off for a while. Cam’s cross-dressing butler is not impressed, and with the help of his lesbian aunt, they drag Cameron down-under to sort out his relationship and take in the sights of Mardi Gras!
With Nate at a loss to what went wrong, he faces the dim reality that love may have run its course.
Primary school teacher Annie Yates has a great job and friends she can count on, but her love life has never worked out the way she wanted.
If it wasn’t bad enough that, years ago, she fell madly in love with Jack Delaney before realising he was gay, now her new fiancé has walked out on her. Her world has come crashing down. All she’s ever wanted was security, love and a family of her own. Her plans for motherhood have gone out the door… or have they?
Jack, now Annie’s best friend, wants to co-parent together. Plenty of women have babies and end up co-parenting, so what’s so bad about starting out that way? This is a second chance she never expected, but nothing ever did go smoothly for Annie.
Is having a baby with your gay best friend a recipe for disaster, or could this be the platonic love story Annie had never imagined?
Become a part of the outback – the land, they call home. A land as beautiful as it is harsh. A land which captures the hearts of all those who live on her.
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Dr. Andrew Lowman is an Australian Eye Specialist who has a passion for restoring sight to those who would otherwise endure life with poor eyesight or blindness. Medical facilities are not easily accessed in the wide-open spaces and isolation of the outback where the air is hot, flies are plenty and life is tough for those on the land.
A number one best seller on Amazon in February 2019!
A contemporary fiction novel about the friendship of two men and their love for the same woman.
Edward does not know that Dave was married to Faith for a short time. Will this secret hurt their friendship? Dave and Edward are two lonely men who find a connection neither expected.
When Dave and Edward meet at the local Killcare Men's Shed, they form an unlikely friendship.
In early 2020 much of the world went into Lockdown as a means of dealing with Covid-19. This created a new situation for many people - separated by distance; connected by ideas and relationships, new and old.
Written during the first wave of the virus, this eclectic anthology documents the early days of Corona, and how we began to negotiate the strange new force that took over our lives.
With a broad range of characters, experiences and reactions, everyone will find something to relate to in "Life in the Time of Corona."
Three Short Stories – Bloodbath – The Gruesome Murders, deals with a man applying a brutal approach to satisfying his need.
A Tale of an EHO (Environmental Health Officer) includes food safety and adult entertainment, reluctant and good looking food operators, cult like Church leadership and adult entertainment venue ownership. It’s a complicated tale.
Learning to Kill explores how a professional hitman and his family educate their son.
Calm, mature, forgiving, honest, stylish and sober. Brisbane’s Terry Flynn possesses none of these qualities.
Bumbling his way through life without any real direction, knockabout Terry is the first to admit he’s never achieved anything of great significance in his 44 years. Seeking retribution from anyone he believes has wronged him is common practice, but when a degenerate gambler looks set to turn his world upside down, Terry is prompted to produce his greatest square up to date.
With an extremely short fuse and an inability to conform with modern society, it’s not going to be a walk in the park though. In fact his best mate reckons it’s the most ludicrous scheme Terry has ever devised and only gives him a 50/1 chance of pulling it off!
Terry’s not concerned in the slightest, he’s just got a cranky builder, a dangerous driver, English cricket fans and an 80’s television star amongst others to deal with first.
It’s going to be a busy few weeks in December, but with the help of a few friends, Terry’s going to give it a crack or go down swinging!
Bad things happen to good people.
This is a fictional account of changes that come over individuals when disease, old age, and poor decisions threaten life as they know it. Recognition, acceptance, and then deciding what to do is at the heart of this story.
For the characters in this book, background, upbringing and beliefs are important until uncertainty and fear take over. It is only then that true strength emerges and guides them towards a company who understands.
Choice Cruise Lines.
Euthanasia is a controversial word. Freedom to choose should be available to all.
Romance, suspense, crime, mixed with sadness, laughter and outrageous behavior brings each one of us closer to the characters as we each can see comparisons in our own lives.
Four unrelated short stories of adventure and life!
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IT’S THERE FOR THE TAKING - Christmas 1963, a US Army payroll was robbed in Garmisch, Germany. The $2 million in cash was never recovered. Some say this is not fiction but a true story. Some say they know the perpetrators...
LOPEZ - Lopez was a pitcher with the New York Mets who had to prove to himself and to the fans that he was worthy. When is the next step one too many? A story of courage for every reader.
SINNER SID - Sydney (Sinner Sid) Moffit was an evangelist with a difference. As a ‘sin consultant’ he advised on which decadent activity to choose. People either loved him or absolutely despised him. Sid was also a sex addict.
Including a free bonus story, MORRIS MORRIS is a man who believed the exciting life he had once had enjoyed, was ending. A chance meeting with Sheila, an ensuing romance, a friend’s death, and an unusual business idea, transforms Morris Morris.
Getting to know Morris Morris may save you a bundle of money!
6 short tales for readers who enjoy...
Sex Scenes, Scams, Infidelity, Halloween, Drug Use, Perversion, Hippies, Vengeance, Murder, Love with Sexbots, Political Correctness, Injustice, Free Love, Age Prejudice, Marriage, Deviates, Family Life, Fast Cars, Romance, and Sex Scenes!
People are not as they seem.
These tales will have you looking twice at your friends, neighbors, and family.
Taught by her mother to hate herself, rejected for being an Indigenous Australian, Alice is tired of the life she has.
A new year brings new resolutions, Alice is determined that this is the year she completely overhauls her life…If she can just make it through January!
An emotional journey of hardship and hope, "The Alice Diaries" is a coming of middle-age story set in Australia's harsh outback, perfect for fans of Sophie Kinsella, Milly Johnson, and Marian Keyes.
"Of course, you think. Of course he lives. Because even if you could hide a pregnancy, or the death of a baby, you cannot hide—or kill—a ghost."​
By recounting one person's real-time witnessing of a couple’s experience of stillbirth, BORN SLEEPING explores the ambivalence that lies at the heart of human relationships, the difficulty of comprehending others’ realities, the voyeurism of being on the outside of trauma and the disturbingly cool, detached eye of the writer.
Addy Loest is harbouring a secret – several, in fact. Dedicated overthinker, frockaholic and hard-partyer, she’s been doing all she can to avoid the truth for quite some time.
A working-class girl raised between the Port Kembla Steelworks and the surf of the Illawarra coast, Addy is a fish out of water at the prestigious University of Sydney. She’s also the child of German immigrants, and her broken-hearted widower dad won’t tell her anything about her family’s tragic past.
But it’s 1985, a time of all kinds of excess, from big hair to big misogyny, and distractions are easy. Distractions, indeed, are Addy’s best skill – until one hangover too many leads her to meet a particular frock and a particular man, each of whom will bring all her truths hurtling home.
Told with Kim Kelly’s incomparable warmth and wit, The Truth & Addy Loest is a magical trip through shabby-chic inner-city Sydney, a tale of music and moonlight, literature and love – and of discovering the only story that really matters is the one you write for yourself.
On Vélo chronicles Maine’s hapless bicycle trip across the English Channel with his friend Maggie, a romantic optimist “born 30 years too late”.
The two concoct an ill-prepared cross-country journey into the heart of rural France in a quest for freedom and adventure, dragging their bunch of motley international friends along for the ride.
Maine’s observations on humanity while smoking his way through the countryside, and the group’s Beat-generation lifestyle, makes On Vélo a captivating portrayal of longing and timeless friendship in the formative years between youth and adulthood.
Would you like to see your book here? Simply fill out our submission form on the For Authors page and we'll proudly add your title to our library!
