Starting From Now by Fleur McDonald

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian Fiction

A suspenseful novel of rural life and real country issues from our genuine Voice of the Outback, author of the bestselling Where the River Runs

Maybe the Horse Will Talk by Elliot Perlman

$32.99 AUD

Category: Australian Fiction | Reading Level: 1 Fiction

'I am absolutely terrified of losing a job I absolutely hate.' Stephen Maserov has problems. A onetime teacher, married to fellow teacher Eleanor, he has retrained and is now a second-year lawyer working at mega-firm Freely Savage Carter Blanche. Despite toiling around the clock to make budget, he's in imminent danger of being downsized. And to make things worse, Eleanor, sick of single-parenting their two young children thanks to Stephen's relentless work schedule, has asked him to move out. To keep the job he hates, pay the mortgage and salvage his marriage, he will have to do something strikingly daring, something he never thought himself capable of. But if he's not careful, it might be the last job he ever has... Warm, dramatic, and at times laugh-out-loud funny, with the narrative pull of a thriller, Maybe the Horse Will Talk is a love story, a reflection on contemporary marriage, and on friendship. It is also an unflinching examination of sexual harassment in the workplace and an expose of corporate corruption that taps directly into the pulse of our times. 'Australia's outstanding social novelist' (Times Literary Supplement), Elliot Perlman '...has many things working in his favor as a novelist- curiosity, erudition, daring and a gift for seducing readers into going along with him for the ride. He'll get you where you want to go...' (Washington Post) ...Show more

The Bee and the Orange Tree by Melissa Ashley

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian Fiction

Below Deck by Sophie Hardcastle

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian Fiction

   And then, just like that, a thought bubbles inside me. It's a beginning; a new beginning; my beginning. The beginning of the story I tell myself in order to survive. We choose to breathe, don't we?Twenty-one-year-old Olivia hears the world in colour, but her life is mottled grey. Estranged from her parents, and living with her grandfather who is drowning in sadness, Oli faces the reality of life beyond university alone.When she wakes on a boat with no recollection of how she got there, she accepts the help of two strangers who change the course of her future forever. With Mac and Maggie, Oli learns to navigate a life upon open ocean and the world flowers into colours she's never seen before.Four years later, Oli, fluent in the language of the sea, is the only woman among men on a yacht delivery from Noumea to Auckland. In the darkness below deck, she learns that at sea, no one can hear you scream.Moving to London, Oli's life at sea is buried. When she meets Hugo, the wind changes, and her memories are dust blown into shapes. Reminding her of everything.Below Deck is about the moments that haunt us, the moments that fan out like ripples through the deep. So that everything else, becomes everything after. ...Show more

SALE - The Time Is Now, Monica Sparrow by Matt Howard

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian Fiction | Reading Level: 1

Cast adrift by loss, Monica Sparrow is marooned in her semi in Neasden, the so-called 'loneliest village in London', her home stuffed with nothing she needs. Is it time for her to finally get her house in order? Can she isolate what really matters, and clear the junk? And while it's too late for her fam ily to be as they were, can Monica fashion an entirely new one, from the unlikeliest set of contenders? Monica's sister, Diane, already a right piece of work and looking to take it up a notch, seems lost to Monica forever. But a few unexpected diversions see her careering in a most unanticipated direction. Xavier, a master of minimalism, discards people as easily as any other clutter. An editor at a prestigious publishing house, he's lumbered with Monica - a wannabe writer spectacularly different from any he's previously encountered.Having lived virtually family-free into adulthood, Jamie suddenly acquires Monica and Diane as elder sisters, and a job, a proper one. Used to living on the margins and unfamiliar with group dynamics, this proverbial black sheep might just become the most improbable anchor.Four isolated people. Thrown together by family and circumstance. A humorous and heart warming story of second chances and new beginnings. ...Show more

Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton

$19.99 AUD

Category: Australian Fiction

An utterly wonderful debut novel of love, crime, magic, fate and a boy's coming of age, set in 1980s Australia and infused with the originality, charm, pathos, and heart of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. The mind can take you anywhere you want to go. Eli Bell's life is complicated. His father is lost, his mother is in jail, and his stepdad is a heroin dealer. The most steadfast adult in Eli's life is Slim--a notorious felon and national record-holder for successful prison escapes--who watches over Eli and August, his silent genius of an older brother. Exiled far from the rest of the world in Darra, a seedy suburb populated by Polish and Vietnamese refugees, this twelve-year-old boy with an old soul and an adult mind is just trying to follow his heart, learn what it takes to be a good man, and train for a glamorous career in journalism. Life, however, insists on throwing obstacles in Eli's path--most notably Tytus Broz, Brisbane's legendary drug dealer. But the real trouble lies ahead. Eli is about to fall in love, face off against truly bad guys, and fight to save his mother from a certain doom--all before starting high school. A story of brotherhood, true love, family, and the most unlikely of friendships, Boy Swallows Universe is the tale of an adolescent boy on the cusp of discovering the man he will be. Powerful and kinetic, Trent Dalton's debut is sure to be one of the most heartbreaking, joyous and exhilarating novels you will experience. ...Show more

MUTE

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian Fiction

Gulliver's Wife by Lauren Chater

$32.99 AUD

Category: Australian Fiction

Birth. Death. Wonder ... One woman's journey to the edge of love and loyalty from the bestselling author of The Lace Weaver London, 1702. When her husband is lost at sea, Mary Burton Gulliver, midwife and herbalist, is forced to rebuild her life without him. But three years later when Lemuel Gulli ver is brought home, fevered and communicating only in riddles, her ordered world is turned upside down. In a climate of suspicion, poverty and violence, Mary is caught in a crossfire of superstition and fear driven by her husband's outlandish claims of the wonders he has seen, and it is up to her to navigate a passage to safety for herself and her daughter, and the vulnerable women in her care. But when a fellow sailor, a dangerous man with nothing to lose, appears to hold sway over her husband, Mary's world descends deeper into chaos, and she must set out on her own journey to discover the truth of Gulliver's travels ... and the landscape of her own heart. Praise for The Lace Weaver 'A beautifully written and utterly compelling story of love and war ... exquisite as the lace the women of the story weave' Kate Forsyth 'I was captivated from the first page' Natasha Lester 'Full of hope and heartache' Books+Publishing ...Show more

The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld

$32.99 AUD

Category: Australian Fiction

The lives of three women weave together across four centuries in the dazzling new book from Evie Wyld, a Granta Best of Young British Novelist Surging out of the sea, the Bass Rock has for centuries borne witness to the lives that pass under its shadow on the Scottish mainland. And across the centuries, the fates of three women are inextricably linked to this place and to each other. Sarah, accused of being a witch, is fleeing for her life. Ruth, in the aftermath of the Second World War, is navigating a new marriage and the strange waters of the local community. Six decades later, Viv, still mourning the death of her father, is cataloguing Ruth's belongings in the now-empty house. As each woman's story unfolds, it becomes increasingly clear that their choices are circumscribed, in ways big and small, by the men who seek to control them. But in sisterhood there is also the possibility of survival and a new way of life. Intricately crafted and compulsively readable, The Bass Rock burns bright with anger and heart - a devastating indictment of the violence that men have inflicted on women throughout the ages. ...Show more

The Brisbane Line by J. P. Powell

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian Fiction

As WWII ravages the world and the Japanese Empire has set its sights on Australia, the Americans have come to save us. But not all soldiers are heroes and not all heroes are soldiers. Sergeant Joe Washington, a US Military Police, loves music and photography but spends his days delving into the sordid and petty crimes committed by the thousands of American troops passing through town. While trying to find stolen gasoline stores, he is sent to investigate the body of an American soldier found dumped in a cemetery. Suddenly Joe is up against notorious detective Frank Bischof. Although ordered to leave the investigation alone, Joe fears that Bischof is protecting the most likely suspect while trying to pin the crime on an innocent - and intriguing - young woman, Rose. A woman who seems to walk between the parallel worlds of black market deals and Brisbane's high society. ...Show more

Too Much Lip by Melissa Lucashenko

$29.95 AUD

Category: Australian Fiction

Winner of the Miles Franklin Award 2019! A dark and funny new novel from the multi-award-winning author of Mullumbimby. Too much lip, her old problem from way back. And the older she got, the harder it seemed to get to swallow her opinions. The avalanche of bullshit in the world would drown her if she let it; the least she could do was raise her voice in anger. Wise-cracking Kerry Salter has spent a lifetime avoiding two things - her hometown and prison. But now her Pop is dying and she's an inch away from the lockup, so she heads south on a stolen Harley. Kerry plans to spend twenty-four hours, tops, over the border. She quickly discovers, though, that Bundjalung country has a funny way of grabbing on to people. Old family wounds open as the Salters fight to stop the development of their beloved river. And the unexpected arrival on the scene of a good-looking dugai fella intent on loving her up only adds more trouble - but then trouble is Kerry's middle name. Gritty and darkly hilarious, Too Much Lip offers redemption and forgiveness where none seems possible. ...Show more

Wedding Puzzle by Sallie Muirden

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian Fiction

On the morning of her wedding, 24-year-old Beth Shaw drives down the peninsula to the Portsea Hotel. She is uneasy and confused because she has just learnt something devastating about her fiancé, Jordan, that completely changes her view of him. As Beth's old schoolmates and her relatives arrive f or the big day at the bay side idyll, Beth contemplates her childhood in suburbia. She worshipped the school relay runners, one of whom was Jordan's high school sweetheart. Painful memories of earlier disloyalties and betrayals resurface. Her dreams and wedding threaten to spin out of control. Will the truth ever be known? And must she make a fateful decision about more than the wedding arrangements? Award-winning author Sallie Muirden deftly evokes the contradictions of human behaviour, and growing up in the 70s and 80s. With its Austenesque feel, Wedding Puzzle is an astute, entertaining and often tense comedy of manners, that both questions and celebrates our choice of partner and the decision to marry as the key moment in our lives. 'Muirden captures Beth's messy transition to adulthood with warmth and wisdom--Wedding Puzzle is shrewd, nostalgic and intelligent.' Toni Jordan, author of Addition and The Fragments ...Show more