And what followed was people taking back the conversation from the politicians.On Reckoning is a searing account of Amy's personal and professional rage, taking you inside the parliament - and out - during one of the most confronting and uncomfortable conversations in recent memory.

    Until one morning, when he rescues a young Afghan man, Amin, from certain execution.Now, with a gang of people smugglers on his tail and the lives of Amin's family on the line, Gabe is drawn into a ruthless game of cat and mouse. His main opponent is Chase Fowler, a kangaroo hunter with bush skills as wily and sharp as his own.As the old dogger and roo-shooter go head to head, Gabe will need all his cunning to come out of this alive…'Wild Dogs is a just-one-more-chapter thriller that kept me up long after lights out.' -Jack Heath

    A teenage girl injured during a robbery. Two seemingly unconnected cases that will push a detective to the brink. An atmospheric, compelling new voice in Australian crime fiction. In Northern New South Wales, heavily pregnant and a week away from maternity leave, Detective Sergeant Kate Miles is exhausted and counting down the days. But a violent hold-up at a local fast-food restaurant with unsettling connections to her own past, means that her final days will be anything but straightforward.When a second case is dumped on her lap, the closed case of man drowned in recent summer floods, what begins as a simple informal review quickly grows into something more complicated. Kate can either write the report that's expected of her or investigate the case the way she wants to.As secrets and betrayals pile up, and the needs of her own family intervene, how far is Kate prepared to push to discover the truth?

    Man meets woman. Sparks fly. All good love stories start here and usually face a myriad of challenges before the young couple find that together they are better. This set of Contemporary Christian romance stories come from writers across both sides of the pond and Downunder, proving that romance is not only a sweet thing, it's global. Here's a set of stories to inspire, encourage faith, and meet all the warm-fuzzy expectations. In this boxset, you'll receive a total of seven novellas from these popular Christian Romance authors: Fake Engagement Mistake © 2021 by Lisa ReneeLast Flight Home © 2021 Milla HoltFalling for Maddie Grace © 2021 Meredith ResceThe Billionaire's Impromptu Bet © 2021 Lorana HoopesHis Perfect Catch © 2021 Narelle AtkinsOriginally Yours © 2021 Carolyn MillerImperfectly Proverbs 31 © 2021 Autumn Macarthur

    He’s been batting for his local cricket club for decades — and he’s a statistical miracle. He’s overweight, he makes very few runs, he’s not pretty to watch, but he’s never been dismissed.When local schoolgirl Cassie Midwinter discovers this feat, she decides to take the matter further. The remarkable story finds its way into the hands of Donna Garrett, a female sports columnist who’s forced to write under a male pseudonym to be taken seriously.That summer, the West Indies are thrashing Australia, and the Australian people’s love of cricket has never been lower. But Donna’s columns on Roy Cooper capture the imagination of a nation, and soon there’s pressure to select him for the national team. This would see him playing at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, carrying the spirit of every small country town in Australia along with him. Could such a miracle actually happen?This is sport, after all, and who doesn’t love a good story?COOPER NOT OUT is a funny, heart-warming novel set within real events. It is a moving and highly original tale about friendship and belief, and the joy of discovering your greatest potential.

    What she doesn’t expect is to meet her friend’s twin brother, the first man to stir her feelings when she was an impressionable nineteen-year-old.As a young man, Martin Cooper couldn’t wait to leave Bellbird Bay. He has spent the past thirty years travelling the world and has accomplished his dream of becoming a celebrated travel photographer. But it has come at a price and, when his career and personal life take a downward turn, he returns to his hometown to consider his future.When an accident thrusts the two together, their earlier attraction resurfaces. Torn between the desire to protect herself from further hurt and her renewed feelings for the man she’s never forgotten, can Ailsa find happiness again or is it too late?A heartwarming tale of family, friends, and how a second chance at love can happen when you least expect it.

    

    All the while, they talk: about the weather, horoscopes, clothes, and objects, about family, distance, and memory. But uncertainties abound. Who is really speaking here - is it only the daughter? And what is the real reason behind this elliptical, perhaps even spectral journey? At once a careful reckoning and an elegy, Cold Enough for Snow questions whether any of us speak a common language, which dimensions can contain love, and what claim we have to truly know another's inner world.Selected from more than 1,500 entries, Cold Enough for Snow won the Novel Prize, a new, biennial award offered by Fitzcarraldo Editions, New Directions (US) and Giramondo (Australia), for any novel written in English that explores and expands the possibilities of the form.

    May has come from Australia to Loveland, Nebraska, to claim the house on the poisoned lake as part of her grandmother's will. Escaping the control of her husband, will she find refuge or danger?As she starts repairing the old house, May is drawn to discover more about her silent, emotionally distant grandmother and unravel the secrets that Casey had moved halfway around the world to keep hidden. How she and Casey's lives interconnect, and the price they both must pay for their courage, is gradually revealed as this mesmerising and lyrical novel unfolds.Compelling, compassionate and profoundly moving, this new novel by the acclaimed author of The Everlasting Sunday confirms Robert Lukins as one of our finest writers.'Gripping, insightful and absolutely searing.' -Emily Maguire, author of Love Objects'A book of such tenderness and precision: it is radiant.' -Stephanie Bishop, author of Man Out of Time'Heartbreaking in its emotional reach.' -Gail Jones, author of Our Shadows'A novel that is as gloriously satisfying as it is achingly beautiful. A must-read.' -Paige Clark, author of She Is Haunted'It takes a masterful writer to tell an ugly story so beautifully. I couldn't stop reading it.' -Allee Richards, author of Small Joys of Real Life

    Skink slips into the shade. Echidna hides in grass as dry as tinder. Under the hill, Wombat carves out a cave that’s all his own. Then—KABOOM!—lightning strikes.Written in simple and concise language perfect for a read aloud, award-winning author Sarah L. Thomson invites readers to see through the eyes of a wombat as a fire rages through Australian outback. Nearly 3 billion animals were affected by the Australian wildfires of 2019-2020, and wombats played a crucial part in allowing their homes to transform as safe havens for other animals whose homes were destroyed in the fires. Paired with stunning and richly layered art by Charles Santoso, Wombat Underground teaches us that the time of greatest danger is also the time to open our door to those in the greatest need.

    An abused and abusive mother. An army of relatives. A tapestry of violence, woven across generations and geographies, from Turkey to Lebanon to Western Sydney. This is the legacy left to Jamal Smith, a young queer Muslim trying to escape a past in which memory and rumour trace ugly shapes in the dark. When every thread in life constricts instead of connects, how do you find a way to breathe? Torn between faith and fear, gossip and gospel, family and friendship, Jamal must find and test the limits of love.In this extraordinary work, Omar Sakr deftly weaves a multifaceted tale brimming with angels and djinn, racist kangaroos and adoring bats, examining with a poet’s eye the destructive impetus of repressed desire and the complexities that make us human.

    Observant, warm and extraordinary.In the mid-1950s, a small group of Finnish migrants set up camp on Little Rat, a tiny island in an archipelago off the coast of Western Australia. The crayfishing industry is in its infancy, and the islands, haunted though they are by past shipwrecks, possess an indefinable allure.Drawn here by tragedy, Onni Saari is soon hooked by the stark beauty of the landscape and the slivers of jutting coral onto which the crayfishers build their precarious huts. Could these reefs, teeming with the elusive and lucrative cray, hold the key to a good life?The Islands is the sweeping story of the Saari family: Onni, an industrious and ambitious young man, grappling with the loss of a loved one; his wife Alva, quiet but stoic, seeking a sense of belonging between the ramshackle camps of the islands and the dusty suburban lots of the mainland; and their pensive daughter Hilda, who dreams of becoming the skipper of her own boat. As the Saari's try to build their future in Australia, their lives entwine with those of the fishing families of Little Rat, in myriad and unexpected ways.A stunning, insightful story of a search for home.'There is an other-worldly quality about the Abrolhos which is beyond the reach of ordinary storytelling. Emily Brugman has captured them, staked them to the page in all their isolation and aridity and scoured indifference, because her storytelling is extraordinary.' Jock Serong, bestselling author of Preservation'Strongly felt, deeply felt, original.' Tegan Bennett Daylight'Beautiful, fresh, wise and true - startlingly good.' - Robert Drewe, award-winning author of Whipbird'A beautiful, breathtaking, salty book about finding home on the far reaches of the continental shelf.' Marele Day, author of bestselling Lambs of God

    With that comes inherited determination and grit, and for Tess, a wildness that can’t be tamed. So, when Alex left her without explanation five years earlier, she was devastated but not surprised. As a distraction, she threw herself into her work on her organic farm, and it worked until Alex unexpectedly arrived back in Willow Falls. Unfortunately for Tess, he’s resolute on making amends for all of the hurt he’s caused, which means digging up the past she’d buried.A childhood tragedy has left Alex feeling unworthy of redemption. Returning home to Willow Falls after years away is difficult for him, and seeing Tess again is more complicated than he could have predicted. He has some work to do to gain her trust, and he convinces himself that he’s ready to face his demons. A sacrifice he’s willing to make for another chance with her.Tess wishes she had a choice in a future with Alex. Instead, he’s thrust into her life in this small rural town. To keep her plans on track, she too has to face the past. The question is: are some wounds too deep to heal?

    For these women, there is less than a 1 per cent chance that their rapist has been arrested, prosecuted, and convicted of the crime. These are the bare numerical facts of system failure. We offer rape survivors a stark choice: go to the police, or remain silent. In recent times, the public pressure on survivors to report has increased, alongside a growing focus on two other options: civil action against the perpetrator, or going public. These evolving social responses are intended to offer an alternative to the tradition of silencing. However, each of these choices, for survivors, involves a further sacrifice of what they have already lost. The legal system’s responses to rape were designed without survivors in mind, and they do not address, in any way, the questions that survivors ask or the needs they express. Simply put, on the systemic response to rape, we are having the wrong conversation.

    But reinventing yourself isn’t easy at twenty-four, especially when you don’t know who you are. For starters, does she want to be the kind of person who fancies that grumpy random guy from the park? Daniel Ryce certainly doesn’t seem like vision board material, but since when does life go according to plan?The Guy from the Park is a short and sweet "meet ugly" story, set in the world of Somerville Downs.

    'If you don't know Lo, you don't know sh*t. This is the best music book of the year, a dream-like celebration of women and song. A triumph.' Noah Taylor'We've all got them, the lighters of the way, those mythological wonders who glow in our dark. These are the ones I got to be close to, whether in a real or allusive sense; these are the ones that got to me in a way that still flows through my veins. I think you'll understand why soon...'Lo Carmen was discovered at sixteen working in a Kings Cross pizza bar and cast as in the seminal Australian film The Year My Voice Broke, for which she was nominated for an AFI award. But even before that, Lo has lived a bigger life than most. From being backstage at Rolling Stones concerts when she was a baby to writing her first song at eight; performing an original song onstage at nine; having a baby while barely out of her teens; forming her first band at twenty one; touring Europe without a manager, funds or a safety net; and all the while making music her life and her art. In all this, Lo has been inspired by a handful of women - all icons, one way or another, of modern Australian life.Lo Carmen weaves her own remarkable story as a critically acclaimed singer/songwriter together with compelling portraits of the women who have influenced her life and career: bold creative visionaries, trailblazers, provocateurs, pioneers, feminists and activists such as Renee Geyer, Chrissy Amphlett, Robyn Archer and Sallie-Anne Huckstepp, exploring the often complex lives of these fascinating women as a way of understanding her own life and choices.A tender, joyous, messy, vibrant and wholly inspiring investigation of creativity, passion, purpose, art and music.'A hard won account of the mess, glory and risk of making art. Lo tells her story by telling the stories of all those who've lit and tended her flame. She knows that worship is at the heart of creation. And she writes like a river.' Paul Kelly'Loene has always been unique. Lovers Dreamers Fighters is beautifully written.' Don Walker'There is an electricity and trueness to Loene's voice you can't fake. It involves her passion for art and music, but also a love for outsiders who have something special to give. Her intense humanity and feel for unexpected intimate detail goes to your core.' Mark Mordue, Boy on Fire'A little bit country, a little bit rock n roll, Loene Carmen's writing is vivid, sassy and intimate. From the studios of Nashville to the grimy bars of the Cross, Lovers Dreamers Fighters is a memoir about the power of song, family and spiritual connection, but most of all a love letter to the soul-sisters who have shaped Lo's creative spirit, and Australia's cultural history, through the generations.' Kirsten Krauth, Almost a Mirror

    After Taylor Kennedy makes a fatal Facebook error and is dumped by his best friend, he’s befriended by his eccentric next-door neighbour. Cravat-wearing, Chupa Chup addicted aspiring pornographer Chip drives a funeral hearse and talks to dead people. And he wants Taylor to help him create a body-positive Instagram account, Hotties of the Northern Burbs. But mild-mannered prison escapee Jackson Rollock has other plans for them. Soon after he leaps Taylor’s backyard fence, they’re liberating Jackson’s beloved, mouthy grandmother from her nursing home and hitting the road to fulfil her dying wish. And sardonic, black-clad stranger Chloe, who has her own reasons for getting out of town, hitches a ride. They’ll break the rules, bare their souls ... and make a shitload of questionable jokes, while inadvertently exploring sexuality, consent, the dark side of social media, mental health and friendship. Frank, fearless and taboo-breaking, That Thing I Did is a rollicking road trip with a serious side.

    He returns without his horse, a man forever changed by what he has seen and suffered. Years later, Arthur’s children Ruth and Tom are still feeling the effects of the first war when Tom is sent by his father to work in Sumatra. Tom Watkins is there in 1942 when the Japanese invade and is taken prisoner. This is the story of two wars that divide and unite a father and son, and all the years that lie in between.

    But Fortress Australia, and the sense of security it provides, is an illusion. For over a century, extreme ideologies have seeped through the borders into Australian communities. Terrorists have repeatedly emerged from the shadows, bringing terrible violence.Chasing Shadows exposes the surprisingly long history of political and religious violence in Australia. It incorporates previously classified and little-known information, shedding new light on major incidents and thwarted attacks. It reveals what motivates extremist groups of different stripes, and how they recruit and train their members.Starting with early Irish nationalists, it covers left-wing radicals, right-wing extremists such as Croatian fascists and white supremacists, cults such as Ananda Marga and Aum Shinrikyo, and the influence of the international jihadist networks Al Qaeda and Islamic State. Homegrown far-right extremists are back in the news, with the Christchurch massacre and the copycat actions it inspired around the world. Chasing Shadows shows how we can make sense of what looks like meaningless violence.'Essential reading for those seeking to understand the contemporary terrorist phenomenon in Australia.' - David Irvine AO, former Director-General of Security in charge of ASIO'Engaging, well-researched and comprehensive, Chasing Shadows is a major contribution to understanding the past and present terrorist threats to Australia.' - Emeritus Professor David Horner, author of The Spy Catchers

    . .A gorgeous hardback book for kids of all ages.

    

    The late 1800s was a time when women were meant to know their place. But when Bessie starts to work for Louisa Lawson at The Dawn, she comes to realise there’s more to a woman’s place than servitude to a husband. Years later her daughter Kathleen flees to Paris to escape a secret she cannot accept. But World War One intervenes, exposing her to both the best and the worst of humanity. Masterful and epic, this book is both a splendid evocation of early Sydney, and a truly powerful story about how women and minorities fought against being silenced.