But her widow's weeds belie a determined young woman with a big ambition: Amy is going to build the grandest rural hotel in the colony of New South Wales, complete with its very own ‘ascending cabinet'.Meanwhile, her best friend, Eliza Miller, has dreams of her own - to become one of Australia's first female doctors. However when she returns to Millbrooke from her medical studies at the Sorbonne, she finds the job she thought was hers has been taken … by a man.Over the course of two turbulent years both women will face difficult choices – love or duty? Career or marriage? Is it possible to have it all …?

    Having lost her husband, Frank, in tragic circumstances three years earlier, 65-year-old Franny copes the only way she knows how: by removing herself completely from the life she had before. Franny lives a life of decadent seclusion, with only her two dogs, Whisky and Soda, a stuffed cat, cocktails and the memory of Frank for company.Then the Salernos move in next door. The troubled but charming trio - beleaguered mother Sallyanne, angry teenager Dee and eccentric eight-year-old Josh - cannot help but pull Franny into the drama of their lives. But despite her fixation with independence, Franny's wisecracks and culinary experiments hide considerable trauma and pain, and when her eccentric behaviour has life-threatening consequences she faces a reckoning of sorts. Yes, Frank is dead, but did the woman he loved have to perish with him?A story about one woman, two dogs and the family next door, Happy Hour is a hilarious and uplifting insight into grief, loss, true love and friendship.

    A family secret. Two women hiding from the truth.When successful Sydney lawyer Miranda McIntyre searches for something old to go with her wedding dress, she remembers an antique necklace from her childhood. Her mother's denial of its existence only deepens Miranda's curiosity but the discovery of a faded wedding photo and an old newspaper clipping reveal long-buried family secrets.Who is the woman in the photo? And why are these keepsakes hidden in her mother's closet?Miranda's quest for the truth takes her on a road trip south to the idyllic seaside village of Pelican Point where she stumbles upon a secluded cliff-top cottage and the reclusive Esther Wilson. As Miranda begins to unravel the mystery, a tale of daring rescue, forbidden love and shocking betrayal unfolds.Meeting enigmatic horse trainer Vincent Kennedy forces Miranda to question the life she has worked so hard to create, throwing into turmoil everything she thought she knew about the past and about herself.A multi-generational story of family, hope and following your heart.

    . .and the nightmare begin?Frank owns a service station on a little-used highway. His granddaughter, Allie, is sent to stay with him for the summer, but they don't talk a lot.Simon is a dreamer and an idealist, in thrall to the romance of the open road and desperately in search of something.Maggie is the woman who will bring them together, someone whose own personal journey will visit unimaginable terror on them all. . .'With echoes of Deliverance and Battle Royale, the Australian outback-set The Hunted is a truly terrifying, breathlessly exciting novel. It gut-punches you in the first few pages and doesn't let you recover until the final, thrilling climax. An extraordinary book.' M. W. CRAVEN What readers are saying: 'A high octane roller-coaster of a novel, brilliantly written with strong characters to cheer for. Just don't read it before going to sleep like I did.''This type of horror/action thriller isn't my usual thing but boy, did I love this book.''This entire book was just pure, fast-paced tension and I loved every insane page of it.''I'd say it's a hard book to put down, but a couple of times I found the suspense heightened enough that I needed a break. That's how good it was.''Even the squeamish would find it difficult to put this book down for very long.'

    In his earlier, award-winning novels, Dominic Smith demonstrated a gift for coaxing the past to life. Now, in The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, he deftly bridges the historical and the contemporary, tracking a collision course between a rare landscape by a female Dutch painter of the golden age, an inheritor of the work in 1950s Manhattan, and a celebrated art historian who painted a forgery of it in her youth.In 1631, Sara de Vos is admitted as a master painter to the Guild of St. Luke's in Holland, the first woman to be so recognized. Three hundred years later, only one work attributed to de Vos is known to remain--a haunting winter scene, At the Edge of a Wood, which hangs over the bed of a wealthy descendant of the original owner. An Australian grad student, Ellie Shipley, struggling to stay afloat in New York, agrees to paint a forgery of the landscape, a decision that will haunt her. Because now, half a century later, she's curating an exhibit of female Dutch painters, and both versions threaten to arrive. As the three threads intersect, The Last Painting of Sara de Vos mesmerizes while it grapples with the demands of the artistic life, showing how the deceits of the past can forge the present.

    Faced with destitution after the death of her father, she becomes a highwaywoman to support her impoverished family. One fatal mistake leads to her arrest, and the king’s justice demands her death. But rather than beg for mercy, Jenny condemns the system that would make her choose between obeying the law and dying, and breaking it for the chance to survive. Her ferocity convinces the judge to spare her life, and he sentences her and dozens of other convicts to transport across the seas to England's penal colony in Australia.   After a grueling passage on a filthy ship where she must sell her body for protection, Jenny learns that her struggles have only just begun. The landscape of Sydney Cove is harsh and unwelcoming to the new settlers, with its arid climate and precious little fresh water. Despite the lack of shackles or bars, she and the others are still prisoners under the strict watch of Governor Edward Lockharty, and no amount of cunning can earn his favor. Jenny refuses to submit to the governor or to the barren land unable to support the growing population. Determined to find a better life for herself and her children, she braves the sea, and a journey of over three thousand miles in a small rowboat, for a chance at a future worth fighting for.   Based on the true story of Mary Bryant, an iconic figure in the foundation lore of Australia, Fled is a sweeping, heart-wrenching account of one woman's life-long search for freedom.

    One dead, one missing and one accused of murder. Dubbed the Housemate Homicide, it's a mystery that has baffled Australians for almost a decade. Melbourne-based journalist Olive Groves worked on the story as a junior reporter and became obsessed by the case. Now, nine years later, the missing housemate turns up dead on a remote property. Oli is once again assigned to the story, this time reluctantly paired with precocious millennial podcaster Cooper Ng.As Oli and Cooper unearth new facts about the three housemates, a dark web of secrets is uncovered. The revelations catapult Oli back to the death of the first housemate, forcing her to confront past traumas and insecurities that have risen to the surface again.What really happened between the three housemates that night? Will Oli's relentless search for the murderer put her new family in danger? And could her suspicion that the truth lies closer to home threaten her happiness and even her sanity?A riveting, provocative thriller from the bestselling author of The Dark Lake, Into the Night and Where the Dead Go.

    After lunch, a group of three of the girls climbed into the blaze of the afternoon sun, pressing on through the scrub into the shadows of Hanging Rock. Further, higher, till at last they disappeared.They never returned.Whether Picnic at Hanging Rock is fact or fiction the reader must decide for themselves.

    After a devastating discovery, Grace Woods leaves her vast Australian sheep station and travels to tumultuous post-war Paris in order to find her true identity.While working as a glamorous mannequin for Christian Dior, the world's newly acclaimed emperor of fashion, Grace mixes with counts and princesses, authors and artists, diplomats and politicians.But when Grace falls for handsome Philippe Boyer she doesn't know that he is leading a double life, nor that his past might inflict devastating consequences upon her. As she is drawn into Philippe's secret world of international espionage, Grace discovers both the shattering truth of her origins - and that her life is in peril.Based on a true story, The Paris Model is a tale of glamour, family secrets and heartbreak that takes you from the Australian outback to the exclusive salons of Paris.

    At once the story of a region, a town and people, it is also the story of Anna Tolley - "leggy, wilful and auburn-haired, always answering back" - who lives through momentous changes and earns the envy, love and hatred of those around her.

    And you can talk about a Mallee tree. And you can talk about the Mallee itself: a land and a place full of red sand and short stubby trees. Silent skies. The undulating scorch of summer plains. Quiet, on the surface of things. But Elise wasn't from the Mallee, and she knew nothing of its ways. Discover the world of a small homestead perched on the sunburnt farmland of northern Victoria. Meet Elise, whose urbane 1950s glamour is rudely transplanted to the pragmatic red soil of the Mallee when her husband returns to work the family farm. But you cannot uproot a plant and expect it to thrive. And so it is with Elise. Her meringues don't impress the shearers, the locals scoff at her Paris fashions, her husband works all day in the back paddock, and the drought kills everything but the geraniums she despises.As their mother withdraws more and more into herself, her spirited, tearaway daughters, Marjorie and Ruby, wild as weeds, are left to raise themselves as best they can. Until tragedy strikes, and Marjorie flees to the city determined to leave her family behind. And there she stays, leading a very different life, until the boy she loves draws her back to the land she can't forget...'In the same vein as Rosalie Ham, Brinsden weaves a compelling story of country Australia with all its stigma, controversy and beauty.' Fleur McDonald

    A body of damning evidence. A world of betrayal.Eighteen-year-old Ellie Canning is found shivering and barely conscious on a country road, clad only in ill-fitting pyjamas. Her story of kidnap and escape quickly enthrals the nation: a middle-aged woman with a crazy old mother has held Ellie in a basement, chained her to a bed and given her drinks from an old baby's sippy cup. But who was this woman and what did she want with Ellie? And what other secrets might she hide?When the accusation is levelled at local teacher Suzannah Wells, no one seems more bewildered than Suzannah herself ... to start with. The preposterous charge becomes manifestly more real as she loses her job and her friends. And the evidence is strong: a dementia-affected mother, a house with a basement, a sippy cup that belonged to her long-dead daughter. And Ellie Canning's DNA everywhere. As stories about Susannah's past emerge, even those closest to her begin to doubt she's innocent.And Ellie? The media can't get enough of her. She's a girl-power icon, a social-media star. But is she telling the truth?

    It’s a place populated by those who are beholden to it, those who were born to it and those who took a wrong turn while trying to go somewhere else.City-born Carra married into Nowhere River, Lucie was brought to it by tragedy, Josie is root-bound and Florence knows nowhere else. All of them, though familiar with every inch of their tiny hometown, are as lost as the place itself.The town’s social cornerstone — St Margery’s Ladies’ Club — launches a rescue plan that turns everything around and upside down, then shakes it until all sorts of things come floating to the surface. And none of its inhabitants will ever be the same again.This is the highly original and heartfelt story of a place where everybody knows everything, but no one really knows anyone at all. Brimming with heart and humour, this is a delightful novel that celebrates the country people and towns of Australia.

    Or a relationship. Or just a date with a semi-normal person will do.It’s not that she hasn’t tried. She’s the queen of online dating. But enough is enough. Inspired by her job at The Little Brunswick Street Bookshop, Frankie decides to take fate into her own hands and embarks on the ultimate love experiment.Her plan? Plant her favourite books on trains inscribed with her contact details in a bid to lure the sophisticated, charming and well-read man of her dreams.Enter Sunny, and one spontaneous kiss later, Frankie begins to fall for him. But there’s just one problem – Frankie is strictly a classics kind of gal, and Sunny is really into Young Adult. Like really.A quirky and uplifting love letter to books, friendship and soulmates.

    A free-spirited country girl with a cause. Fireworks are guaranteed...Upstanding principal Jy Atherton dreads the next four weeks. As punishment for crossing his bosses, he's been lumped with the inglorious task of assessing Acacia Haven's tiny school with its, dare he say, 'hippie' curriculum. With the lowest test scores in the state, it's no wonder shutting it down is practically a forgone conclusion. But then he crosses paths with a spitfire who knocks him for six - pity he's already public enemy number one...Teacher Summer O'Reilly loves her small town nestled along the beautiful coast. Returning was the best decision she ever made. The intentional living community of Serenity is thriving, and the children are its future. No way will she allow a jumped-up suit - no matter how good-looking - to close the school her precious students need.For Rayne O'Reilly, Acacia Haven has always been serene on the surface, but there's a dark secret she's kept from everyone for decades, including her daughter, Summer. But after reviving old friendships and reconnecting with the past, will she finally have the courage to tear down the walls that have kept her trapped?PRAISE FOR NICOLA MARSH:'I've fallen in love with the small town and the close-knit community.' Instagram review @wherethefksyourcake'A beautiful and touching story, underscored by emotional themes, Second Chance Lane is not to be missed.' - Mrs B's Book Reviews'A satisfying read with plenty of drama and a big dollop of romance.' - The Weekly Times