To which I say something like: ‘People are infinitely complex.’ But I say it in such a way—so pregnant with misanthropy—that it’s obvious I hate her.​Michaela and Eve are two bright, bold women who befriend each other their first year at a residential college at university, where they live in adjacent rooms. They could not be more different; one assured and popular – the other uncertain and eager-to-please. But something happens one night in O-week – a drunken encounter, a foggy memory that will force them to confront the realities of consent and wrestle with the dynamics of power.Initially bonded by their wit and sharp eye for the colleges’ mix of material wealth and moral poverty, Michaela and Eve soon discover how fragile friendship is, and how capable of betrayal they both are.​Written with a strikingly contemporary voice that is both wickedly clever and incisive, issues of consent, class and institutional privilege, and feminism become provocations for enduring philosophical questions we face today.

    A traumatic, violent upbringing saw to that. But after serving a short sentence for theft as a teenager, she worked hard to break the cycle. Thirteen years later Angela was studying, teaching, providing a stable home for her son, and finally feeling like she'd got her life together. Then she got hit by a postie bike. Police realised that Angela still had ten months to go on the prison sentence she'd thought was in her distant past. However, Angela was a different prisoner the second time around: no longer a scared, damaged nineteen-year-old, she knew how to speak up for herself and her fellow prisoners against a system of power, privilege and cruelty that controls the lives of Australia's most vulnerable women and offers little hope for redemption. With unwavering courage, intelligence and humour, SNAKES AND LADDERS reveals an astonishing true story of falling through the cracks, and what it takes to climb back out again.

    Her friend called with a job offer too curious to refuse: a cruisey-gig as a dementia carer for a rich old man in Kenya. All expenses-paid, plenty of free time to travel or do some freelance reporting. There seemed no good reason to say no... so she got on a plane.Only Kirsten's friend hadn't given her the full story. It was only on arrival in Nairobi that she discovered the rich old man's family was fighting a war around him, and that she would be on the frontline. Caught in the crossfire of all kinds of wild accusations, she also had to spy on his wife, keep his daughter placated, rebuff his marriage proposals, hide the car keys and clip his toenails all while trying to retain her own sanity in the colonial time warp of his home.Meanwhile, the Kenyan army was invading Somalia, Al-Shabaab was threatening terror attacks, the East African bodybuilding scene beckoned, and Kirsten discovered she had long-lost cousins running a bar on the other side of the city.I Built No Schools in Kenya is a travelogue-tragedy-farce about race, wealth, love, death, family, nationhood, sanity, benzodiazepines, monkeys and whisky.It is almost entirely true.

    Politician Dan LeRoi, Chairman of the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, has been shot. Four bullets to the head. The crime scene is chaotic. Homicide. Counter Terrorism. Media. And for Sid, hunting the killer is going to get complicated.Journalist Zephyr Wilde is complicated. She's tenacious and she's got Sid's number. Sid knows the gossip: how Zephyr's mother was murdered when Zephyr was a kid. He doesn't know that Zephyr is still getting letters from her long-dead mother. But when he learns that Dan LeRoi was helping Zephyr look into her mother's death, he realises that lines are going to be crossed. A cop should not be talking to a journalist.As they both ask too many questions, Sid and Zephyr stir up a hornet's nest of corruption. Knowing who to trust is going to mean the difference between solving a crime and being a victim. The question is, which side will they end up on.

    She knows there is something wrong with her but she doesn't know what it is. Her husband Patrick thinks she is fine. He says everyone has something, the thing is just to keep going.Martha told Patrick before they got married that she didn't want to have children. He said he didn't mind either way because he has loved her since he was fourteen and making her happy is all that matters, although he does not seem able to do it.By the time Martha finds out what is wrong, it doesn't really matter anymore. It is too late to get the only thing she has ever wanted. Or maybe it will turn out that you can stop loving someone and start again from nothing - if you can find something else to want.

    Dismissing concerns from family and friends that her safety and career were at risk, she arrived with no teaching experience whatsoever, to work at a high school in a town she'd never heard of, where the winters are frigid and plunge to sub-zero temperatures.During her childhood on an isolated cattle station in Central Australia, Tanya had always dreamed of adventure and romance in Europe but the Czech Republic was not the stuff of her dreams. On arrival, however, she falls headlong into misadventures that change her life forever.This land of castles, history and culture opened up to her and she to it. In love with Prague and her people, particularly with the charismatic Karel, who takes her into his home, his family and as far as he can into his heart, Tanya learns about lives very different to hers.Alice to Prague is a bittersweet story of a search for identity, belonging and love, set in a time, a place and with a man that fill Tanya's life with contradictions.

    Or am I allowing that uncontrollable imagination of mine too much slack? This is the story of an unlikely friendship.When priest and Sydneysider Tony Doherty emailed Melbourne-based writer and performer Ailsa Piper to say how much he had enjoyed her latest book, he was met with a swift reply from a similarly enquiring mind. Soon emails were flying back and forth and back again. They exchanged stories of their experiences as sweaty pilgrims and dissected dinner party menus. They shared their delight in Mary Oliver's poetry and wrestled with what it means to love and to grieve. This energetic exchange of words, questions and ideas grew into an unexpected but treasured friendship.Collected here is that correspondence, brimming with empathy, humour and a fierce curiosity about each other and the worlds, shoes and histories that they inhabit. Described by one reader as 'a demonstration of how to have a conversation and a friendship', The Attachment is an intriguing, entertaining and moving celebration of family, faith, connection-even the correct time of day to enjoy rhubarb.Dear Tony, Funny how our ears tune in to things. How our priorities shift based on who and what we know. How we come to care about such abstract or remote things through the experience of another. Lovely, somehow, but so serendipitous. All the other things we might care about. All that we might have missed had we not stopped to care for this person. I'm glad we stopped for each other. 'To read this book is to be present at the unfurling of a tender friendship between two thoughtful, compassionate humans, and like all the best collections of letters it's also a discursive wander through life's big questions. It will make you grateful for what you have, while urging you to seize the day with the people you love... It will make you want to write letters:goodones. I will read this book again and again.'Charlotte Wood, Stella Prize-winning author ofThe Natural Way of Things'... captures the intoxication of being swept into a new and deeply nourishing friendship. It fizzes with joy and humour, wrestles with agonising questions, always anchored in compassion and wisdom.' Debra Oswald, author ofUseful'The Attachmentmade me want to notice my world, love my world,shape it into words. It is a book about friendship but more than that, these two letter-writers - these unlikely friends - are mature enough to know the value of the moment, the value of friendship, how precious and fleeting life is... I was moved, and surprised, and completed the book in a veil of tears... The book enriched me, and inspired me.'Sofie Laguna, Miles Franklin award-winning author ofThe Eye of the Sheep'From the first seed of recognition, the feverish exchange of ideas and confidences to a deep and abiding appreciation,The Attachmentis a candid, illuminating journey into the heart of a profound and unexpected friendship, and a testament to the art of correspondence.'Kat Stewart, actor'... the chronicle of an unlikely but beautiful friendship thatwill inspire you to value your own friendships more highly, and to nurture them more carefully.'Hugh Mackay, author ofBeyond Belief

    She finds herself ousted from the family home and separated from their remaining son, Andy.As Jan tries to cope with her grief and prepares to build a new life, it soon becomes known that Simon has left behind a bombshell, and her younger son seeks ways of compensating for his loss, leading to further issues for her to deal with.Can Jan hold it all together and save her marriage and her family?

    Knights of blood and of war bring forth the very worst that Medieval brutality has to offer, but in that darkness, there is a ray of hope. Women of brightness shine the most when confronting the darkness within men. Be shocked at nothing within the pages of this collection, for these novels will take you into the blackness and then back again, where love reigns supreme, even over evil. Romance has many shades, in many ways. This set contains: The Dark Lord Devil's Dominion Black Sword Lord of the Shadows Dark Destroyer This is a limited edition collection to enjoy.

    As daughters of the lighthouse keepers, the two girls share everything, until a fisherman, McPhail, arrives in their small community. When Kate witnesses the desire that flares between him and Harriet, she is torn by her feelings of envy and longing. But one moment in McPhail’s hut will change the course of their lives forever. Inspired by a true story, Skylarking is a stunning debut novel about friendship, love and loss, one that questions what it is to remember and how tempting it can be to forget.‘Kate Mildenhall’s impressive debut novel takes an historical case and re-imagines it with such sensitivity and insight that we feel this must be how it truly happened.’ —Emily Bitto

    It is proof that, 'if you go looking for trouble, you'll probably find it'. Over nearly 40 years as a journalist and foreign correspondent, Hugh Riminton has been shot at, blown up, threatened with deportation and thrown in jail. He has reported from nearly 50 countries, witnessed massacres in Africa, wars and conflicts on four continents, and every kind of natural disaster. It has been an extraordinary life. From a small-town teenager with a drinking problem, cleaning rat cages for a living, to a multi-award-winning international journalist reporting to an audience of 300 million people, Hugh has been a frontline witness to our times. From genocide in Africa to the Indian Ocean tsunami, from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to slave-trading in Sudan, Hugh has seen the best and worst of human behaviour. In Australia, he has covered political dramas, witnessed the Port Arthur Massacre and the Thredbo disaster and broke a major national scandal. His work helped force half-a-dozen government inquiries.Entertaining, deeply personal and quietly wise, MINEFIELDS is a compelling exploration of a foreign correspondent's life. 'His story is a triumph' SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

    Honour and courage in the wild and unpredictable Outback.' Wilbur Smith1853, Victoria, Australia. Five bushrangers led by the murderous outlaw Warrigal Anderson raid a small homestead. When they ride away, nineteen-year-old Toby O'Rourke's life is changed forever. His parents lay dead at his feet and his brother, Patrick, is badly wounded.But Toby O'Rourke is made of steel forged in the hardship of colonial life. Forced into adulthood, he and Patrick will seek to restore the family fortunes and outwit not only the rich businessman who conspired to rob them of their birth right, but the vicious men who murdered their parents . . .For readers of Wilbur Smith, Jeffrey Archer and Bryce Courtenay, as fast-paced adventure story and the winner of the best unpublished manuscript category of the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize.

    But this year won't be the same. Her daughter, Gracie, has joined her brother Jack at boarding school and Sandi dreads waking up to a quiet house. Even her husband, Paul, seems distant and preoccupied with farm work. So she never could have guessed what the day has in store...

    For Harper, living with what she calls the Up syndrome and gifted with an endless capacity for wonder, Marlowe and she are connected by an invisible thread, like the hum that connects all things. For Marlowe, they are bound by her fierce determination to keep Harper, born with a congenital heart disorder, alive.Now 25, Marlowe is finally living her own life abroad, pursuing her studies of a rare species of butterfly secure in the knowledge Harper’s happiness is complete, having found love with boyfriend, Louis. But then she receives the devastating call that Harper’s heart is failing. She needs a heart transplant but is denied one by the medical establishment because she is living with a disability. Marlowe rushes to her childhood home in Hong Kong to be by Harper’s side and soon has to answer the question – what lengths would you go to save your sister?When Things Are Alive They Hum poses profound questions about the nature of love and existence, the ways grief changes us, and how we confront the hand fate has dealt us. Intensely moving, exquisitely written and literally humming with wonder, it is a novel that celebrates life in all its guises, and what comes after.

    What is art? What’s true courage? I could not put it down.’ —Melissa Ashley,bestselling author of THE BIRDMAN’S WIFELotti lives under the shadow of a genius: her father George Coates is a brilliant and celebrated Australian painter.When Lotti meets the outcast waif Kyla at a suburban Canberra school, two worlds are set to collide. Slowly Kyla is drawn into the orbit of the Coates family. Or is it the other way around?As Lotti and Kyla navigate their way towards adulthood, dark secrets start to unravel, with devastating consequences …WE WERE NEVER FRIENDS is unforgettable novel about friendship, the pursuit of a creative life and the legacies we leave behind.‘Margaret Bearman’s intimate, unsettling novel of family dysfunction perfectly captures the ambivalent passions of girlhood while offering an incisive critiqueof the cult of artistic genius. Sharp and subtle at the same time, refusing any easy certainties, WE WERE NEVER FRIENDS is a haunting portrait of the humancapacity for cruelty and love in equal measure.’ —Kirsten Tranter, bestselling author of THE LEGACY