Book picks similar to
The Valley of Lost Stories by Vanessa McCausland


aussie-authors
aussie-author
contemporary
mystery

Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil


Melina Marchetta - 2016
    A suspect has already been singled out: a 17-year-old girl who has since disappeared from the scene.The press has now revealed that she is the youngest member of one of London's most notorious families. Thirteen years earlier, her grandfather set off a suicide bomb in a grocery store, a bomb her mother confessed to building. Has the girl decided to follow in their footsteps?To find her, Bish must earn the trust of her friends and family, including her infamous mother, now serving a life sentence in prison--but as he delves into the deadly bus attack that claimed five lives, the ghosts of older crimes become impossible to ignore.A gripping fusion of literary suspense and family drama, Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil is a fast-paced puzzle of a novel that will keep readers feverishly turning pages.

The Book of Hidden Wonders


Polly Crosby - 2020
    To help make ends meet, he creates an illustrated book with Romilly—striking girl with red hair and a mole on her cheek—as the heroine with her cat, Monty. The book becomes an instant success and their estate is overrun with tourists and adventure seekers after rumors spread that hidden within its pages is an elaborate treasure hunt.As Romilly gets older and her father writes more books, he starts disappearing within himself. She returns to his illustrations, looking for a way to connect with her ailing father, and finds a series of clues he’s left just for her. But this treasure hunt doesn’t lead her to gold or precious stones, but something worth far more—a shocking secret that is crucial to understanding her family.Written with tremendous heart and charisma, The Book of Hidden Wonders is an unforgettable story about growing up, facing mortality and discovering the hidden wonders that make us who we are.

A Long Way From Home


Peter Carey - 2017
    Her husband is the best car salesman in rural south eastern Australia. Together with Willie, their lanky navigator, they embark upon the Redex Trial, a brutal race around the continent, over roads no car will ever quite survive.A Long Way from Home is Peter Carey's late style masterpiece; a thrilling high speed story that starts in one way, then takes you to another place altogether. Set in the 1950s in the embers of the British Empire, painting a picture of Queen and subject, black, white and those in-between, this brilliantly vivid novel illustrates how the possession of an ancient culture spirals through history - and the love made and hurt caused along the way.

Before This Is Over


Amanda Hickie - 2015
    At first it is a distant alarm bell in the background of Hannah's comfortable suburban life. Then suddenly, it has arrived on the doorstep. The quarantine traps Hannah, her husband, and their young sons in their home and forces them to rely on their own resourcefulness as water and power supplies are cut, food reserves dwindle, and their formerly idyllic backyard and quiet street become battlefields. Hannah is convinced that if she keeps her wits about her, she can protect her family, even as one threat after another looms just on the other side of the door.Compulsively readable and deeply personal, Before This Is Over forces us to grapple with disas­ter through the eyes of an ordinary woman. How far will she go to keep her loved ones safe?

Bitter Orange


Claire Fuller - 2018
    The couple is spending the summer of 1969 in the rooms below hers while Frances is researching the architecture in the surrounding gardens. But she's distracted. Beneath a floorboard in her bathroom, she finds a peephole that gives her access to her neighbors’ private lives.To Frances' surprise, Cara and Peter are keen to get to know her. It is the first occasion she has had anybody to call a friend, and before long they are spending every day together: eating lavish dinners, drinking bottle after bottle of wine, and smoking cigarettes until the ash piles up on the crumbling furniture. Frances is dazzled.But as the hot summer rolls lazily on, it becomes clear that not everything is right between Cara and Peter. The stories that Cara tells don’t quite add up, and as Frances becomes increasingly entangled in the lives of the glamorous, hedonistic couple, the boundaries between truth and lies, right and wrong, begin to blur. Amid the decadence, a small crime brings on a bigger one: a crime so terrible that it will brand their lives forever.

We Were Not Men


Campbell Mattinson - 2021
    'We were sons, we were brothers. I didn't know how to be either.' This is a story about love. About the love that nine-year-old twins Jon and Eden Hardacre have for their mum, for the creek that they swim in, for each other - this is the love that they trust, that's clear and pure as sunlight, as honey, as water.But in the wake of a terrible accident, the boys have to grow up fast. They compete with each other to make the Olympic Games swimming squad, fall in love with the same girl, and begin to realise how complicated love can be and how it doesn't always show itself in the ways that we expect.Heart-hammeringly original, intense and deeply moving, We Were Not Men is a powerhouse of a novel about all the various faces that love shows us and how sometimes, distracted by life, ambition or attraction, we take it for granted until it's too late - or almost too late. An unforgettable novel that pulses with grief, revelation, hope and love.

Past the Shallows


Favel Parrett - 2011
    Everyday their dad battles the unpredictable ocean to make a living. He is a hard man, a bitter drinker who harbours a devastating secret that is destroying him. Unlike Joe, Harry and Miles are too young to leave home and so are forced to live under the dark cloud of their father's mood, trying to stay as invisible as possible whenever he is home. Harry, the youngest, is the most vulnerable and it seems he bears the brunt of his father's anger...

The Glass House


Eve Chase - 2020
    They're grieving a terrible tragedy of their own and the beautiful baby fills them with hope, lighting up the house's dark, dusty corners. Desperate not to lose her to the authorities, they keep her secret, suspended in a blissful summer world where normal rules of behaviour - and the law - don't seem to apply.But within days a body will lie dead in the grounds. And their dreams of a perfect family will shatter like glass.Years later, the truth will need to be put back together again, piece by piece . . .From the author of Black Rabbit Hall, The Glass House is a emotional, thrilling book about family secrets and belonging - and how we find ourselves when we are most lost.

The Art of Inheriting Secrets


Barbara O'Neal - 2018
    Raw with grief and reeling from the knowledge that her reserved mother hid something so momentous, Olivia leaves San Francisco and crosses the pond to unravel the mystery of a lifetime.One glance at the breathtaking Rosemere Priory and Olivia understands why the manor, magnificent even in disrepair, was the subject of her mother’s exquisite paintings. What she doesn’t understand is why her mother never mentioned it to her. As Olivia begins digging into her mother’s past, she discovers that the peeling wallpaper, debris-laden halls, and ceiling-high Elizabethan windows covered in lush green vines hide unimaginable secrets.Although personal problems and her life back home beckon, Olivia finds herself falling for the charming English village and its residents. But before she can decide what Rosemere’s and her own future hold, Olivia must first untangle the secrets of her past.

The Three


Sarah Lotz - 2014
    Three child survivors. A religious fanatic who insists the three are harbingers of the apocalypse. What if he's right?The world is stunned when four commuter planes crash within hours of each other on different continents. Facing global panic, officials are under pressure to find the causes. With terrorist attacks and environmental factors ruled out, there doesn't appear to be a correlation between the crashes, except that in three of the four air disasters a child survivor is found in the wreckage. Dubbed 'The Three' by the international press, the children all exhibit disturbing behavioural problems, presumably caused by the horror they lived through and the unrelenting press attention. This attention becomes more than just intrusive when a rapture cult led by a charismatic evangelical minister insists that the survivors are three of the four harbingers of the apocalypse. The Three are forced to go into hiding, but as the children's behaviour becomes increasingly disturbing, even their guardians begin to question their miraculous survival.

After She Wrote Him


Sulari Gentill - 2017
    . .Madeleine d'Leon doesn't know where Edward came from. He is simply a character in her next book. But as she writes, he becomes all she can think about. His charm, his dark hair, his pen scratching out his latest literary novel . . .Edward McGinnity can't get Madeleine out of his mind--softly smiling, infectiously enthusiastic, and perfectly damaged. She will be the ideal heroine for his next book.But who is the author and who is the creation? And as the lines start to blur, who is affected when a killer finally takes flesh?After She Wrote Him is a wildly inventive twist on the murder mystery that takes readers on a journey filled with passion, obsession, and the emptiness left behind when the real world starts to fall away.

Heart of the Cross


Emily Madden - 2019
    Tinahely, Ireland, 1959 Rosie Hart is content leaving her home behind to follow her new husband to Australia. But she soon discovers there is no room for her or their young son in the life he has built in vibrant Kings Cross. As their marriage crumbles, Rosie will need to fight for the golden future her son deserves.Rose Bay, 1984 Haunted by her past, Rosie is determined her daughter Maggie will follow the path she has set out for her. But Maggie has plans of her own, and Rosie can only pray the grief that plagues the Hart name won't follow her.Sydney, 2017 When her grandmother dies and leaves Brianna Hart a secret apartment in Kings Cross, Brie wonders what else Rosie was keeping from her. As Brie chases the truth of Rosie's past she uncovers an incredible story of passion, violence, love and tragedy. Is the Hart family's legacy of loss inescapable, or has Rosie gifted her granddaughter with a future of hope?MORE PRAISE'Expertly woven ... a heartbreaking tale of first love lost, second chances, new beginnings and overwhelming guilt. It captured my heart and my imagination.' - Beauty and Lace on The Lost Pearl

Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray


Anita Heiss - 2021
    Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray is one of those books – a novel that turns Australia’s long-mythologised settler history into a raw and resilient heartsong.' – Guardian ***2021 ARA HISTORICAL NOVEL PRIZE SHORTLIST*** ***2022 INDIE BOOK AWARDS LONGLIST*** ***2022 VICTORIAN PREMIER'S LITERARY AWARDS HIGHLY COMMENDED*** _______________________________________________ Gundagai, 1852 The powerful Murrumbidgee River surges through town leaving death and destruction in its wake. It is a stark reminder that while the river can give life, it can just as easily take it away. Wagadhaany is one of the lucky ones. She survives. But is her life now better than the fate she escaped? Forced to move away from her miyagan, she walks through each day with no trace of dance in her step, her broken heart forever calling her back home to Gundagai. When she meets Wiradyuri stockman Yindyamarra, Wagadhaany’s heart slowly begins to heal. But still, she dreams of a better life, away from the degradation of being owned. She longs to set out along the river of her ancestors, in search of lost family and country. Can she find the courage to defy the White man’s law? And if she does, will it bring hope ... or heartache?Set on timeless Wiradyuri country, where the life-giving waters of the rivers can make or break dreams, and based on devastating true events, Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray (River of Dreams) is an epic story of love, loss and belonging.Praise for Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray (River of Dreams) 'Heiss fuses fiction with realism, conjuring a resonance still felt in Blak struggle today ... packs heart into every page.' – Saturday Paper 'Tells a powerful and affecting tale of Aboriginal people's identity, community and deep connection to country.’ – Canberra Times ' A profoundly moving showcase of Heiss’ skill ... Intimate, reflective, and impossible to put down.’  – The AU Review ‘Engrossing and wonderful storytelling. I really loved these strong, brave Wiradyuri characters.’ – Melissa Lucashenko ‘A powerful story of family, place and belonging.’ – Kate Grenville ‘A remarkable story of courage and a love of country ... Anita Heiss writes with heart and energy on every page.’ – Tony Birch'It is a love story, a story of loss, a hopeful story. The river is a guide, but you have to be open to its spiritual lessons.' – Terri Janke ‘Anita Heiss is at the height of her storytelling powers in this inspiring, heart-breaking, profound tale.’ – Larissa Behrendt 'The novel flows like the great Murrumbidgee River itself, with powerful undercurrents that sweep the reader along - I feel it's a book that all Australians should read, to try and understand why our colonial past still causes so much pain and grievance.’ – Kate Forsyth

The Au Pair


Emma Rous - 2019
    Within hours of their birth, their mother threw herself from the cliffs, the au pair fled, and the village thrilled with whispers of dark cloaks, changelings, and the aloof couple who drew a young nanny into their inner circle.Now an adult, Seraphine mourns the recent death of her father. While going through his belongings, she uncovers a family photograph that raises dangerous questions. It was taken on the day the twins were born, and in the photo, their mother, surrounded by her husband and her young son, is beautifully dressed, smiling serenely, and holding just one baby.Who is the child and what really happened that day?One person knows the truth, if only Seraphine can find her.

The Banksia Bay Beach Shack


Sandie Docker - 2020
    Stories get twisted, truths become warped, history is rewritten.MYSTERIESWhen Laura discovers an old photo of her grandmother, Lillian, with an intriguing inscription on the back, she heads to the sleepy seaside town of Banksia Bay to learn the truth of Lillian’s past. But when she arrives, Laura finds a community where everyone seems to be hiding something.SECRETSVirginia, owner of the iconic Beach Shack café, has kept her past buried for sixty years. As Laura slowly uncovers the tragic fragments of that summer so long ago, Virginia must decide whether to hold on to her secrets or set the truth free.LIESYoung Gigi and Lily come from different worlds but forge an unbreakable bond – the ‘Sisters of Summer’. But in 1961 a chain of events is set off that reaches far into the future. One lie told. One lie to set someone free. One lie that changes the course of so many lives. Welcome to the Banksia Bay Beach Shack, where first love is found and last chances are taken. A moving and heartfelt story by the bestselling author of The Kookaburra Creek Café and The Cottage At Rosella Cove.Praise for Sandie Docker:‘Docker soars from the absolute heart’ Australian Women’s Weekly ‘The best of the best of heart-wrenching yarns.’ Woman’s Day