Wildfires are burning in the hills outside, but inside the theater it is time for the performance to take over.Margot is a successful, flinty professor on the cusp of retirement, distracted by her fraught relationship with her adult son and her ailing husband. After a traumatic past, Ivy is is now a philanthropist with a seemingly perfect life. Summer is a young drama student, an usher at the theater, and frantically worried for her girlfriend whose parents live in the fire zone.While the performance unfolds on stage, so does the compelling trajectory that will bring these three women together, changing them all. Deliciously intimate and yet emotionally wide-ranging, The Performance is a novel that both explores the inner lives of women as it underscores the power of art and memory to transform us.

    Lew McLeod has been travelling and working with Painter Hayes since he was a boy. Shearing, charcoal burning, whatever comes. Painter made him his first pair of shoes. It's a hard and uncertain life but it's the only one he knows. But Lew's a grown man now. And with this latest job, shearing for John Drysdale and his daughter Clara, everything will change. Stephen Daisley writes in lucid, rippling prose of how things work, and why; of the profound satisfaction in hard work done with care, of love and friendship and the damage that both contain. ‘Daisley’s reverence and knowledge of the outback transcends the cliché of heat, dust and flies, inviting readers into a mesmerising world of desert flora and fauna…He minutiae of the woolshed and animal behaviour are brought to life with skill and affection.’ Readings

    Don't wait for a light to appear at the end of the tunnel, stride down there...and light the bloody thing yourself!After being named the Bulletin/Qantas Businesswoman of the Year in 1991, and following the phenomenal success of From Strength to Strength - the 1993 Australian Booksellers' Book of the Year, Sara Henderson's life changed forever. Australians took her into their hearts and she became an overnight celebrity. But beyond the glory, life continued to deal Sara its heavy blows.1992 saw her lose a court case that left Bullo River, the million acre outback station she had struggled so hard to save, under threat. Then her daughter, Marlee was diagnosed with cancer and Sara found herself close to breaking point.But when letters, faxes and phone calls from people all over Australia started arriving, they were filled with such compassion that Sara was inspired to carry on.In her bestselling sequel The Strength In Us All Sara updates us on life at Bullo and tells more of the colourful stories about Charlie, Uncle Dick, the girls and their animals, and all the other unforgettable characters that have played a part in her remarkable life.

    When Roisin Ogilvie moves to Wollombi her thoughts are only of protecting her illegitimate son, Ruan, from the grasps of his powerful and dangerous father. Posing as an impoverished widow, she settles into a quiet existence as a local dressmaker. She doesn’t expect to catch the attention of Irish champion cedar cutter Carrick O’Connor, or any other man for that matter.Carrick O’Connor may have won the coveted Wollombi Wood Chop, but his mind is on the beautiful seamstress and her son. Or rather, on who they remind him of. Determined to exact revenge for the horrors of his past, Carrick plans to return to Ireland to seek revenge on the land agent who was responsible for the death of his wife and child, and his transportation. Then, hopefully, he can return to Wollombi to start life afresh.But a murder charge, a kidnapping, a growing attraction, and a past that refuses to stay silent will turn both his and Roisin’s lives upside down and will lead them to a hard choice. Redemption? Or cutters’ justice?

    A woman's adopted mother dies, reawakening childhood memories and grief. A couple's decision to move to an isolated location may just be their undoing. A young woman forms an unexpected connection at a summer school in Hungary.Set in southern Tasmania, these interlinked stories bring into focus the inhabitants of small communities, and capture the moments when life turns and one person becomes another. With insight and empathy, Melissa Manning interrogates how the people we meet and the places we live shape the person we become.

    She had to make a new life for herself when she suddenly fund she was without home, parents or guardian. So she decided to take a post as companion to Brad's mother.Installed at Rock Hill, Kylie fell deeper and deeper in love with Brad. Like many a girl before her she discovered that the man she loved wan an enigma-yet Kylie was compelled to follow her star-wherever it might lead...

    She must prove to Anders Sæterdal, her trapping partner who makes no secret of his disdain, that a woman is fit for the task. Over the course of a Svalbard winter, Wanny and Sæterdal will confront polar bears, traverse glaciers, withstand blizzards and the dangers of sea ice, and hike miles to trap Arctic fox, all in the frigid darkness of the four-month polar night. For Wanny, the darkness hides her own deceptions that, if exposed, speak to the untenable sacrifice of a 1930s woman longing to fulfil a dream. Alongside the raw, confronting nature of the trappers’ work, is the story of a young blue Arctic fox, itself a hunter, who must eke out a living and navigate the trappers’ world if it is to survive its first Arctic winter.

    An unforgettable collection of short fiction, poetry and comic art from Australia and beyond...

    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.

    Set within Australia's lush rain forest at the height of the rainy season, Salt Rain is an absorbing debut about sifting through the complicated stories that shape us, and ultimately reclaiming them as our own.

    Raised in the era of the White Australia policy, Dianne grows up believing her adoptive Irish mother, Val, is her birth mother. Val promises Dianne that one day they will take a trip and she will 'tell her a secret'. But before they get the chance, Val tragically dies.Abandoned by her adoptive father, Dianne is raped at the age of 15, sentenced to Parramatta Girls Home and later forced to marry her rapist in order to keep her baby. She goes on to endure horrific domestic violence at the hands of different partners, alcohol addiction and cruel betrayal by those closest to her. But amazingly her fighting spirit is not extinguished.At the age of 36, while raising six kids on her own, Dianne learns she is Aboriginal and that her great-grandfather was William Cooper, a famous Aboriginal activist. Miraculously she finds a way to forgive her traumatic past and becomes a leader in her own right, vowing to help other stolen people just like her.

    The object of his desire is Gabriella, the Italian-Irish girl next door. Then one day Gabriella disappearsabandoning Sam. Bitter and resentful, Sam moves on with his life: into the shady side of Brisbane. Over the next two decades, Sam and Gabriella will find their lives inextricably, painfully, and passionately linked.

    WORSE THINGS HAPPEN AT SEA does the same for family life in 2000s; written by William and Sarah in a way that many Australians can relate to and enjoy. This book celebrates the wonderful, messy, haphazard things in life - bringing home babies from hospital, being a friend, a parent, son or daughter, and dog obedience classes. It's about living for twenty years in the family home, raising children there, chasing angry rabbits around the backyard, renovations that never end. It is also about understanding that sometimes you have to say goodbye; that is part of life too. Illustrated throughout with Sarah Watt's photographs of family life and beautiful but everyday objects.

    So when an outsider with grand plans threatens to demolish an iconic local landmark and build a huge resort the battle lines are drawn.Young journalist Jessica hopes to make it big with her coverage of the court case, but first she has to appease her editor and put a human interest spin on the situation. At first glance the five people she chooses to background have little in common – but it soon becomes apparent that staying at The Beach House has changed all of them in some way.In telling the stories of Kate, Simone, Tom, Clare and Jack, Jessica too learns some important life lessons.

    There’s no predicting it, no sailing it, no living with it. And if you’re a Dempsey, it can play tricks on your mind. . .On the Tasman Peninsula, nestled amidst the largest sea-cliffs in the southern hemisphere, is Shacktown. Here the Dempsey family have run a drug ring for generations, using the fishing industry and the deadly Black Wind as cover. But when thirteen-year-old Forest Dempsey walks out of the ocean, bruised and branded, everything is imperilled – because Forest has been believed dead for the last seven years.Mackerel Dempsey, out of jail on strict bail conditions, is trying to change his fate, doing his best to keep out of trouble before his next court date. His cousin Ahab has renounced the family altogether, in favour of working to keep the town and its fragile tourism economy safe. But in their search for answers about Forest, both Mackerel and Ahab can’t help but be drawn back into the underworld. What on earth happened to the boy all those years ago? And does it have anything to do with the infamous drug kingpin Blackbeard, who is rumoured to be moving in on Shacktown?When secrets long thought buried at sea wash up on shore, generations of the Dempsey family must stand up for what they believe in, even if it means sacrificing everything. But in the gritty fight between right and wrong, blood isn’t always thicker than water, and everyone is at risk of being pulled under...From the bestselling breakout author of The Bluffs comes a heart-stopping new thriller set on the rugged coast of Tasmania about modern-day pirates, family bonds and betrayals, and the hidden dangers that lurk in the deep…