One quiet day, the peace of the bush is devastated by a terrible murder. Only Jessica is able to save the killer from the lynch mob – but will justice prevail in the courts?Nine months later, a baby is born … with Jessica determined to guard the secret of the father's identity. The rivalry of Jessica and her beautiful sister for the love of the same man will echo throughout their lives – until finally the truth must be told.Set in the harsh Australian bush against the outbreak of World War I, this novel is heartbreaking in its innocence, and shattering in its brutality.'A deserved bestseller, based on fact, a story told with heartbreaking honesty.' Australian Women's Weekly'Courtenay draws on the social satire of Jane Austen and the dark forces of Thomas Hardy, and his tragic heroine parallels Antigone … ' Herald Sun

     Hunting a murderer in the seething mass of people shopping in the North West's biggest shopping centre, Lizzie finds herself trapped in a glass lift with four other people when it suddenly stops between floors.A young girl looking ready to give birth at any moment begins to panic, an old man tries to take charge whilst the other captives in the lift, an engaged couple whose relationship worries Lizzie, are desperate to get out.The lights go out, the shopping centre is evacuated. Lizzie has to rely on her wits to keep everyone calm and get the lift down to safety without alerting the murderer that she's onto them.

    Ruthie receives the news every woman dreads. Meanwhile, a wealthy landowner, Wally Oliver, appears on the local radio station, warning small farmers like Dimple and Ruthie that they are doomed, that the sooner they leave the land to large operators like him, the better. Bracing for a fight on all fronts, the couple decide to take a road trip to confront Oliver. Along the way, not only is their resolve tested, but their relationship as well.Desperate not to dwell on the past but to face up to the future, Dimple and Ruthie make a crucial decision they soon regret. And when the storm clouds finally roll in across the land they love, there’s more than the rain to contend with.Told with enormous heart, Small Mercies is a tender love story. It is a story of a couple who feel they must change to endure, and of the land that is as important as their presence on it.

    No one knows this better than Nat, a teenager who rides the rails from town to town looking for work. After helping a girl accused of witchcraft, Nat stumbles upon a home for wayward children run by a vibrant woman named Camille. She takes in children who have been thrown away and teaches them how to use their untapped potential to do extraordinary things...like magic.In this crazy new place, there are wonders he's never imagined possible. People who can paint portraits of ghosts, walk through walls, and hide windmills in thin air. But in a time of starvation and fear, Camille's magical home comes under attack from people who fear and discriminate against her. It is up to Nat and the other children to rally behind Camille to save their oasis in the dust from utter ruin.

    A stubborn lawyer. And a deadly race against time.When news of The Golden Lake Killer rise, the police quickly claim they caught their suspect. Refusing to pay mind to it, Sam is met with a surprise once a man is begging her to defend his brother; the man believed to be the culprit.The proof against him is staggering, yet Sam refuses to give up. And as the evidence against him heightens, Sam has no other choice but to take the law in her hands…Pursuit of Justice is Freya's 1st novel in the Sam Spencer series of blood-pumping legal thrillers. If you are an avid fan of strong female leads, action-packed courtroom drama, riveting characters and mind-blowing murder mystery, then you'll love Freya's intriguing story.

    The Palmers are doomsday preppers. They have a bunker filled with non-perishable food and a year's worth of water. Each of the girls has a 'bug out bag', packed with water purification tablets, protein bars, paracord bracelets and epipens for Pru's anaphylaxis.One day while Rick is at the mine, the power goes out. At the Palmers' house, and in the town. No one knows why. All communication is cut. It doesn't take long for everything to unravel. In town, supplies run out and people get desperate. The sisters decide to keep their bunker a secret. The world is different; the rules are different. Survival is everything, and family comes first.

    And I wonder why he chose her instead of me? Why he went looking for her when I was right there."Tai and Juliet have been best friends forever – since they met at kindy and decided to get married in first grade.They understand each other in the way that only best friends can.They love music, beach walks, energy drinks and, they are slowly discovering, each other.As they dream of adventures beyond the HSC – a future free of homework, curfews and parents, a life together – their plans are suddenly and dramatically derailed.For Tai is sick.And not everything you wish for can come true.A poignant story of first love, hope, grief, family, and the twistedness of life.

    All the while, the body count mounts.Glass’s suspects include some of the most powerful people in the land, and the press-gallery journalists who cover their every move. It’s a murky world of shifting allegiances, half-truths, and finger pointing, where everyone has a motive for murder.As election day nears, Glass risks everything for a breakthrough in the case, and his life is soon hanging by a thread. But if he thought he’d hit rock bottom, he was wrong …

    But there's an ongoing battle between Lilli and Miss Dalgleish, seemingly for possession of Lilli's very soul.Ahead of its time in its subtle and clever use of narrative techniques, The True Story of Lilli Stubeck acknowledges that no true story can ever be one-sided. Narrator Kit's multi-layered account of Lilli Stubeck's story is informed by Kit and others' recollections, town gossip and an important little black book.

    Louisa, the spirited eldest daughter of Herzig and Clara Steinbacher, has her whole life ahead of her. She is seventeen, and dreams of the "outside world" beyond her doorstep. But when Clara dies in childbirth, Louisa is suddenly thrust into adulthood-with the burden of her mother's responsibilities...and the care of her younger siblings. The only world she has ever known closes around her.Then Herzig, an elder in their strict Mennonite community, hires young, handsome Thomas to help on the farm. Thomas is hardworking, honest...and not of the Faith. But Louisa can't hide her growing feelings for him. Her choices set in motion a transformation she never expected. But at what cost?

    It is a time of war, tyranny and terror. Napoleon Bonaparte wants to conquer all of Europe, and Hessen-Cassel is one of the first kingdoms to fall. Forced to live under oppressive French rule, the Grimm brothers decide to save old tales that had once been told by the firesides of houses grand and small all over the land.Dortchen knows many beautiful old stories, such as Hansel and Gretel, The Frog King and Six Swans. As she tells them to Wilhelm, their love blossoms. Yet the Grimm family is desperately poor, and Dortchen's father has other plans for his daughter. Marriage is an impossible dream.Dortchen can only hope that happy endings are not just the stuff of fairy tales.

    Teenagers are celebrating the first taste of freedom as they line their pockets with newly printed driver’s licenses and long-awaited paychecks. Days off are spent at the town’s only lake, nights under the yellow lights of the drive-in restaurant.But Billy Tupper’s life is a far cry from that of other teenagers. One mistake too many lands him in front of a judge who sentences him to a summer working for Old Lady Baxter, the victim of his latest carelessness…and the rumored child killer of Munroe, Kansas. As Billy sweats his way through endless months of mowing her lawn, weeding her garden, and painting her house, he also searches for the evidence to prove she’s guilty, but what he finds, and what he learns about himself, will change his life forever.I Know an Old Lady is a touching coming-of-age story of loss and redemption, of understanding and compassion, and of a family torn apart and slowly put back together.I Know an Old Lady is Billy Tupper’s story.

    The Second World War has gone on too long. Shops are closed ‘for the duration’. Trains run a restricted service ‘for the duration’. Life has paused, for the duration. A little girl, Pamela, is growing up fast. A young Englishman, Rupert Blundell, vows there’ll be no more wars. Both are waiting for their lives to begin.Then comes Hiroshima. Finally, devastatingly, the war is over.1962. Rupert is now strategic advisor to Lord Mountbatten, and his close confidant. Pamela is eighteen and has moved to London, eager for love and experience of every kind. There’ll be parties at Cliveden, Christine Keeler, Stephen Ward, the Astors. Life is a whirlwind.But beneath the glamour lies quiet, desperate terror, as the Cuban missile crisis unfolds and the world spins ever closer to nuclear war.Reckless is a gripping novel set against the world in crisis, by a superb novelist at the height of his powers.

    She has a guardian angel in the form of Sir William Dartmouth, but even when he engineers her release, Phoebe must struggle to make a living for herself. And Annie has not given up her own perverse quest for revenge . . .

    She has a loving dad, an absent mother and a brother who plays more X-Box than is good for him. She also has the neighbours from hell: the five Oswald girls and their thuggish father Bob, vicious bullies all of them, whose reign of terror extends unchallenged over their otherwise quiet suburban street. And yet terrifying though they undoubtedly are, the stiletto-wearing, cider-swilling Oswald girls are also sexy - so when Saskia asks shy, virginal Rick Buckley for a ride in his new car, he can't believe his luck. Too bad that Saskia can't keep her big mouth shut. When, after a quick fumble, she broadcasts Rick's deficiencies to anyone who will listen, it puts ideas into her younger sisters silly head - ideas that will see Rick dragged off to prison, humiliated, and ultimately, in his fathers words, broken by the experience. From her hospital bed, Skunk guides us through the events that follow, as Saskia's small act of thoughtlessness slowly spreads through the neighbourhood in a web of increasing violence. Skunk watches as her shabby, hardworking father finds love, only for her courageous, idealistic teacher to lose it; as poor broken Buckley descends into madness, while across the street her brother Jed makes his first adolescent forays into sex; and as her own gentle romance with soft-hearted, tough-talking Dillon struggles to survive against a backdrop that seamlessly combines the sublime and the ridiculous. As we inch ever closer to the mystery behind her coma, Skunk's innocence becomes a beacon by which we navigate a world as comic as it is tragic, and as effortlessly engaging as it is ultimately uplifting, in this brilliant and utterly original debut novel.