He was the go-between, going between the animal kingdom and this one. I watched the waves as they rolled and crashed towards us, one after another, never stopping, always changing. I knew what was making them come, I had been there and I would always know."Meet Jimmy Flick. He's not like other kids. He finds a lot of the adult world impossible to understand - especially why his Dad gets so angry with him. Jimmy's mother Paula is the only one who can manage him. She teaches him how to count sheep so that he can fall sleep. She holds him tight enough to stop his cells spinning. It is only Paula who can keep Jimmy out of his father's way. But when Jimmy's world falls apart, he has no one else to turn to. He alone has to navigate the unfathomable world and make things right.Sofie Laguna's first novel, One Foot Wrong received rave reviews, sold all over the world and was longlisted for both the Miles Franklin and Prime Minister's Awards. In The Eye of the Sheep, her great originality and talent will again amaze and move readers. In the tradition of Room and The Lovely Bones, here is a surprising and brilliant novel from one of our finest writers.

    The only way to escape is to disappear and reinvent herself.Changing her name to Eliza and driving by night, she is drawn to the tiny rural town of Blinman. There she begins the long road to healing and regaining her self-confidence.Then one day, on an excursion to a ruined homestead in the area, Eliza becomes fascinated by a family who lived there during the nineteenth century. But just as she begins to unlock the secrets of her own past, Dominic arrives in town, determined to punish her ...With its fast-moving plot and nail-biting suspense, Indigo Storm is the story of a courageous woman fiercely determined to reclaim her life and her belief in herself.

    Sarah, the orphaned housemaid, spends her days scrubbing the laundry, polishing the floors, and emptying the chamber pots for the Bennet household. But there is just as much romance, heartbreak, and intrigue downstairs at Longbourn as there is upstairs. When a mysterious new footman arrives, the orderly realm of the servants’ hall threatens to be completely, perhaps irrevocably, upended. Jo Baker dares to take us beyond the drawing rooms of Jane Austen’s classic—into the often overlooked domain of the stern housekeeper and the starry-eyed kitchen maid, into the gritty daily particulars faced by the lower classes in Regency England during the Napoleonic Wars—and, in doing so, creates a vivid, fascinating, fully realized world that is wholly her own.

    Three marriages left behind. Life begins in earnest.It's 1977, and warm, bohemian Libby - stay-at-home mother, genius entertainer and gifted cook - is lonely. When she meets Carol, who has recently emigrated from London with her controlling husband and is feeling adrift, and Anna, who loves her career but not her marriage, the women form an unexpected bond.Their husbands aren't happy about it, and neither are their daughters. Set against a backdrop of inner-city grunge and 70s glamour, far-out parties and ABBA songs, The Women and The Girls is a funny, questioning and moving novel about love, friendship, work, family, and freedom.A kind of Monkey Grip meets 'Nine to Five', The Women and The Girls explores the price - and the rewards - of family and friendship in the Age of Aquarius - and at the dawning of the Age of Divorce.'Laura Bloom has such a unique talent for modern historical fiction and this time it was a joy to be catapulted back to the 1970s. When I turned the last page I was so sad to say goodbye to her beautifully observed characters. A delight from start to finish!' Liane Moriarty

    So when her boss offers to send her on an extended research trip to investigate the effects of the drought, she jumps at the chance to indulge in some country-style relaxation.When Nicola arrives in the little town of Nowhere Else, nothing is as she expected: there's no spa in town, the locals are tight-lipped, and she senses it's not just the drought that is making the town nervous. So why has her boss sent her out here?The deeper Nicola digs into the town's history, the more she realises coming to Nowhere Else wasn't a mistake after all. In fact, it may just unlock the mystery of her own past. And hold the key to her future happiness...

    Take one city girl - and drop her into the back of beyond...Housesitting in rural Burdekin's Gap, high up in the East Gippsland Mountains, is not an obvious career move for a PR executive like Jaime Hanrahan. But, hey, retrenchment is a kicker. Plus she's determined not to spend Christmas in Melbourne with her friends, who still have company cars and six-figure salaries, or with her mother, Blanche, who has remarried too soon after her father's death.However, it turns out that Burdekin's Gap is a little more remote than Jaime had anticipated, the house is in the middle of a cattle station, and the handsome manager, Stirling McEvoy, doesn't appreciate a new farmhand in Jimmy Choos and Sass & Bide cut-offs. Soon Jaime is fending off stampeding cows, town ladies wielding clipboards, sheep that think they are goats, nude sportsmen and one very neurotic cat. So why does she feel like she's falling in love . . . with the life, with the breathtaking landscape, and with one infuriating cowboy?

    . . Two years have done little to ease veterinarian Audra Hughes's grief over her husband's untimely death. Eager for a fresh start, Audra plans to leave Portland for a new job in Philadelphia. Her seven-year-old son, Jack, seems apprehensive about flying--but it's just the beginning of an anxiety that grows to consume him.As Jack's fears continue to surface in recurring and violent nightmares, Audra hardly recognizes the introverted boy he has become. Desperate, she traces snippets of information unearthed in Jack's dreams, leading her to Sean Malloy, a struggling US Army veteran wounded in Afghanistan. Together they unravel a mystery dating back to World War II, and uncover old family secrets that still have the strength to wound--and perhaps, at last, to heal.Intricate and beautifully written, The Pieces We Keep illuminates those moments when life asks us to reach beyond what we know and embrace what was once unthinkable. Deftly weaving together past and present, herein lies a story that is at once poignant and thought-provoking, and as unpredictable as the human heart. "An expertly woven and richly satisfying work of historical fiction that will touch any reader who has experienced love, loss, tragedy, or the impact of family secrets." --The Boston Globe

    Neither of them has ever felt more in synch - or in love - with anyone in their lives. What happens next will tear them both apart. Into My Arms is a searing love story and a gripping family drama - a shocking, haunting novel in the tradition of Jodi Picoult and Caroline Overington.The kiss ignited something, blew it into being, and afterwards, all Skye could think about was Ben. One day a woman meets a man and falls instantly and irrevocably in love with him. It hits her like a thunderbolt, and she has to have him, has to be with him, regardless of the cost, of the pain of breaking up her existing relationship. She has never felt more in synch-or in love-with anyone in her whole life. So this is how it feels, she thinks to herself, this is what real love feels like.It's like that for him too; he wants her in a way he's never wanted anything or anyone before: obsessively, passionately, all-consumingly.She has found her one true love, her soulmate, and he has found his. What happens next will tear them apart and unleash havoc onto their worlds.This brave, brilliant, electrifying novel from the acclaimed author of After the Fall and Last Summer, will move you deeply and shock you to your core. Love, lust and longing have rarely wielded such power, nor family secrets triggered such devastation.

    They are at the stockman’s grave, a landmark so old, no one can remember who is buried there. But today, the scant shadow it casts was the last hope for their middle brother, Cameron. The Bright family’s quiet existence is thrown into grief and anguish. Something had been troubling Cameron. Did he lose hope and walk to his death? Because if he didn’t, the isolation of the outback leaves few suspects…Dark, suspenseful, and deeply atmospheric, The Lost Man is the highly anticipated next book from the bestselling and award-winning Jane Harper, author of The Dry and Force of Nature.

    Through Anna's eyes we follow the story of the fateful year of 1666, as she and her fellow villagers confront the spread of disease and superstition. As death reaches into every household and villagers turn from prayers to murderous witch-hunting, Anna must find the strength to confront the disintegration of her community and the lure of illicit love. As she struggles to survive and grow, a year of catastrophe becomes instead annus mirabilis, a "year of wonders."Inspired by the true story of Eyam, a village in the rugged hill country of England, Year of Wonders is a richly detailed evocation of a singular moment in history.

    Her cousin, Anneke, is pregnant and has passed the rigorous exams for admission to the Lebensborn, a maternity home for girls carrying German babies. But Anneke's soldier has disappeared, and Lebensborn babies are only ever released to their father's custody-- or taken away.A note is left under the mat. Someone knows that Cyrla, sent from Poland years before for safekeeping with her Dutch relatives, is Jewish. The Nazis are imposing more and more restrictions; she won't be safe there for long. And then in the space of an afternoon, life falls apart. Cyrla must choose between certain discovery in her cousin's home and taking Anneke's place in the Lebensborn--Cyrla and Anneke are nearly identical. If she takes refuge in the enemy's lair, can Cyrla fool the doctors, nurses, guards, and other mothers-to-be? Can she escape before they discover she is not who she claims? Mining a lost piece of history, Sara Young takes us deep into the lives of women living in the worst of times. Part love story and part elegy for the terrible choices we must often make to survive, MY ENEMY'S CRADLE keens for what we lose in war and sings for the hope we sometimes find.

    Annie fled back to the city, but the mountain continues to haunt her. Now, drawn by a call for help from her uncle, she's going back to the place she loves most in the world, to try to heal herself, her marriage, her daughter and her mother. A heart-wrenching, tender and lovely novel about loss, grief and regeneration, Ache is not only a story of how we can be broken, but how we can put ourselves back together.

    Much better to see it for what it is than to be perennially disappointed.With a hefty new mortgage, a frustrating career as a newspaper columnist and a flailing relationship with a married co-worker, Jo Liddell is resigned to living a less-than-perfect life.That is, until she crosses paths with Joe Bannister – a celebrated foreign correspondent returning home to care for his dying father. Against all her natural instincts, Jo finds herself falling for Joe, and with his help begins to realise that she might deserve to be happy after all. But when she decides to take the plunge and give love a chance, the results are catastrophic. And so Jo must fight hard for everything she never believed in – success, self-acceptance, and above all, real love.

    Just like our marriage." So opens Meg Wolitzer's compelling and provocative novel The Wife, as Joan Castleman sits beside her husband on their flight to Helsinki. Joan's husband, Joseph Castleman, is "one of those men who own the world...who has no idea how to take care of himself or anyone else, and who derives much of his style from the Dylan Thomas Handbook of Personal Hygiene and Etiquette." He is also one of America's preeminent novelists, about to receive a prestigious international award to honor his accomplishments, and Joan, who has spent forty years subjugating her own literary talents to fan the flames of his career, has finally decided to stop. From this gripping opening, Wolitzer flashes back fifty years to 1950s Smith College and Greenwich Village -- the beginning of the Castleman relationship -- and follows the course of the famous marriage that has brought them to this breaking point, culminating in a shocking ending that outs a carefully kept secret. Wolitzer's most important and ambitious book to date, The Wife is a wise, sharp-eyed, compulsively readable story about a woman forced to confront the sacrifices she's made in order to achieve the life she thought she wanted. But it's also an unusually candid look at the choices all men and women make for themselves, in marriage, work, and life. With her skillful storytelling and pitch-perfect observations, Wolitzer invites intriguing questions about the nature of partnership and the precarious position of an ambitious woman in a man's world.

    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