Ache


Eliza Henry-Jones - 2017
    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.

Crackenback


Lee Christine - 2021
    The terrifying arrival of Jack Walker turns Eva's world upside down as the consequences of Jack's presence become clear.With a killer on the loose, Jack Walker and Ryder are tangled in the same treacherous web - spun across the perilously beautiful Crackenback Range.

Alice to Nowhere


Evan Green - 1984
    Two vicious murderers, fleeing Alice Springs, hide on a battered truck carrying mail, food and supplies on its fortnightly journey to remote cattle stations.

A Few Right Thinking Men


Sulari Gentill - 2010
    In Australia's 1930s the Sinclair name is respectable and influential, yet Rowland has a talent for scandal.Even with thousands of unemployed lining the streets, Rowland's sheltered world is one of exorbitant wealth, culture and impeccable tailoring. He relies on the Sinclair fortune to indulge his artistic passions and friends ... a poet, a painter and a brazen sculptress.Mounting tensions fuelled by the Great Depression take Australia to the brink of revolution.

Only Daughter


Anna Snoekstra - 2016
    Mysteriously ominous things began to happen—blood in the bed, periods of blackouts, a feeling of being watched—though Bec remained oblivious of what was to come.Eleven years later she is replaced.A young woman, desperate after being arrested, claims to be the decade-missing Bec.Soon the imposter is living Bec's life. Sleeping in her bed. Hugging her mother and father. Learning her best friends' names. Playing with her twin brothers.But Bec's welcoming family and enthusiastic friends are not quite as they seem. As the imposter dodges the detective investigating her case, she begins to delve into the life of the real Bec Winter—and soon realizes that whoever took Bec is still at large, and that she is in imminent danger.

I Give my Marriage a Year


Holly Wainwright - 2020
    They share two kids, a mortgage, careers and plenty of history. Now, after a particularly fraught Christmas, Lou is ready to ask herself: is this marriage worth hanging on to?Every month for a year, Lou sets a different test for their relationship - from daily sex to brutal honesty - to help her decide if she should stay or go. Secrets are exposed, old wounds reopened and a true-to-life suburban love story unfolds.I Give My Marriage a Year paints a sharply accurate, often hilarious picture of a modern Australian marriage. Lou and Josh are a couple on the edge, and their efforts to bring their relationship back from the brink will resonate with anyone who has ever asked themselves: is this enough?Whose side will you take? Who deserves a second chance? And will Josh and Lou stay together or split for good?

A Lifetime of Impossible Days


Tabitha Bird - 2019
    Tabitha Bird has gifted us this wonder’ Cass MoriartyMeet Willa Waters, aged 8 . . . 33 . . . and 93.On one impossible day in 1965, eight-year-old Willa receives a mysterious box containing a jar of water and the instruction: ‘One ocean: plant in the backyard.’ So she does - and somehow creates an extraordinary time slip that allows her to visit her future selves.On one impossible day in 1990, Willa is 33 and a mother-of-two when her childhood self magically appears in her backyard. But she’s also a woman haunted by memories of her dark past – and is on the brink of a decision that will have tragic repercussions . . .On one impossible day in 2050, Willa is a silver-haired, gumboot-loving 93-year-old whose memory is fading fast. Yet she knows there’s something she has to remember, a warning she must give her past selves about a terrible event in 1990. If only she could recall what it was.Can the three Willas come together, to heal their past and save their future, before it’s too late?'A courageous and magical debut novel that reminds us that while we can’t change events from our past, we do have the power to change the story we tell ourselves about them.' Sally Piper

Goodwood


Holly Throsby - 2016
    Two very different people. They were there, and then they were gone, as if through a crack in the sky. After that, in a small town like Goodwood, where we had what Nan called 'a high density of acquaintanceship', everything stopped. Or at least it felt that way. The normal feeling of things stopped.Goodwood is a small town where everyone knows everything about everyone. It's a place where it's impossible to keep a secret.In 1992, when Jean Brown is seventeen, a terrible thing happens. Two terrible things. Rosie White, the coolest girl in town, vanishes overnight. One week later, Goodwood's most popular resident, Bart McDonald, sets off on a fishing trip and never comes home.People die in Goodwood, of course, but never like this. They don't just disappear.As the intensity of speculation about the fates of Rosie and Bart heightens, Jean, who is keeping secrets of her own, and the rest of Goodwood are left reeling.Rich in character and complexity, its humour both droll and tender, Goodwood is a compelling ride into a small community, torn apart by dark rumours and mystery.

Bereft


Chris Womersley - 2010
    Quinn Walker returns from the Great War to the New South Wales town of Flint: the birthplace he fled ten years earlier when he was accused of a heinous act.A LIE UNFORGIVABLEAware of the townsmen's vow to hang him, Quinn takes to the surrounding hills. Here, deciding upon his plan of action, and questioning just what he has returned for, he meets Sadie Fox.A BOND UNBREAKABLEThis mysterious girl seems to know, and share, his darkest fear. And, as their bond greatens, Quinn learns what he must do to lay the ghosts of his past, and Sadie's present, to rest.

The Other Side of Beautiful


Kim Lock - 2021
    Meet Mercy Blain, whose house has just burnt down. Unfortunately for Mercy, this goes beyond the disaster it would be for most people: she hasn't been outside that house for two years now.Flung out into the world she's been studiously ignoring, Mercy goes to the only place she can. Her not-quite-ex-husband Eugene's house. But it turns out she can't stay there, either.And so begins Mercy's unwilling journey. After the chance purchase of a cult classic campervan (read tiny, old and smelly), with the company of her sausage dog, Wasabi, and a mysterious box of cremated remains, Mercy heads north from Adelaide to Darwin.On the road, through badly timed breakdowns, gregarious troupes of grey nomads, and run-ins with a rogue adversary, Mercy's carefully constructed walls start crumbling. But what was Mercy hiding from in her house? And why is Eugene desperate to have her back in the city? They say you can't run forever...Exquisite, tender and wry, this is a break-out novel about facing anxiety and embracing life from an extraordinary new talent.PRAISE: 'Tender, funny and quietly profound, The Other Side of Beautiful is a breath of fresh air.' - The Sunday Times'A colourful, engaging story of escape and road-trip adventure ... also compellingly cinematic and features an endearing narrator-heroine with plenty of meaty real-world troubles.' - Sydney Morning Herald'An engaging story about second chances and a life changing road trip ... a heart-warming story.' - Canberra Weekly magazine'Mercy Blain is a character you find yourself cheering on. Kim Lock mixes the transformative journey of Alice Hart with the quirkiness of Eleanor Oliphant in this story about embracing life, even when it threatens to overwhelm you' - Tricia Stringer, bestselling author of The Family Inheritance'Mercy Blain is an unforgettable character who will capture your heart from the first pages and hold it through until the end. Her madcap journey towards forgiveness - of herself and others - is moving and funny and all other good things that will make you want to keep reading and make you sad when your time with Mercy comes to an end.' - Sophie Green, bestselling author of The Shelly Bay Ladies Swimming Circle

We Were Mothers


Katie Sise - 2018
    Devoted mother Cora O’Connell has found the journal of her friend Laurel’s daughter—a beautiful college student who lives next door—revealing an illicit encounter. Hours later, Laurel makes a shattering discovery of her own: her daughter has vanished without a trace. Over the course of one weekend, the crises of two close families are about to trigger a chain reaction that will expose a far more disturbing web of secrets. Now everything is at stake as they’re forced to confront the lies they have told in order to survive.

Missing You


Kylie Kaden - 2015
    Why worry that he didn't want children or a 9 to 5 job? Nothing and no one would come between them.But with the birth of their high-needs son, Eli, their extraordinary love is shackled into an ordinary life, their passion blunted by responsibility.Until Ryan can't take it anymore.Then, following a mysterious phone call late one night, Aisha leaves four-year-old Eli in the care of her elderly father Patrick - and doesn't come back.As Patrick struggles with the grandson he barely knows or understands, his frustration with his missing daughter and absent son-in-law quickly turns to fear.Particularly when blood is found in Aisha's abandoned car . . .

Matryoshka


Katherine Johnson - 2018
    Sara’s grandmother, Nina Barsova, a Russian post-war immigrant, lovingly raised Sara in the cottage at the foot of Mt Wellington but without ever explaining why Sara’s own mother, Helena, abandoned her as a baby. Sara, a geneticist, also longs to know the identity of her father, and Helena won’t tell her. Now, estranged not only from her mother but also from her husband, Sara raises her daughter, Ellie, with a central wish to spare her the same feeling of abandonment that she experienced as a child. When Sara meets an Afghani refugee separated from his beloved wife and family, she decides to try to repair relations with Helena – but when a lie told by her grandmother years before begins to unravel, a darker truth than she could ever imagine is revealed.Matryoshka is a haunting and beautifully written story about the power of maternal love, and the danger of secrets passed down through generations.

The Strays


Emily Bitto - 2014
    He and his wife are attempting to escape the stifling conservatism of 1930s Australia by inviting other like-minded artists to live and work with them at their family home. As Lily’s friendship with Eva grows, she becomes infatuated with this makeshift family and longs to truly be a part of it.Looking back on those years later in life, Lily realises that this utopian circle involved the same themes as Evan Trentham’s art: Faustian bargains and terrible recompense; spectacular fortunes and falls from grace. Yet it was not Evan, nor the other artists he gathered around him, but his own daughters, who paid the debt that was owing.The Strays is an engrossing story of ambition, sacrifice and compromised loyalties from an exciting new talent.

The Mother Fault


Kate Mildenhall - 2020
    No one knows where Ben is, but everyone wants to find him – especially The Department. And they should know, the all-seeing government body has fitted the entire population with a universal tracking chip to keep them ‘safe’.But suddenly Ben can’t be tracked. And Mim is questioned, made to surrender her passport and threatened with the unthinkable – her two children being taken into care at the notorious BestLife.Cornered, Mim risks everything to go on the run to find her husband – and a part of herself, long gone, that is brave enough to tackle the journey ahead.From the stark backroads of the Australian outback to a terrifying sea voyage, Mim is forced to shuck off who she was – mother, daughter, wife, sister – and become the woman she needs to be to save her family and herself.