Book picks similar to
Snowball by Gavin Casey


aborigines
australian
australian-lit
fiction

Outback Secrets


Suzanne Brandyn - 2021
    When bones are recently discovered near his abandoned ute, her mother informs her of the details surrounding that devastating day. Now, Lily is determined to find out what happened.Under the alias of Abby O’Brien, she leaves her job with the police force in the city and accepts a position as a personal nurse to care for Nathaniel and Matthew Kinsley’s mother.Arriving at the cattle station, Lily thinks she has a foolproof plan until she catches the eye of the elder Kinsley brother and sparks fly.Secrets are revealed, and the sordid past of the Nobles and Kinsleys comes to a head when Lily discovers a family she didn’t know existed.Will this news be the glue to hold her to a place she once called home, and can she learn to trust Nathaniel and accept his marriage proposal?

One-Night Stand


Simon Taylor - 2021
    A one-night stand with Natasha Peters has got her pregnant. Now he has two options: give up on his dream as a comedian and get a day job or abandon his responsibility and be a total dick. Only when Tash tells the full truth does a third possibility emerge...This story recounts the all too relatable experience of a fleeting sexual encounter and the hilarious mess it can create. It details all the things you think you know about safe sex and is inspired by the true story of a comedian in crisis.'The honesty shines through this funny, poignant page-turner. Finished it in one sitting. I just had to know!' — Dave Hughes'Simon is one of the top comedy writers out there.' — Jay Leno'This book will enable you to enter the mind of a comedian, but then you may have to call someone to help you get out.' — Akmal Saleh

One of Us Buried


Johanna Craven - 2021
    She is put to work at the female factory of Parramatta; a place where the women’s only hope of food and lodgings is to offer their bodies to the settlement’s men. Nell is given shelter by Lieutenant Blackwell, a brooding soldier to whom she is inexplicably drawn. Despite warnings from the other women, Blackwell’s motives seem decent, and beneath the roof of a military officer, Nell sees a chance to become more than just a convict woman sent to the factory to be forgotten. But tensions are high in New South Wales, with the young colony teetering on the edge of a convict rebellion. And as Nell treads a dangerous line between obedience and power, she learns the role of a factory lass is to remain silent – or face a walk to the gallows.

Jasper Jones


Kate Mulvany - 2016
    Overseas, war is raging in Vietnam, Civil Rights marches are on the streets, and women’s liberation is stirring – but at home in Corrigan Charlie Bucktin dreams of writing the Great Australian Novel. Charlie’s 14 and smart. But when 16-year-old, constantly-in-trouble Jasper Jones appears at his window one night, Charlie’s out of his depth. Jasper has stumbled upon a terrible crime in the scrub nearby, and he knows he’s the first suspect – that goes with the colour of his skin. He needs every ounce of Charlie’s bookish brain to help solve this awful mystery before the town turns on Jasper. Kate Mulvany’s adaptation of Craig Silvey’s award-winning novel is wise and beautiful. A coming-of-age story, Jasper Jones interweaves the lives of complex individuals all struggling to find happiness among the buried secrets of a small rural community.Whether you know the book or not, this piercing adaptation is very much worth seeing for the way it depicts – and shows ways across – some of the deep and enduring divides in our society." - Jason Blake SMH

The Good Teacher


P.J. Kelly - 2017
    A cloudy autumn sky. The day started with 362 students and seventeen teachers. It ended with three people missing. ​Lisa and Jacob Johnstone had suffered a well-documented childhood of neglect and abuse. Everyone agreed that it needed to end. ​Jessica Bell was a kind and well-respected teacher. A strong and motivated woman, she only wanted the best for her students. Her own history of damage and pain had her believing that running away was the solution they had all been searching for. ​And so ensued a battle between right and wrong, good and evil, and common sense and the law. ​Miss Bell was not a bad woman. She was a good teacher. ​This is her story.

Man in Armour


Siobhan McKenna - 2020
     Charles lives in the testosterone-driven, high-powered, brutal world of investment banking. It is a world dominated by deals, bonuses, bravado and savagery. Charles is a master of this world. Each day he shrugs on a metaphorical suit of armour and goes out into a dog-eat-dog world to accumulate power and make money. He's a man who is familiar with casual brutality - his childhood saw to that.But there is a price to pay. Now, at the peak of his career, his armour is rusted and bloodstained and no longer protecting him the way it once did. He finds himself empty. Always cold. No friends. A family that is falling apart.Over the course of two days, everything in Charles' life comes into question. His carefully constructed world is starting to splinter - and he's splintering too.Shocking and at times immensely moving, Man in Armour is a compelling story of a man at the end of his tether, written with a sharp-eyed, incisive focus that also carries real emotional - and moral - resonance. Written by an ultimate business insider - a woman who knows intimately and at first hand this world of power, money and deal-making - this novel carries an undeniable authenticity and force.'The detailed setting of the finance world - the highs and lows, cutthroat practices and relentless pace -is vividly rendered ... Man in Armour is very readable' Bookseller+Publisher'There's no doubt McKenna can write a page-turner' Sydney Morning Herald

Mister Fluffy Bunny


Peter Cawdron - 2018
    Dana was found wandering alone in the Mexican desert in the midst of a drug war. Sheriff Garcia takes her to the Silver Plains orphanage, having her declared a ward of the state temporarily so he can focus on searching for her parents. When the sheriff is killed, Dana has to face the prospect she's never getting out of Silver Plains. Dejected and downcast, her only hope lies in the comfort of a stuffed toy—Mister Fluffy Bunny.

Goose Girl


Joy Dettman - 2001
    Sally De Rooze is almost thirty. She survived the accident that killed her father and brothers. Her mother never forgave her for that. But she survived her mother too. Surviving is what she does best. Farmer Ross Bertram, who offers her his acres and safety, is the answer for a while. Until he starts pushing for a wedding. Sally wants ... wants more. Wants to know great love. Wants to find herself. One year. That's what she wants. One year of freedom in the big, bad city. Her survival skills are tested in the urban sprawl and she discovers more about herself than she had ever dared to imagined.

Shantaram: A Novel by Gregory David Roberts Summary & Study Guide


BookRags - 2011
    54 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more – everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Shantaram: A Novel. This detailed literature summary also contains Topics for Discussion on Shantaram: A Novel by Gregory David Roberts.

On Mutiny


David Speers - 2018
    If we really do get the government we deserve, On Mutiny might provoke a civilian rebellion.

We Don't Live Here Anymore


Matt Nable - 2009
    In this startling debut novel, Matt Nable follows the fortunes of Charlie, Tess, and their families and neighbours. Their lives intertwine, unravel, straighten, and become tangled again. A father tries to relive his football career through his son; a mother deserts her children in an attempt to find herself; a daughter purges to take control of her life.This is a portrait of plans gone wrong, a lament of what could have been, a salute to the power of redemptive love, and a brave examination of contemporary society.

Past the Headlands


Garry Disher - 2001
    The fall of Malaya and Singapore and the bombing of Darwin—what looked like the invasion of Australia—ebb and crash over a man’s long search to find a home and a woman’s determination to keep hers, connected by old memories and new betrayals. It is a thriller and a romance, a story of earth and water, air and metal—an unforgettable ride through the most precarious time in our region's recent history. Garry Disher writes: ‘Past the Headlands came from the same World War 2 research as The Stencil Man. I was struck by the power of two documents. The first was a letter written by a woman alone on a cattle station near Broome in 1942, at the time the Japanese were overrunning Malaya and Singapore and bombing areas of northern Australia. One day she found herself giving shelter to Dutch colonial officers and their families, who were fleeing Sumatra and Java ahead of the Japanese advance (many people like them lost their lives when Japanese planes shot up their waiting seaplanes in Broome Harbour in March, 1942). This woman stuck in my head (the isolation, the danger, the efforts to communicate, her bravery, etc). The second document was a war diary written by an Australian army surgeon who escaped Singapore ahead of the Japanese and was stuck in Sumatra, trying to get out. Here he treated many of the civilians (and Australian Army deserters) fleeing from Singapore. He was captured by the Japanese, but survived the war. But his last few diary entries detail how he and a mate were waiting for a plane or a ship to take them out, then one day he wrote, “Davis [his mate] left last night without telling me”. So much for mateship. I spent years trying to find my way into their stories. At one stage I spent a year writing 40,000 words before realising it wouldn’t work. I put it aside, then realised one subplot didn’t belong, so extracted it and turned it into a separate novel The Divine Wind, which has sold 100,000 copies around the world, won a major award and been published as both a young adult and a general market novel. But cutting it out like that freed me up to write about the woman and the man betrayed by his mate, in Past the Headlands.’

The Quickening


Fiona McIntosh - 2014
    In this superb trilogy, Fiona McIntosh weaves a gripping story of action and intrigue.

Driving Stevie Fracasso


Barry Divola - 2021
    What could possibly go wrong? For fans of Nick Hornby, David Nicholls and Jonathan Tropper.Jaded music journalist Rick McLennan knows his life is going south when he loses his job, his apartment and his long-term girlfriend all on the same day. But then he is thrown a lifeline - a commission to write the story of his ex-rock-star brother, Stevie, and drive him from Austin, Texas, to New York to play one final gig. One small problem: the brothers haven't spoken in thirty years.Rick knows it's a bad idea. But he's out of choices. So he gets behind the wheel of a beaten-up 1985 Nissan Stanza and drives towards his destiny. He's about to find everything he didn't know he was missing. It's September 2001.From award-winning journalist and author Barry Divola comes a glorious, music-infused, rollicking road-trip novel - think High Fidelity meets The Big Lebowski meets The Darjeeling Limited. A smart, funny and wholly endearing story about how, though we may at times lose ourselves along the way, the road always leads back to family and the things that bring us joy.'Of course this road trip comes with a top-quality mix-tape - it's by Barry Divola - but it's the layers to this story, and its humour and its heart, that make this journey irresistible.' - Nick Earls'This book is the super f∗∗∗ing gnarly lead break of rock-lit novels.' - John Birmingham'Driving Stevie Fracasso reads as great as the fifth Replacements album sounds. It's a New York-centric, music-obsessive tale of humour and poignancy, the literary equivalent of hanging with folks who think going to church is finding a record fair. A+' - Stuart CoupeAn interpreter of the listening experience forced to listen to experience? This novel will be read in between flippin' records. Go for the ride. You'll be spent, you'll be grateful.' - Tim Rogers'If I could go back in time and take a different fork in the road, I would have lived like Barry Divola. But poor choices can't be unmade, and if Driving Stevie Fracasso is the only ride available I'll take it. Damn you, Barry Divola, you've been having everyone else's fun.' - Malcolm Knox

Fortune and Glory (The Change)


John Birmingham - 2017
    Set in S.M. Stirling’s epic storyworld of The Change, ‘Fortune and Glory’ drops readers into the dead heart of post-apocalyptic Sydney.