Sixteen-year-old Isabella is forced to flee her home when her father’s radical ideas lead him into a suicidal stand against Oliver Cromwell’s army. Taking refuge in Amsterdam and desperate to find a means to survive, Isabella finds work with an elderly printer, Master de Aquila, and his enigmatic young assistant, Willem.When Master de Aquila travels to Venice to find a publisher brave enough to print his daring new book, Isabella accompanies him and discovers a world of possibility -where women work alongside men as equal partners, and where books and beliefs are treasured.But in a continent torn apart by religious intolerance, constant danger lurks for those who don’t watch their words. And when the agents of the Spanish Inquisition kidnap de Aquila to stop him printing his book, Isabella and Willem become reluctant allies in a daring chase across Europe to rescue him from certain death.The sequel to Act of Faith will be published in 2013.

    In ‘Water’, a futuristic world is imagined and the fate of a people threatened. In ‘Light’, familial ties are challenged and characters are caught between a desire for freedom and a sense of belonging.Heat and Light presents an intriguing collection while heralding the arrival of an exciting new talent in Australian writing.

    Brutal, comic, obscene, and crystalline, Stream System runs from the haunting "Land Deal," which imagines the colonization of Australia and the ultimate vengeance of its indigenous people as a series of nested dreams; to "Finger Web," which tells a quietly terrifying, fractal tale of the scars of war and the roots of misogyny; to "The Interior of Gaaldine," which finds its anxious protagonist stranded beyond the limits of fiction itself.No one else writes like Murnane, and there are few other authors alive still capable of changing how--and why--we read.Contents:When the mice failed to arrive --Stream system --Land deal --The only Adam --Stone quarry --Precious bane --Cotters come no more --There were some countries --Finger web --First love --Velvet waters --The white cattle of Uppington --In far fields --Pink lining --Boy blue --Emerald blue --The interior of Gaaldine --Invisible yet enduring lilacs --As it were a letter --The boy's name was David --Last letter to a niece.

    Victor developed a passion for traditional cultural and ecological knowledge from a young age, but it was after leaving high school that Victor met two Elders who became his mentors, particularly to revive cultural burning. Developed over many generations, this knowledge shows clearly that Australia actually needs fire – with burning done in a controlled manner – for land care and healing. Victor’s story is unassuming and honest, written in a way that reflects the nature of yarning. And while some of the knowledge shared in his book may be unclear to western world views, there is much evidence that, if adopted, it could benefit all Australians. For every copy sold, Hardie Grant will donate dollar 1 to Firesticks, which empowers Indigenous fire management practitioners to revive cultural burning.

    A Yourtopia Bespoke Terraria employee becomes paranoid about the mounting coincidences in her life. Four girls gather to celebrate their underwear in ‘Happy Smiling Underwear Girls Party’, a hilarious take-down of saccharine advertisements.With her trademark wit and slicing social commentary, Elizabeth Tan’s short stories are as funny as they are insightful. This collection cements her role as one of Australia’s most inventive writers.

    

    Told through the fictional characterisation of Darug woman Muraging (Mary James), Benevolence is a compelling story of first contact. Born around 1813, Muraging is among the earliest Darug generations to experience the impact of British colonisation – a time of cataclysmic change and violence, but also remarkable survival and resistance.At an early age Muraging is given over to the Parramatta Native School by her Darug father. Fleeing the school in pursuit of love, she embarks on a journey of discovery and a search for a safe place to make her home. Spanning the years 1816–35, Benevolence is set around the Hawkesbury River area, the home of the Darug people, in Parramatta and Sydney.Julie Janson’s intensely visual prose interweaves historical events with detailed characterisation – she shatters stereotypes and gives voice to an Aboriginal experience of early-settlement.

    Be amused and appalled as Tony discovers his parents are censoring bare breasts from the National Geographic, has his braces repossessed by the government, gets caught two-timing his local video shop, attempts to start a band with no musical skill whatsoever, mars an awards night with a burst of foul language, and returns to his hometown to discover his grandfather is not the man he thought he was.A Nest of Occasionals is a series of supersize set pieces from a life lived in miniature. But what on earth does that title mean? There’s only one way to find out…

    A literary event of the highest order. Joy Williams has been celebrated as a master of the short story for four decades, her renown passing as a given from one generation to the next even in the shifting landscape of contemporary writing. And at long last the incredible scope of her singular achievement is put on display: thirty-three stories drawn from three much-lauded collections, and another thirteen appearing here for the first time in book form. Forty-six stories in all, far and away the most comprehensive volume in her long career, showcasing her crisp, elegant prose, her dark wit, and her uncanny ability to illuminate our world through characters and situations that feel at once peculiar and foreign and disturbingly familiar. Virtually all American writers have their favorite Joy Williams stories, as do many readers of all ages, and each one of them is available here.

    Luke Carman’s first book of fiction is about to change all that: a collection of monologues and stories which tells it how it is on Australia’s cultural frontier. His young, self-conscious but determined hero navigates his way through the complications of his divorced family, and an often perilous social world, with its Fobs, Lebbos, Greek, Serbs, Grubby Boys and scumbag Aussies, friends and enemies. He loves Whitman and Kerouac, Leonard Cohen and Henry Rollins, is awkward with girls, and has an imaginary friend called Tom. His sensitivity in a tough environment makes life difficult for him – he is anything but an elegant young man. Carman’s style is packed with thought and energy: it captures the voices of the street, and conveys fear and anger, beauty and affection, with a restless intensity.

    She sure wasn't expecting to be the one in need of help, though.Thanks to her father's gambling addiction, Stella and her family now find themselves living at Fairyland Caravan Park. And hiding this truth from her friends is hard enough without dealing with another secret. Stella's birth mother has sent her a letter.As Stella deals with the chaos of her family, she must also confront the secrets and past of her 'other' family. But Stella is stronger than she realises.From the author of P is for Pearl comes a heart-warming book about family, friendship and what home can mean.

    Subjects range from the longest kiss ever, to a boy who becomes transparent, and all the stories are unpredictable!

    In "Mercury Rain" a soldier fighting a new enemy learns the importance of holding on to his memories. "Blackwater," the title story of the collection, is an homage to Stephen King's short story, "Graveyard Shift," and it tells the tale of Paul Hawkins, a mine worker who disturbs something terrifying in the Blackwater Hills of Durham, Pennsylvania, in the summer of 1976.

    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 …

    Do you require fire, police or ambulance?' asked the female switchboard operator with brisk professionalism. I thought fast. 'I actually need all three,' I answered .It's not every day that a home visit turns out to be an eco-protestor with appendicitis stuck up a tree. But as Dr Rosemary shares in this book, it's all part of a day's work for a south London GP. From an octogenarian nymphomaniac to a teenager in labour with a baby she didn't know about, when Dr Rosemary opens her surgery door she doesn't know who's going to walk in...