Taking a Chance


Deborah Burrows - 2013
    Nell is an Australian journo, and quite the fashionable lady, and Johnny is a captain with the American Press Corps who has a bit of a shady romantic past.Johnny's ex-lover, Lena Mitrovic, has been convicted of the murder of caddish artist Rick Henzell. Convinced of Lena's innocence, Johnny ropes Nell in to help him find the truth. During their investigation, they uncover a seedy and unsavoury side to wartime Perth. British, Australian and American servicemen are in the city looking to have a good time and many of the local girls are seeking excitement and romance. What they find is less wholesome. Some of these young girls fall into prostitution and become "Lost Girls".Nell hopes to improve conditions for these Lost Girls and for the women in Fremantle Gaol. Johnny hopes to find the true killer of Rick Henzell. The chemistry between the two main characters is immediate. They are both attractive, witty, sassy and willing to throw themselves into the fray. But Nell is "engaged" to an Australian lawyer and suspicious of Johnny's reputation. As well she might be...

Meet Me in Venice


Barbara Hannay - 2019
    It will be wonderful, her chicks under one roof again in their father's birthplace. But is it possible to recapture the past?Marc's marriage is in jeopardy, but for his mother's sake, he convinces his wife to keep up appearances. Anna's trying to hide the truth about the dismal state of her London acting career; and Ellie, enjoying a gap year and uncertain about her future choices, wants to avoid family pressure to conform.Despite the magic of Venice, family ties are tested to the limit, especially when a shocking secret from Leo's past is revealed. Now everything they value about love, family, commitment and trust must be re-examined.How can one family holiday require so much courage? Will Daisy's sentimental journey make or break them?From multi-award-winning author Barbara Hannay comes a moving and heartfelt family drama about difficult choices and finding happiness in the most unexpected places.

Fighting Dirty


Blair Denholm - 2020
    With everything poised to go pear-shaped, the embattled cop embarks on a path that could destroy his career, or save him from destruction. One thing you can be sure of, ex-boxer Lisbon never backs down from a fight!The twist at the end will leave you breathless!⭐ A story of evil and redemption⭐ The characters leap off the page⭐ Jack Lisbon is a kick-ass investigator who packs a punch⭐ An action-packed page-turnerFollow Jack Lisbon's journey in the upcoming series: "The Fighting Detective"

Blueberry


Glenna Thomson - 2017
    . .Greer O'Reilly needs to start over. Her professional success belies private sadness and domestic overload. She's torn between her career and motherhood. Her partner of twelve years has left her. And up ahead is her new home - a beautiful though neglected blueberry orchard in the hills of north-east Victoria. But when she and her six-year-old daughter Sophie arrive at the property to take possession, there's an unforeseen complication - the former owner, 81-year-old artist and jazz lover Charlie Chandler, refuses to move out. Charlie is dying and desperate to spend his last days in his old home. With Greer at the beginning of her new life, and Charlie at the end of his, the unlikely pair soon form a close bond. One that will offer the strength and inspiration Greer needs - because the next twelve months will either make or break her . . .

The Secret Heiress


Luke Devenish - 2016
    A fabulous fortune. Beautiful, identical twins...Dark shadows fall across the golden summer of 1886. Naive country girl Ida Garfield longs to escape the farm and when Miss Matilda Gregory, the elegant mistress of Summersby House, offers Ida employment as a housemaid, Ida leaps at the chance. Yet it’s not for her servant’s skills that she’s wanted.It’s her inquisitiveness...But before Ida starts her first day, Miss Gregory is found dead. Fearing her one chance of bettering herself lost, Ida goes to the funeral, hoping that someone else from Summersby will still want her.Someone does. Handsome blond Englishman Mr Samuel Hackett is the late Miss Gregory’s fiancé. He expresses a keen need for a housemaid – and a friend.But Miss Gregory’s will brings to light an extraordinary deception and a terrible wrong from the past. Summersby has a secret heiress, whose name is also Matilda Gregory... A strange, ethereal girl with an irrevocably broken memory.Could Samuel Hackett be responsible for his fiancée’s death? A pact made with Barker, Hackett’s dark and dangerous valet, is effective in silencing tongues. The two young men return the second Matilda to her inheritance – and set off a series of bizarre events.Secretly in love with Samuel, yet determined to aid the fragile heiress, Ida uncovers eerie messages from beyond the grave hinting at Summersby’s disturbing past – and its foreboding future.And Ida learns the terrible truth about the secret heiress … and an even more shocking legacy.

Death in the Ladies' Goddess Club


Julian Leatherdale - 2020
    It's not some bloody game.'In the murky world of Kings Cross in 1932, aspiring crime writer Joan Linderman and her friend and flatmate Bernice Becker live the wild bohemian life, a carnival of parties and fancy-dress artists' balls.One Saturday night, Joan is thrown headfirst into a real crime when she finds Ellie, her neighbour, murdered. To prove her worth as a crime writer and bring Ellie's killer to justice, Joan secretly investigates the case in the footsteps of Sergeant Lillian Armfield.But as Joan digs deeper, her list of suspects grows from the luxury apartment blocks of Sydney's rich to the brothels and nightclubs of the Cross's underclass.Death in the Ladies' Goddess Club is a riveting noir crime thriller with more surprises than even novelist Joan bargained for: blackmail, kidnapping, drug-peddling, a pagan sex cult, undercover cops, and a shocking confession.

The Beach House


Helen McKenna - 2011
    So when an outsider with grand plans threatens to demolish an iconic local landmark and build a huge resort the battle lines are drawn.Young journalist Jessica hopes to make it big with her coverage of the court case, but first she has to appease her editor and put a human interest spin on the situation. At first glance the five people she chooses to background have little in common – but it soon becomes apparent that staying at The Beach House has changed all of them in some way.In telling the stories of Kate, Simone, Tom, Clare and Jack, Jessica too learns some important life lessons.

The Mothers


Rod Jones - 2015
    When Alma falls pregnant, her daughter Molly is born in secret. As Molly grows up, there is a man who sometimes follows her on her way to school.Anna meets Neil in 1952 at her parents’ shack at Cockatoo. She later enters a Salvation Army home for unmarried mothers, but is determined to keep her baby.Fitzroy, 1975. Student life. Things are different now, aren’t they? Cathy and David are living together, determined not to get married. Against the background of the tumultuous events of the sacking of the Whitlam government, a new chapter is added to the family’s story.The Mothers is a book about secrets. It interweaves the intimate lives of three generations of Australian women who learn that it’s the stories we can’t tell that continue to shape us and make us who we are.

Dead Letters


Michael Brissenden - 2021
    Politician Dan LeRoi, Chairman of the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, has been shot. Four bullets to the head. The crime scene is chaotic. Homicide. Counter Terrorism. Media. And for Sid, hunting the killer is going to get complicated.Journalist Zephyr Wilde is complicated. She's tenacious and she's got Sid's number. Sid knows the gossip: how Zephyr's mother was murdered when Zephyr was a kid. He doesn't know that Zephyr is still getting letters from her long-dead mother. But when he learns that Dan LeRoi was helping Zephyr look into her mother's death, he realises that lines are going to be crossed. A cop should not be talking to a journalist.As they both ask too many questions, Sid and Zephyr stir up a hornet's nest of corruption. Knowing who to trust is going to mean the difference between solving a crime and being a victim. The question is, which side will they end up on.

The Biographer's Lover


Ruby J. Murray - 2018
    Edna’s work spans decades. Her soaring images of red dirt, close interiors and distant jungles have the potential to change the way the nation views itself.Edna could have been an official war artist. Did she choose to hide herself away? Or were there people who didn’t want her to become famous? As the biographer is pulled into Edna’s life, she is confronted with the fact that how she tells Edna’s past will affect her own future.This elegant and engrossing novel explores how we value and celebrate art and artists’ lives. The Biographer’s Lover reminds us that all memory is an act of curation.‘A delight to read. Ruby J. Murray enters the mind of an ambitious young biographer to assemble a moving portrait of a mysterious Australian painter.’ Carrie Tiffany‘An accomplished and memorable novel about the gaps left in our inherited history, and the imperfect storytellers we entrust to fill them. Beautifully constructed.’ Abigail Ulman

Man in the Corner


Nathan Besser - 2016
    But the following night David collapses from a rare brain disease and within a few months his world is turned upside down.It was a perfectly acceptable life – successful business, happy marriage, two children. Why then has David involved himself in an identity-theft crime worth millions of dollars? Why is he taking instructions from the oddly eloquent, handsome criminal, Ben Strbic? David can't quite understand the sequence of events that has led him here, only that he must continue to the very end.As the days and months progress, a scam that was meant to be straightforward becomes a perilous mystery unfolding in David's very own life.

The Husband Poisoner: Suburban women who killed in post-World War II Sydney


Tanya Bretherton - 2021
    For readers of compelling history and true crime, from critically acclaimed, award-winning author Tanya Bretherton.After World War II, Sydney experienced a crime wave that was chillingly calculated. Discontent mixed with despair, greed with callous disregard. Women who had lost their wartime freedoms headed back into the kitchen with sinister intent and the household poison thallium, normally used to kill rats, was repurposed to kill husbands and other inconvenient family members.Yvonne Fletcher disposed of two husbands. Caroline Grills cheerfully poisoned her stepmother, a family friend, her brother and his wife. Unlike arsenic or cyanide, thallium is colourless, odourless and tasteless; victims were misdiagnosed as insane malingerers or ill due to other reasons. And once one death was attributed to natural causes, it was all too easy for an aggrieved woman to kill again.This is the story of a series of murders that struck at the very heart of domestic life. It's the tale of women who looked for deadly solutions to what they saw as impossible situations. The Husband Poisoner documents the reasons behind the choices these women made - and their terrible outcomes.

Scrublands


Chris Hammer - 2018
    A year later, troubled journalist Martin Scarsden arrives in Riversend to write a feature on the anniversary of the tragedy. But the stories he hears from the locals about the priest and incidents leading up to the shooting don't fit with the accepted version of events his own newspaper reported in an award-winning investigation. Martin can't ignore his doubts, nor the urgings of some locals to unearth the real reason behind the priest's deadly rampage.Just as Martin believes he is making headway, a shocking new development rocks the town, which becomes the biggest story in Australia. The media descends on Riversend and Martin is now the one in the spotlight. His reasons for investigating the shooting have suddenly become very personal. Wrestling with his own demons, Martin finds himself risking everything to discover a truth that becomes darker and more complex with every twist. But there are powerful forces determined to stop him, and he has no idea how far they will go to make sure the town's secrets stay buried.A compulsive thriller that will haunt you long after you have turned the final page.

Boy Swallows Universe


Trent Dalton - 2018
    It's not as if Eli's life isn't complicated enough already. He's just trying to follow his heart, learning what it takes to be a good man, but life just keeps throwing obstacles in the way - not least of which is Tytus Broz, legendary Brisbane drug dealer.But if Eli's life is about to get a whole lot more serious. He's about to fall in love. And, oh yeah, he has to break into Boggo Road Gaol on Christmas Day, to save his mum.A story of brotherhood, true love and the most unlikely of friendships, Boy Swallows Universe will be the most heartbreaking, joyous and exhilarating novel you will read all year.

Dear Fran, Love Dulcie: Life and Death in the Hills and Hollows of Bygone Australia


Victoria Twead - 2021
    Both are newly-weds; Dulcie has a baby girl and Fran is expecting a baby. But there the similarities end.Fran is a Detroit city girl enjoying modern conveniences. Dulcie is a pineapple farmer’s wife enduring the extremes of Australia. Bushfires, floods, cyclones, droughts, dingo attacks and accidents are all too common. Regardless, Dulcie’s optimism shines through, revealing her love of the land and fascination for the wild creatures that share her corner of Queensland.Each book purchased will help support Careflight, an Australian aero-medical charity that attends emergencies, however remote.