Archive | New Releases

Anita Heiss
From the bestselling author of Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray (River of Dreams) comes a sweeping new historical blockbuster about resistance, love and resilience during the frontier wars. Miinaa was a young girl when the white ghosts first arrived. She remembers the day they raised a piece of red and white cloth and renamed her homeland ‘Bathurst’. Now she lives at Cloverdale and works for a white family who have settled there.

The Nugents are kind, but Miinaa misses her miyagan. Her brother, Windradyne, is a Wiradyuri leader, and visits when he can, bringing news of unrest across their ngurambang. Miinaa hopes the violence will not come to Cloverdale, but she knows Windradyne is prepared to defend their Country if necessary. When Irish convict Daniel O’Dwyer arrives at the settlement, Miinaa’s life is transformed again. The pair are magnetically drawn to each other and begin meeting at the bila in secret. Dan understands how it feels to be displaced, but they still have a lot to learn about each other. Can their love survive their differences and the turmoil that threatens to destroy everything around them? Anita Heiss is breathing new life into the Australian historical epic.

Lynda la Plante
Newly promoted Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison has elbowed her way into the Area Major Incident Pool, or AMIP, an elite team investigating non-domestic murders. With her new position, she hopes things will the rampant sexism, the snide remarks, the undermining.

Then she gets her first a five-year-old cold case of a missing teenager no one else has any interest in investigating, and an assumed suicide Tennison suspects is, in fact, murder.

But as Tennison gathers the crucial evidence to secure arrests, her new colleagues watch like vultures circling prey. And one by one the cases that she has built from the ground up are taken from her – and the glory along with them.

Lucinda Riley
Sweeping across two generations, from the ghettos of Europe during the Second World War to the enclaves of New York’s Fifth Avenue, The Hidden Girl traces the life of Leah Thompson, who rises from humble beginnings in rural Yorkshire to take the modelling world by storm.But her fateful association with the Delancey family dominates her life. The secrets they hide from one another start to explode into nightmares of thwarted ambition, forbidden love, revenge and murder . . . culminating in a fatal, forgotten prophecy from the past.

This title was previously published as Hidden Beauty by Lucinda Edmonds, and has been rewritten and reimagined by her son, Harry Whittaker, for Lucinda Riley fans the world over.

Peter May
Set against the brooding landscape of the Hebrides, Peter May returns to the territory of his bestselling Lewis Trilogy, and his much-loved detective, Fin Macleod. When the lifeless body of eighteen-year-old Caitlin is discovered on a desolate beach by the Black Loch, questions of murder and secrecy shroud the tight-knit community.

It soon emerges that the young woman was in an illicit relationship with Fionnlagh Macleod, a married teacher at the Nicholson Institute where she was a student. Her lover becomes the prime suspect in the murder investigation. He is also Fin’s son.

Despite leaving the island a decade earlier to escape the haunting memories of his past, Fin is compelled to return to Lewis in a desperate attempt, despite the evidence, to clear his troubled son’s name. He will discover that the crime is connected to his own teenage years, in a tragic salmon fishing accident that had led to two deaths, and in the growth of a multi-billion pound industry on the island.

Mitch Jennings
A deadbeat dad. A curious boy. A journo drowning in the past … and a town full of secrets. Can the truth ever be found in a town called Treachery? A brutal murder in a town called Treachery? It’s a story most journos would kill for, but for Stuart Dryden, it’s a major inconvenience. He didn’t take the gig at the local rag for its bustling crime beat.

He’d sacrifice a career-making story for happy hour at the pub, but not even he can let a grisly murder through to the keeper. Especially when he keeps getting scooped by a persistent kid with a disposable Kodak.

Life’s tough for eleven-year-old Matty Finnerty. His mother’s gone, his father’s gone most of the time and, as hard as he tries, he just can’t get the kids at school to like him. When his favourite teacher Wendy Millburn turns up dead at the beach, it puts his dad Robbie in the crosshairs of a town that never liked him anyway.

Worse than the bricks through the window, the dead rabbits on the lawn and the fish heads in the mailbox is the fact no one seems to be looking for Wendy’s killer. Matty starts to wonder whether Robbie knew her better than he’s let on. He needs a hero, and Dryden will have to do – that is, if he can just stay sober for a night or two. He might even cast off the ghosts of his own past.

As they stumble their way to answers, can they find the truth about Wendy – and what they’re really made of?

Robert Jobson
Through the author’s extensive connections within the royal household, this dynamic new biography tells the full story of how Catherine, the Princess of Wales, became the woman she is today.Kate Middleton’s life’s story seems like a modern-day fairy-tale. An attractive, clever, and ambitious girl from unexceptional beginnings meets and falls in love with a wealthy prince when they are both college undergraduates.

Now, with the British monarchy in transition, Catherine is destined to become the first “commoner Queen” in British history since Anne Hyde, wife of James II. Since her wedding on April 29th, 2011—and since becoming the Duchess of Cambridge—Catherine has endeared herself to the people of the Britain and America with her extensive travels, with her infectious smile, sense of style, and down-to-earth nature. With her self-deprecation, willingness to laugh at herself, solid work-ethic—along with William’s warmth, and accessibility—this dynamic duo has become the most popular members of the royal family.

As interest in the royals continues to gain legions of new, younger fans, there is increasing interest in the histories and back stories of the principal players in this story. Through the author’s connection with sources both on and off the record within the royal household, this dynamic new biography tells the full story of how Catherine became the woman she is today.

Paul E. Hardisky
In the ongoing climate wars, the Great Barrier Reef has become a symbol of everything that we have to lose from global warming. For years, reports of the world-famous coral being irreversibly bleached have fuelled an ideological battle between those fighting to stop the damage and those who insist the danger is overblown.

Paul Hardisty found himself in the middle of this fight during his six years as CEO of the Australian Institute of Marine Science. In this fascinating, candid and urgent book, he dives into the history of the reef and cuts through the rhetoric to chart the circumstances and acceleration of its decline, as well as the determined efforts to save it.

In Hot Water is a crucial look inside the battle to save one of Australia’s greatest treasures, describing what must be done to preserve it, and what is at risk if we fail to do so.

Theodora Ell
A captivating memoir that unravels the emotional struggles of a nation the world has long overlooked. Through the eyes of an outsider, this story takes a deep dive into the intimate details of Lebanon’s hardships, providing a profound understanding of its people and their journey.

From 2018 to 2021, writer and researcher Theodore Ell accompanied his wife on her diplomatic posting to Lebanon and unexpectedly found himself a witness to a country on the brink of collapse.
In prose as lucid as it is emotionally rich, and based on reportage that won Ell the 2021 Calibre Prize, Lebanon Days welcomes those who wish to understand more than news footage can convey.

This is the story of a nation largely ignored by the rest of the world, a complex country driven over the edge but still seeking faith in itself, seen through the eyes of an outsider drawn into its intimate struggle.

Bruce Pascoe
Sometimes you need to repeat something a hundred times before a bell rings in the colony. From the bestselling author Bruce Pascoe comes a deeply personal story about the consequences and responsibility of disrupting Australia’s history. When Dark Emu was adopted by Australia like a new anthem, Bruce found himself at the centre of a national debate that often focussed on the wrong part of the story.

But through all the noise came Black Duck Foods, a blueprint for traditional food growing and land management processes based on very old practices. Bruce Pascoe and Lyn Harwood invite us to imagine a different future for Australia, one where we can honour our relationship with nature and improve agriculture and forestry; where we can develop a uniquely Australian cuisine that will reduce carbon emissions, preserve scarce water resources and rebuild our soil.

Bruce and Lyn show us that you don’t just work Country, you look, listen and care. It’s not Black Duck magic, it’s the result of simply treating Australia like herself. From the aftermath of devastating bushfires and the impact of an elder’s death to rebuilding a marriage and counting the personal cost of starting a movement, Black Duck is a remarkable glimpse into a year of finding strength in Country at Yumburra.

Margaret Reeson
One day in late June 1942, over a thousand men were taken from an internment camp in Rabaul, New Guinea. They were never seen again. Questions surrounding their fate have continued until the present.

Many decades later, questions are still being asked by bereaved families and their friends. What really happened on that fateful day? How could such a tragedy, with a loss of Australian life twice that of the whole Vietnam War, be left forgotten and unresolved? Was there government incompetence? Is ‘friendly fire’ by a US submarine against the prison ship Montevideo Maru a sufficient explanation?
This is the story of the wives and families who waited, not knowing whether their men were dead or alive – of despair and false hope, of somehow carrying on at home. It is also the story of a handful of Australian nurses who disappeared from New Britain, beyond reach or help – and survived in captivity in Japan. It is based on original wartime records and first-hand memories of those who lived that experience.