Dead man’s grave

Neil Lancaster
This grave can never be opened.
The head of Scotland’s most powerful crime family is brutally murdered, his body dumped inside an ancient grave in a remote cemetery.
This murder can never be forgotten.

Detectives Max Craigie and Janie Calder arrive at the scene, a small town where everyone has secrets to hide. They soon realise this murder is part of a blood feud between two Scottish families that stretches back to the 1800s. One thing’s for certain: it might be the latest killing, but it won’t be the last…

This killer can never be caught.
As the body count rises, the investigation uncovers large-scale corruption at the heart of the Scottish Police Service. Now Max and Janie must turn against their closest colleagues – to solve a case that could cost them far more than just their lives…

The sea captain’s wife

Jackie French
You never know what the sea will give you … or what it will take back. When Mair McCrae follows her island tradition and hunts for a husband cast up on the beach, she has no notion that the naked, half-drowned man she rescues is not just Captain Michael Dawson, heir to a major shipping firm, but that he’s obsessed by a ‘ghost ship’ carrying golden cargo.

On Big Henry Island women make the decisions and knit the patterns that mark a man as their own. But Big Henry is also a volcano, and threatening to erupt. Yet when Mair agrees to accompany Michael home, she finds that the Australian comfort he promised has a danger just as a social system that tries to keep women confined to small roles at the edges of men’s lives.

And as Michael hunts for the ‘Ghost’ in his revolutionary new steamship, a string of mysterious deaths upends Mair’s new life in Sydney.

Who is the murderer, and why is Mair the only one who realises what is happening?

The secret of the little Greek taverna

Erin Palmisano
In a village on Naxos lies a gorgeous guest house and taverna that never opened. Cressida’s husband died suddenly three years ago – the taverna was their dream – but she’s been too lost in grief to keep that dream alive.

Marjory “Jory” St. James, a young traveler who always feels more at home on the move, arrives on Naxos in the middle of the night as if summoned by the island. She quite unexpectedly becomes Cressida’s very first guest.

Jory quickly discovers that this island vacation is more than just a sightseeing adventure as all of the women in town are more than what they seem. But when a hotel group offers to buy Cressida’s taverna, it’s going to take all of Jory and Cressida’s drive and expertise to keep that from happening. With a generous dash of romance, deliciously tempting Greek food, and a growing friendship, can these two women find a way to finally open the little Greek taverna?

The eleventh floor

Kylie Orr
Sleep deprived, struggling and at breaking point, first-time mum Gracie Michael’s books one night—alone—at The Maxwell Hotel. A king- size bed all to herself. No demands. With time to recharge she’ll be able to return to her family more like the unflappable mother she pretends to be.

Instead, she wakes in a room she doesn’t recognise after an encounter with a man who is not her husband. Then she sees something she wishes she didn’t.

Being drawn into a crime was not something Gracie had planned for her hotel stay but when a distraught family appeals for information and a police investigation heats up she is trapped in a maze of lies.

To speak out jeopardises her marriage, but her silence threatens her son, her sanity and her safety. Will Gracie destroy her own family by telling the truth or devastate someone else’s by keeping her secrets?

My brilliant sister

Amy Brown
While Stella Miles Franklin took on the world, her beloved sister Linda led a short, domestic life as a wife, mother and sister. In a remarkable, genre-bending debut novel Amy Brown thrillingly re-imagines those two lives – and her own – to explore and explode the contradictions embedded in brilliant careers and a woman’s place in the world. Sliding Doors meets Wifedom.

Stella Miles Franklin’s autobiographical novel My Brilliant Career launched one of the most famous names in Australian letters. Funny, bold, often biting about its characters, the novel and its young author had a lot in common. Miles went on to live a large, fiercely independent and bohemian life of travel, art and freedom. Not so her beloved sister Linda. Quiet, contained, conventional, Linda was an inversion of Stella. A family peacemaker who married the man Stella would not, bore a son and died of pneumonia at 25.

In this reflective, witty and revealing novel, Amy Brown rescues Linda, setting her in counterpoint with Stella, and with the lives of two contemporary Ida, a writer whose writing life is on hold as she teaches and raises her young daughter; and Stella, a singer-songwriter who has sacrificed everything for a career, now forcibly put on hold.

No front line

Chris Masters
The soldiers of the SAS, the Commandos and Special Operations Engineer Regiment are Australia’s most highly trained soldiers. Their work is often secret, their bravery undeniable and for thirteen years they were at the forefront of Australia’s longest war. Shunning acclaim, they are the Australian Defence Forces’ brightest and best skilled.

In an extraordinary investigation undertaken over ten years, Chris Masters opens up the heart of Australia’s Special Forces and their war in Afghanistan. He gives voice to the soldiers, he takes us to the centre of some of the fiercest combat Australia has ever experienced and provides the most intimate examination of what it is like to be a member of this country’s elite fighting forces. But he also asks difficult questions that reveal controversial clouds hanging over our Special Operations mission in Afghanistan.

For Australia, there is no more important war to examine in detail. Afghanistan lives in our recent past and will continue to occupy our future. Masterfully told, No Front Line will find a place as one of Australia’s finest books on contemporary soldiering.

Muster dogs

Lisa Millar
When Muster Dogs first hit screens in 2022, viewers were enchanted. Five lively kelpie pups adopted into farming homes across Australia and put on an intensive training program and became instant stars. Could they learn to herd and muster within a year? Could they prove that working with natural ability was an optimum way to farm? With the help of expert breeders and trainers, these dogs and their new trainers showcased not only what the puppies were capable of but how using dogs contributed to better stock, farm management and environment.

Among those who lost their hearts to these amazing puppies was narrator Lisa Millar. Muster Dogs quite literally changed her life. In this book Lisa tells us about her journey over two seasons, bringing us up to date with the characters of series 1 – human and canine – and introducing us to five new collie pups, trainers and the hurdles of season 2.

Many questions have been asked about Muster Dogs. How did it start? Why did it resonate with audiences? Lisa addresses the show’s impact, brings us stories from behind the scenes, and takes us deep into country life, all the while examining the powerful relationship between human and dog. With tips from trainers and experts, this is a book that will immerse you in affection, resilience, and loyalty, all set against the wide brown (and green) land that is our productive heartland.

Yeah, nah!

William McInnes
Join bestselling storyteller William McInnes as he offers his own take on our colourful and colloquial way with words. From the simpler times of childhood to today’s testing (and unprecedented!) times, or when we’re wasting time, enjoying sporting times or hitting the big time, Australians have a turn of phrase for every situation.

Our love of plain speaking communicates the essence of the thing to our mates, to those in the know – and to those who should know better.

Part memoir, part manifesto, this warm, witty, poignant and laugh-out-loud funny collection will have you thinking about what you say, how you say it and what that really says about us as a nation.

The teacher’s pet

Hedley Thomas
If you thought you knew the story of The Teacher’s Pet, get ready to be shocked. Hedley Thomas takes you behind the scenes with a blow-by-blow account of one of the most intriguing and enduring murder mysteries of our time – the crime, the podcast investigation, the sexual exploitation of teenage students, the courtroom drama – and how justice was finally delivered.

Lynette Simms disappeared from Sydney’s idyllic Northern Beaches in 1982 and was never seen again.

Lyn was a caring nurse, loving mother and devoted wife. Her husband Chris Dawson was a rugby league star, a popular teacher and exceptionally close to his identical twin brother, Paul. But this facade of domestic bliss was shattered when Chris became infatuated with the family’s babysitter – his 16-year-old student – a girl he moved into Lyn’s home and bed just two days after her disappearance.

Thirty-six years later, investigative journalist Hedley Thomas revisited the story in a record-breaking podcast series that captured the unconditional support of Lyn’s friends, colleagues, neighbours and family, and an international audience. With fresh leads and old evidence resulting in a public groundswell for authorities to take action, Chris was arrested in late 2018 and after a dramatic trial was found guilty of murder in August 2022.

The Weambilla shootings

John Kerr
Two survivors, three lost lives. The true story of a long-prepared ambush by religiously motivated conspiracy theorists. Grappling with a dangerous conspiratorial worldview, Gareth, Nathaniel and Stacey Train carry out one of Australia’s most horrific ambush attacks.

Disillusion, paranoia, isolation collides violently with distrust of government and the outside world in Central Queensland. John Kerr has taken time and care to intimately research the lives of Nathan, Gareth and Stacey Train to help readers make some sense of what happened that day and why. With an incoherent mash-up of Apocalyptic Christianity, the Sovereign Citizen Movement, doomsday preppers mentality, anti-vax conspiracy theories and a withdrawal from normal society, The Wieambilla Shootings chronicles the trio’s descent.

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