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.

Julie Bennett
A captivating tale of love, glamour and betrayal, inspired by the life of 1920s Australian film icon Annette Kellerman, for readers of Kate Morton and Taylor Jenkins Reid.

Blue Mountains, 2023: Working on a documentary at the historic Carrington Hotel, videographer Emma Quinn rescues a box of vintage film reels destined for landfill. Trawling through the box, Emma finds a series of handwritten letters hidden beneath the reels – letters that seem to belong to Rose Carey, golden girl of the silent film era.
Intrigued, Emma begins to read the letters and is fascinated by what she uncovers. And as her relationship with her wife fractures under the stress of IVF, she becomes increasingly obsessed with Rose’s story, at the heart of which lies a deadly secret.
Sydney, 1923: Rose Carey knows her glittering Hollywood days are numbered after a near-death experience following the filming of her latest epic. On top of that, she faces bankruptcy. Rose is no quitter, though – she has reinvented herself many times before, overcoming several obstacles to transform into one of Hollywood’s glamour girls. She can’t stop now, and so she throws herself into planning a spectacular production that will take the world by storm. But when she suffers another life-threatening accident, Rose realises that someone close to her wants her out of the way. Who in her close-knit circle has the most to gain? Can she trust anyone, other than herself?

Lily Samson
When young couple Elena and Adam are offered the chance to house-sit in their dream neighborhood for a few months, they jump at the opportunity. The leafy South London enclave is a world away from everything they know, complete with grand homes, lush gardens, and quaint local coffee shops.

Soon Elena crosses paths with the beautiful and enigmatic artist Sophia and her husband, Finn, and she and Adam are pulled into their orbit. Sophia is everything Elena isn’t—glamorous, alluring, successful—and Finn exerts a mysterious pull on Elena that she can’t seem to shake.

Elena’s infatuation with Finn grows stronger by the day, and when Sophia proposes a thrilling game to her new friend—to swap partners in secret—Elena quickly agrees. It’s not long before Elena experiences a sexual awakening that blossoms into an illicit love affair, but Sophia’s plans are far more dangerous than Elena could ever have imagined. . .

Sophie Matthieson
A beautifully crafted debut novel from a compelling new voice in Australian fiction. For the past seven years, Clare has been living in London. She works for a judge on child protection cases. Her partner, Miriam, is devoted to raising their young son, Rupert – their days are dominated by nap times, laundry, and hiding from each other.

When Clare returns to Melbourne to visit her ailing father, another crisis looms – her brother Max’s long-term drug addiction. She turns her efforts towards helping Max into rehab, but is this at the expense of her family back in London?

Moving, heartbreaking and devastatingly insightful, Together We Fall Apart is a story about running away and coming home.

Sophie Green
Mornington Peninsula, 1999. Wife and now grandmother Joan has checked into the grand old Duchess Hotel to find herself again after thirty-five years of being who her husband and family have wanted her to be. Peninsula local and soon-to-be octogenarian Frances is distracting herself from getting old, and avoiding her self-interested son by escaping to the warmth of the Duchess where the hotel staff treat her like the person she still is.

Meanwhile Frances’s daughter, Alison, is trying to manage significant disruptions at home while hoping to finally prove to her mother that she’s just as worthy of love as her brother. New to the Duchess, hotel maid Kirrilyis feeling the weight of a lifetime of responsibility, struggling to balance bills and work and family, and keeping thoughts of how there must be more to life at bay.

With its old-world glamour, sprawling seaside grounds and air of possibility, the Duchess Hotel might just be the place to help the women rediscover who they are and bring some spark back to their lives.