Old loyalties and decades-long feuds rise to the surface in this stunning crime novel, set in a spectacular Australian landscape known for its jagged cliffs and hidden caves. Detective Sergeant Mark Ariti has taken a few days' holiday in Broken Bay at precisely the wrong time. The small fishing town on South Australia's Limestone Coast is now the scene of a terrible tragedy. Renowned cave diver Mya Rennik has drowned while exploring a sinkhole on the land of wealthy farmer Frank Doyle. As the press descends, Mark's boss orders him to stay put and assist the police operation. But when they retrieve Mya's body, a whole new mystery is opened up, around the disappearance of a young local woman twenty years before . . . Suddenly Mark is diving deep into the town's history - and in particular the simmering rivalry between its two most prominent families, the Doyles and Sinclairs. Then a murder takes place at the Sinclairs' old home - and Mark is left wondering which is more dangerous- Broken Bay's hidden subterranean world or the secretive town above it . . . 'A tour de force.' Australian Women's Weekly on Cutters End 'Astonishingly assured crime novel. A pitch perfect outback noir.' Weekend Australian on Cutters End 'Hickey nicely layers the intrigue as we follow the always likeable Ariti, who once again discovers just how secretive and bizarre life in the rural hinterland can be.' Sydney Morning Herald on Stone Town Cutters End was the winner of the BAD Danger Prize 2022 and was shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction 2022.

Broken Bay: A Place Where Truth is Dead in the Water

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Hickey, Margaret

Thrillers & Suspense

Bantam,Australia

Stone Town

Margaret Hickey

Mystery

Susan Duncan has reached an age where there’s no point in sweating long-term ramifications. There aren’t any. This new understanding offers the emotional freedom and moral clarity to admit to hidden facts of aging and, ultimately, to find ways to embrace them. This, in turn, unleashes an overwhelming desire to confront her intractable 95-year-old mother with the dreadful secrets of the past before it is too late. Interwoven with stories from the land—building a sustainable eco-house in New South Wales with her engineer husband, and grappling with white-eyed roans, dogs, droughts, and flooding rains, not to mention blunt-speaking locals—this is a book about a mother and daughter coming to terms, however uneasy, with the awful forces that shaped their relationship. Susan Duncan writes with honesty about discovery and forgiveness, and what it takes to rework shrinking boundaries into a new and rich life.

The House on the Hill: A Memoir

Parenting & Relationships

Duncan, Susan

Family Relationships

The third and final memoir from the author of bestsellers Salvation Creek and The House at Salvation Creek. In this memoir, Susan Duncan reaches an age where there’s no point in sweating long-term ramifications. There aren’t any. This new understanding delivers an unexpected bonus—the emotional freedom and moral clarity to admit to hidden and often fiendish facts of aging and, ultimately, to find ways to embrace them. It also unleashes an overwhelming desire to confront her intractable 94-year-old mother with the dreadful secrets of the past before it is too late, no matter the consequences. It is the not-knowing, she says, that does untold damage. Interwoven with stories from the land—building a fully sustainable eco-house in the mid-coast of NSW with her engineer husband Bob, and grappling with white-eyed roans, dogs, bawling cattle markets, droughts, and flooding rains, not to mention blunt-speaking locals—this is a book about a mother and daughter coming to terms, however uneasy, with the awful forces that shaped their relationship. As the inconstancies of age slow her down, Susan Duncan writes with honesty about discovery and forgiveness and what it takes to rework shrinking boundaries into a new and rich life.

The House on the Hill

Biographies & Memoirs

Memoirs

Nina Larkin should be happy. She’s transformed her rundown outback property, The Springs, into a successful artists’ retreat; she’s won a distinguished art prize, and she’s living with her soulmate, trail-blazing grazier Heath Blackett. But the chance discovery of a portrait of her father, renowned artist Jim Larkin, makes her question everything. How could it have been drawn just weeks ago when Jim has been dead for years . . . Or so she thought. Could her father still be alive? Can she track down the man in the picture? And is this connected to the missing gold buried by her ancestor over a century ago? Her search for answers will draw Nina into a maze of family secrets – just as the man who stepped out of a portrait arrives at her door . . . Alice Campion is the pseudonym for four members of a Sydney book club. Their first novel, The Painted Sky, also features Nina, Heath and the captivating landscape of outback Wangalla.

The Shifting Light

Literature & Fiction

Campion, Alice

Genre Fiction

When Amber Jones wakes up in her sister Sage's speeding car, with no idea how she got there (though the hangover is a clue), all she wants to do is go home. But Sage is convinced a road trip to Alice Springs will finally answer the burning question: who is Amber’s father? Because nine months before Amber’s birth, her late mother Goldie made the same trip . . . Armed with just a name and Goldie’s diaries, Amber agrees to search for a man she’s never met in one of the world’s biggest deserts. And that means spending two weeks in a convoy of four-wheel-driving tourists and camping in freezing desert nights. To make matters worse, her fellow travellers hate her and the handsome tour leader Tom thinks she’s an alcoholic. But slowly the desert starts to reveal its secrets - and Amber must decide which horizon to follow . . .

Amber and Alice

Paul, Janette

Women's Fiction

It is the late 1940s, and the Broody River runs through a maze of sandbanks into the Coral Sea. On its southern bank lies the holiday town of Baroodibah. But its northern shore is wild – unsettled except for the River House, an old weatherboard box on stumps where the Carlyle family take their holidays. For four-year-old Laurie Carlyle the house and its untold stories fire the imagination. It is a place of boating trips and nature collections, of the wind howling, the sheoaks sighing and the pelicans soaring into the blue sky. But when a squabble between Laurie and her older brother Tony takes an unexpected turn, she detects the first hints of family discord. As the years pass, the River House holidays seem to shine a light on the undercurrents in the family: the secret from her mother’s past, the bitterness between Tony and their father Doug, and her sister Miranda’s increasingly erratic and dangerous behavior . . . Following the family’s story through the decades, The River House is a richly nostalgic novel about love and betrayal, personal tragedy and thwarted ambition, illusion and remorse. Above all it is about change, and the slow but relentless march of time.

The River House

Cunnington, Janita

"Prepare to have your heart and soul and imagination invaded." —Isobelle Carmody "The Chronicles of Kaya sweep the reader into an unforgettable world." —Sophie Masson The kingdom of Kaya has been overthrown by a dark power. Trapped inside the dangerous capital, rebel leader Isadora fights the only way she can – by hunting those more monstrous than she. Falco is the exiled emperor of a nation in tatters. But fate demands he abandon the mask that has long disguised his true nature, and rise to meet his sworn enemy, the deadly Sparrow. No one is safe from the evil sweeping the lands, not even those in the far north strongholds of Pirenti. Crown Prince Thorne is plagued by ghosts, Lady Roselyn by the past. With his land and loved ones under threat, King Ambrose must find the strength to show his people a new way of life, or allow the nation’s legacy of violence to consume them. As world’s end draws near the undeniable power of the bond ties Isadora and Falco together. The death of one means the death of both. But Isadora has never before surrendered to fate. She is determined to break free and choose her own path, no matter the cost. The heart-wrenching final novel in the Chronicles of Kaya fantasy trilogy.

Isadora

McConaghy, Charlotte

Gone by Midnight

Candice Fox

The Moroccan Daughter

Deborah Rodriguez

Literary

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