AustLit

'With the Nordic fairy tale East of the Sun and West of the Moon as her inspiration, Juliet Marillier weaves a magical story of a young princess' search for her true self.

'Hulde is a queen's daughter and lives in a palace. But her life is lonely. Growing up atop the glass mountain, she knows only her violent and autocratic mother and a household of terrified servants. 

'Then a white bear named Rune comes to visit, and Hulde learns what kindness is. 

'But the queen has a plan for Hulde. When she turns 16, she will wed the most beautiful man in all the world. Hulde has never met her intended husband, and her mother refuses to explain the arrangement. Hulde becomes desperate to find out more, and seeks the help of a magic mirror. Perhaps someone is coming to her rescue. 

'On her wedding day, Hulde's existence is turned upside down. For the first time she leaves the glass mountain behind, setting out to be as brave as the heroines in her beloved storybook. 

'The journey will test Hulde to the limit. Can she overcome her fears and take control of her own life? '  (Publication summary)

'Two sisters climbing the ranks of Dublin’s criminal justice system. A murder case that could change their lives forever. The Sisters is a gripping new thriller from one of the most exciting voices in crime fiction.

' In this prequel to the international bestseller The Ruin, set 10 years prior, bright-eyed Carrie Ryan is at the very start of her career. When she has a hunch about an ongoing murder investigation, she knows it could be her only chance to prove herself and truly break into the “boy’s club” of Dublin’s police force. 

'Carrie uncovers this make-or-break moment in a case file her sister Aifric, a newly qualified barrister, leaves on their kitchen counter: Robert Collins has been charged with the murder of his girlfriend after a fight in a local pub, and all signs point towards a guilty verdict. But both sisters quickly begin to find evidence that complicates the story. All the while, Carrie is very aware that she’s crossed the line – if the detective sergeant running the investigation finds out she’s been messing around with his case, her career will be over before it has begun.' (Publication summary)

'Fifteen years after graduating from Harvard, five close friends on the cusp of middle age are still pursuing an elusive happiness, and wondering if they’ve wasted their youthful opportunities. Jules, already a famous actor when she arrived on campus, is changing in mysterious ways but won’t share what is haunting her. Mariam and Rowan, who married young, are struggling with the demands of family life and starting to regret prioritising meaning over wealth in their careers. Eloise, now a professor who studies the psychology of happiness, is troubled by her younger wife’s radical politics. And Jomo, founder of a luxury jewellery company, has been carrying an engagement ring around for months, unsure whether his girlfriend is the one. 

'The soul searching begins in earnest at their much-anticipated college reunion weekend on the Harvard campus, when the most infamous member of their class, Frederick - senior advisor and son of the recently elected and loathed US President - turns up dead. 

'Old friends often think they know everything about one another, but time has a way of making us strangers to those we love - and to ourselves....'   (Publication summary)

'When a vicious attack leaves 25-year-old Clementine Johns with no memory, she's forced to start over. Now she has to figure out who she was and why she made the choices she did - which includes leaving the supposed love of her life, tattoo artist Ed Larsen, only a month before.

'Ed can hardly believe it when his ex shows up at his tattoo parlor with no memory of their past, asking about the breakup that nearly destroyed him. The last thing he needs is more heartache, but he can't seem to let her go again.

'Should they walk away for good, or does their love deserve a repeat performance?'  (Publication summary) 

'Every modern city has one week’s worth of food to feed itself. Then it will collapse. 

'Cut off the resources to New York, Sydney, or even a mid-size metropolis, and millions will soon starve. In Zero Day Code we see those immense and open, hyper-complex, networked supercities of the new millennium die. And in the last moments we see their vengeance take form as all the best and worst traits of humanity bubble to the surface. 

'Zero Day Code is set in a realistic near future with dwindling global food supplies under increasing pressure from worsening droughts, floods and extreme weather events. Written by prolific Australian writer John Birmingham, the thriller follows a handful of survivors from the first day of society’s descent into violent, uncertain futures. 

'James, a consultant to the US National Security Council, is the first to suspect that the worldwide emergence of a crippling computer virus is actually a cover for something else - a devastating cyber-attack by China on the food distribution system of the United States. The attack is a bid for the Middle Kingdom to distract America as it seizes the food bowl of South East Asia and feeds its starving population. But Beijing has miscalculated.

'Follow the missions of an embittered activist chasing salvation, a single mum rescuing her child from a frantic San Francisco and an army veteran who has long retreated from society, as the world they knew crumbles around them.' (Publication summary)

'On Zero Day of the first and last cyberwar in human history the internet went dark, transport and power grids collapsed, and cities began to starve. Ten days later millions have died from thirst and starvation, from violence, and from the simple failure of the world’s machines to keep them alive.   

'This second installment of John Birmingham’s End of Days trilogy finds James O’Donnell and his friends Rick, Michelle and Melissa hunkered down in the wilderness, where they know a horde of starving, desperate exiles from the graveyard of the US East Coast is heading their way.  

'On the far side of the continent, in the Pacific Northwest, Jonas Murdoch helps lead the good folk of Silverton in defending themselves from waves of starving and desperate refugees pouring out of Seattle.   

'And slowly, cautiously navigating the inland waterways of California, Jodi Sarjanan and Ellie Jabbarah negotiate an apocalyptic landscape of burning skyscrapers and marauding gangs.   

'All of them are seeking sanctuary. A safe place where the madness hasn’t penetrated. But does such a place exist?  

'And what if they need to sacrifice their very humanity in the struggle to reach it?' (Publication summary)

'They’re wearing ball gowns, they’re debutantes... and they’re black. The debs’ ball is a controversial colonial export but can it be empowering too? Australia’s most celebrated young playwright Nakkiah Lui and actress Miranda Tapsell put on their hats and gloves to find out.

Nakkiah and Miranda are angry, young, vocal, Aboriginal and very, very funny. Join them on their journey, starting with a lesson on teatime etiquette in London where it all began, as they follow the debutante trail and discover that First Nations women across the globe have made this tradition their own. Nakkiah and Miranda ask: can beauty, poise and politeness actually empower them? Or is it better to get angry and start shouting?'

(Source : Audible)

'Psychologist Margot Scott has a picture-perfect life: a nice house in the suburbs, a husband, two children and a successful career.

'On a warm spring morning Margot approaches one of her clients on a busy train platform. He is looking down at his phone, with his duffel bag in hand as the train approaches. That's when she slams into his back and he falls in front of the train.

'Margot's clients all lie to her, but one lie cost her family and freedom.

'A fast-paced psychological thriller for fans of The Silent Patient.' (Publication summary)

'Arthur MacDonald, 85, is having an end-of-life crisis. His beloved, dying wife of over 60 years no longer knows who he is. His older brother still has all his hair and a wife almost half his age. The man his middle-aged daughter is dating has a ponytail. 

'His teenaged grandson wants to cook desserts for a living. And his daughter wants him to move into Silvermine retirement home. Then Arthur meets the gorgeous, radical, 80-something-year-old Robbie and learns that nobody is ever too old to fall in love all over again.' (Publcation summary)

'Stan Weir is mourning a tragic loss when he meets a mysterious nine-year-old girl, who claims to be the reincarnated spirit of his late wife. Marcy Keef is a single mother trying to make ends meet when her daughter Erin starts describing 'past life memories'. Neither wants to believe Erin, but as violent secrets are revealed, the truth becomes harder to deny. 

'With echoes of Stephen King, Second Skin is a propulsive thriller about grief, guilt and truths better left unknown.' (Publication summary)

'Famous musician William Hamilton, vanished from the Maleny Hinterlands in 1994 under puzzling circumstances — no one has seen or heard from him since. When two podcasters, Adam and Simon, decide to solve the 25-year-old mystery, they travel with Lilly, William’s youngest daughter, to the secluded Hamilton estate for a long weekend. Lilly has granted the pair unprecedented access to the reclusive Gloria, William’s wife, who hasn’t given an interview since he disappeared. But when they arrive, they find Gloria in a state of mental decline and they’re not the only ones searching for answers. Lilly’s older sister, Norah – a musician who lives in the shadow of her absent father – is desperate to discover the truth from Gloria before it’s lost for good. Yet William’s sister Rachel is fiercely uncooperative and there even seems to be an intruder on the property. The deeper Adam and Simon get with their investigation, the more the lines between voyeur and subject become blurred. As events reach a shattering climax, it becomes clear that somebody is willing to go to violent lengths to uncover the dark secrets at the heart of this famous family....

'Written and directed by Clare Sladden and performed by a stellar cast including Dacre Montgomery (Stranger Things), Yael Stone (Orange Is the New Black), Noni Hazlehurst (The End), David Berry (Outlander), Anna McGahan (Picnic at Hanging Rock), Bernard Fanning (Powderfinger), Gabrielle Rogers (All Saints) with original music performed by Bernard Fanning and Elana Stone (All Our Exes Live In Texas) and with special guest Clementine Ford (Fight Like a Girl).

'This is an Audible Original Podcast, developed and produced with investment from Screen Queensland. Free for members. You can download all 10 episodes to your Library now.' (Production summary)

'If you both cheat, does that cancel the infidelity out altogether? Can you just wipe the slate clean?

'Cam and Holly have a picture-perfect marriage and life: a beautiful house in the suburbs and two adorable little boys. Cam has sold his successful marketing agency to look after the boys while Holly goes full throttle on her career post-maternity leave, and everything’s peachy.

'‘Til Cam discovers Holly has been having an affair with a colleague.

'Heartbroken but pragmatic, Cam sees the situation as an opportunity to confess his own infidelity with his 21-year-old assistant. His thinking being a dual-infidelity situation means they cancel each other out...and their marriage will simply bounce back, and they’ll fall in love all over again. But a tangled web of lies and buried resentments makes starting over harder than he thought.

'Zoë Foster Blake has written a provocative novella that rips off the glossy cling-wrap of being successful and married with young children. Clean Slate is narrated from the husband’s perspective and will invite listeners to rethink infidelity and how it can creep into a marriage.' (Production summary)

'From Australia's master storyteller comes an endearing and engaging novella about a journey as unexpected, painful, intriguing and character-filled as life itself. 

'A cruise was the promise. To cruise away from their troubles. To cruise towards the place where they first met, on the banks of the Thames. A cruise to dwell in their memories together and plan their next chapter. 

'Paddy and Jenny Davern have had a long and happy marriage together in Sydney. Together they embark on a cruise to London, for the last leisurely journey in each other's company. While on board, they meet a kaleidoscope of adventurous passengers that test their resolve to their promise to each other, and motivations towards their pact.' (Production summary)

'Why do some societies collapse into lawless savagery while others prove resilient and lasting?

'On Zero Day of the first and last cyberwar in human history, the internet went dark, transport and power grids collapsed and cities began to starve, showing just how vulnerable the world could be to a targeted campaign of online sabotage. This final instalment of this prescient epic of civilisation collapse finds the small ragtag band of survivors come together to face a new, but eerily familiar threat - the rise of a fascist militia among the ruins of a failing country.

'With American Kill Switch, John Birmingham’s End of Days trilogy comes to a high-octane, thrilling conclusion.' (Production summary)

'An unpauseable new romance from New York Times bestselling, Audie Award winning author Kylie Scott!

'When Anna wakes up from a coma after a car crash, she discovers life has gone on without her. Her husband has been unfaithful—with her best friend—and she’s been long since replaced at work. While her old life is a distant memory, her new life feels like an empty shell. Then she meets the stranger who saved her life during the crash, and he changes everything.

'Leif Larsen—tattooist, joker, and player—has his own scars thanks to the crash that put Anna in a coma. Helping her move on from her failed marriage, and create a new life, sounds like a perfect distraction. So when he needs a new roommate, he invites Anna to begin her new life with him.

'Although their lives may have been put on pause, together they just might find a way to heal.' (Publication summary) 

''If there’d been a gun in her hand at that moment she knew she’d have shot them.... She’d been so pleased with little Dolly Russell, the good life she’d got for them all. Thought she had it made, had got her hands at last on the levers of her life.... Now it turned out that all that, being so pleased with herself, was no more real than a puff of smoke.'

'Always Greener is an exquisite portrait of Kate Grenville's complex, conflicted grandmother, who she feared as a child and only in adulthood came to understand. Born in rural Australia, Dolly Russell becomes a successful businessperson, mother and troubled wife. Then came the depression, bankruptcy and World War I. Yet, in a way, those disasters freed her. They allowed her to use her intelligence and ambition to make a space for herself in a man’s world.

'With all the pathos and subtlety that defined Grenville’s Australian classics such as Lilian’s Story and her Booker-shortlisted The Secret River, Always Greener tells the story of a generation of women often forgotten at our own cost.' (Publication summary)

'In the town of Gainesville, Cooper Fox has a special place in people’s hearts. Since the car accident that wiped his memories, Cooper has been...a little foggy. Cooper doesn’t know how to do much, but one thing he instinctively seems to know about is strength training, and with his help, Gainesville High’s football team has just won the Mid-States final. With Cooper the hero of the hour, the whole town is getting ready to celebrate in style. 

'When three strangers crash the party and decide to pick on the harmless-looking guy carrying a cooler full of sodas, they trigger something inside Cooper. Afterwards, the folks in Gainesville can never look at him in quite the same way. Is he really just a regular guy who suffered a brain injury in a car crash, or is he someone else? Or something else?  

'As Cooper tries to come to terms with baffling new memories, he’s about to be plunged into a terrifying world of secret experiments and covert assassins that will test his new-found abilities to the limit.' (Publication summary)

'To rogue ex-cop Jack Carlin, running a thug out of town and giving his stolen money to a kid struggling to escape the criminal lifestyle is all in a day’s work. Until it turns out the money belonged to a dangerous drug cartel seeking revenge against anybody who might have been involved in taking what was theirs.  

'With his act of charity ending in bloodshed, Jack won’t let the killers – or his guilty conscience – go unpunished. But how far is he willing to go to enact his own revenge plan? And what happens when the consequences start to hit a little too close to home?  

'From the best-selling author of The Hunted, The Consequence is a tense, darkly funny thriller about the limits of taking the law into your own hands.' (Publication summary)

'If Emily and Scott can write one more best seller together, the world’s their oyster. But each of them believes they’re the talent....

'Emily was an aspiring literary writer, forced to make a living from editing annual reports, when she met Scott, a screenwriter in similar circumstances. With Scott’s punchy plot and Emily’s luminous prose, they crafted an international hit - and fell in love doing it. Three years later, Scott’s own novel has flopped, Emily’s struggling with her literary manuscript, and their relationship is falling apart. Can they overcome their creative differences to produce another masterpiece?

'Graeme Simsion is the internationally best-selling author of The Rosie Project, The Rosie Effect, The Rosie Result and The Best of Adam Sharp. He lives with Anne Buist, a novelist in her own right and co-author of Two Steps Forward and Two Steps Onward, in Melbourne, Australia.  

'This project is a work of fiction; any resemblance to actual persons or events is entirely coincidental. Sort of.' (Publication summary)

'Paul manages an old-school plastics factory that has pivoted during the pandemic to making face masks and is now booming. Along comes Emily, the wayward daughter of an old friend, whom Paul hires to be his assistant, and she’s a sparkling force determined to prove her worth with the one chance she’s been given.  

'Imogen, a beautiful former acquaintance of Paul’s, also coincidently appears outside the factory, down on her luck and clearly full of ulterior motive. The masked truths of the women around him soon threaten to turn Paul’s quiet family life upside down.' (Publication summary)

'Every object has a ghost.

'There is a small yellow backpack - half unzipped, mouth yawning to the pavement, contents strewn around it (a banana, an exercise book, a pair of scissors) - abandoned on a suburban footpath.

'Ten feet away, the rubber stamp of tyres, resisting clamped brakes, mount the curb and cut across the path. The tracks come to an end at a crippled stop sign.

'The street, a tree-lined suburban road dappled in late-afternoon sunlight, is calm. But anyone walking past can feel the ghosts: the prickle on the back of their necks that tells them something happened here. The story of a vehicle careening to a halt. Of a child’s backpack left in a hurry.

'That intuition all comes before they take a closer look, and see there is dark, dry red on the scissor’s blade. The ghosts are screaming now; the scene’s memory turns violent. And as the passers-by raise their phones to answer the question what is your emergency? They see more red. Between the tyre-tracks and the blood. There are two words, hastily scrawled on the sidewalk. Written in blood.

'FIND US.' (Publication summary)

'Situated in a beautiful setting abutting the Balarang waterways and located on an acre of natural bushland, this three-bedroom country home is full of promise, character and potential. Featuring private access to the many splendours of Balarang Creek, this idyllic property is perfect for anyone seeking fresh air and serenity.

'Nostalgic for childhood summers a world away from his manic Melbourne life, Dave Johnson purchases a secluded house in a postcard-perfect coastal town. A savvy investment, he convinces his wife. One year on, and his seaside dream has turned into one big headache, with his tenants not paying rent, and now simply vanishing into thin air, leaving all their belongings behind. Summoned back to the house to inspect the abandoned property, Dave and his wife Lisa become trapped in the isolated spot after their car breaks down. Spooked and alone, they become lured into investigating what really happened to their mysterious tenants.' (Publication summary)