AustLit

'Scandinavian noir meets Don Quixote in this intriguing mystery romance set on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

'In 1593, a wandering monk, Carmelo, creates a series of medals featuring Roland, celebrated in the medieval epic poem, The Song of Roland.

'In 2012, Armi, a young Finnish Border Guard, flees a murderous partner and sets out to walk the Camino. Although separated by five centuries, their journeys and stories converge at a ruined monastery on the Camino. 

'Carlo Fontal, one of the monastery’s owners, is restoring it, but it is unclear where the money for the project is coming from. Armi, her suspicions aroused, is torn between her growing attraction to Carlo and her reluctance to repeat past mistakes.

'What secrets connect the medal, the monastery, and the deceased billionaire who owned the Roland Medals? And what does a predator from Armi’s troubled childhood know about them?

'As Armi strives to find the truth, can she trust her feelings, vanquish her demons and take back the happiness that was stolen from her so long ago?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'It is 1977, two years after Australia’s constitutional crisis. The bureaucrats in West Block, home of the Prime Minister’s department, are recovering from the shock of
Gough Whitlam’s dismissal.

'George Harland schemes to preserve his departmental standing. Henry Beeker stakes his career on stalling a policy while Catherine Duffy risks her life rescuing victims of an ill-conceived one. Jonathan Roe sets off the tripwires in textbook economics. And all the while, Cassie Armstrong, head of the department’s women’s unit, is driven to despair.

'Life is tense in West Block. Pigeons nest in the leaking roof. A move is imminent: it’s feared the government plans to tear the building down. Old time bureaucrats are adjusting to a new, feminist presence in its corridors. At one time or other housing most of the federal public service, West Block is more than just a rundown office building. Here is the nation in microcosm.' (Publication summary)

'‘When our dads say, ‘Money doesn’t grow on trees you know,’ Grandma smiles and says, ‘Mmm, but knickers do.’

'WHAT?! Grandma’s got an underpants tree? She sure has and you know what else? It blooms all year round with all kinds of knickers to suit everyone in the family.

'But one morning, Grandma finds her precious tree has been attacked with knickers strewn all over the garden. Grandpa and the grandkids spring into action, setting up an after dark stakeout.

'Will the kids be able to stay awake long enough to find out whodunnit?’

'A charming story about the importance of gardens, grandparents and families doing things together.' (Publication summary)

'Fresh back from a stint in Asia, Australian Secret Intelligence Service officer, Ben Johnson, is posted to Egypt to establish a spy operation. He quickly acclimatises to the sights, smells and dangers of Cairo, cultivating a local asset who almost immediately provides explosive intelligence with far-reaching ramifications for the entire Middle East.

'Other foreign intelligence services want part of the action, some friendly and others, not so much. As the jockeying for position reaches fever pitch, Ben and his Embassy colleague Meg, become aware that the greatest threat to their operational cover, and their lives, comes from inside the system.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'That Looks on Tempests – Thoughts on the Nature of Love is Barbie Robinson’s third solo book of poetry and the first book of poetry to be published by For Pity Sake. That Looks on Tempests is set up in three sections – people, place and paradoxes – the work explores the way the word love is used, what it means in different contexts and to different people, how we learn about love.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'British Intelligence operative Isabella Di Stefano Butterfield has been dispatched to Tokyo for a very special purpose. Until recently, Japan seemed immune to the Islamic-inspired terror attacks that swept the world after 9/11. But the 2015 beheading of two Japanese aid workers in Syria changed everything.

'As the 2020 Tokyo Olympics approach, the race is on to establish a viable, outward-looking Japanese intelligence agency. Bella’s brief is to ensure this spy service is fashioned in the image of M16.

'But before discussions even commence, Japan receives disturbing intelligence about a home-grown terror plot from an unlikely source – China. Bella is thrown headlong into a complex, multinational espionage operation, forcing her to walk a trip-wire of hidden agendas that sorely test her professional and personal loyalties.'  (Publication summary)

'Carlo Minelli is about to discover that war and art are certainly not mutually exclusive.

'His politically ambitious father is carefully curating Carlo’s future at the family’s Lombardy vineyard. But Carlo and his artistic mother have other ideas. On the day he is meant to take up a highly coveted art scholarship at the French-run Villa Medici in Rome, Il Duce declares war. Carlo is turned away from the Villa’s heavily guarded entrance, leaving him neither a student nor gainfully employed in support of the war effort.

'Press-ganged into the Italian Army and captured in North Africa, Carlo the POW sketches and paints his way across three continents and several oceans, bringing the hardships of World War II into sharp relief against unexpected mateship, beauty and love.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The murder of a 10-year-old boy, strangled with the lead of his dog, shocks the quiet town of Victoria's Queenscliff to its core.

'The local senior constable, Chris Blackie and his deputy Anthea Merritt, expect the murder investigation to be handled by Geelong-based detectives from the Criminal Investigation Unit. But they're blind-sided by the interest that personnel from the secret military training base on Swan Island take in the case, strongly suspecting that the Detective Inspector may be taking direction from them.

'Consigned to the edges of the investigation and fearing an imminent wrongful conviction, Chris and Anthea defy their superiors to follow their own lines of enquiry - at great personal risk.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'It was Clara. My name is Chava now.'

'Forgive me, Chava, ' said Gesia. 'But you know, I would never have taken you for a Zionist. Such a staunch one, in any case, to want to give up your name.'

'Three Russian-Jewish women are flung from their homes in the Ukraine and Bessarabia - the 'wild west' of the tsarist empire - by pogrom and revolution.

'In 1922 Clara goes to Palestine where she joins the legendary G'dud Ha'Avodah or Labour Battalion, the roving collective initially formed to build roads connecting the growing Jewish settlements. But she soon becomes uneasy about Jewish settlers taking work from Arabs and usurping their land. As the schism widens between socialist and more conservative Zionists, Chava's abiding sense of justice has potentially lethal consequences.

'Clara's younger sister Manya migrates to the relative safety of Omaha in the American Midwest, reinventing herself as Marion for better assimilation. Despite escaping mounting antisemitism in Europe Marion feels isolated on the prairie, eventually finding her way to New York, an acting career and a life of ease compared to the hardships of Palestine.

'Zippora, Chava and Marion's niece, is a committed Zionist who hides from the Soviet secret police in a Ukranian forest and, in frequent letters, begs her dear Doda Clara to help her get to Palestine. Once there, Zipporah is dismayed by Chava's disillusionment with Zionism, her ardent belief in a future Jewish state remaining undiminished.

'Thus Clara, Manya and Zipporah form three sides of a triangle - the doomed revolutionary, the American immigrant, and the committed Israeli - three very different yet equally influential perspectives on the creation of present-day Israel.

'Sara Dowse's As the Lonely Fly is an epic story of persecution, migration and dispersal during tumultuous events in the 20th Century, which shines a light on the intertwined fates of Jews and Palestinians - a scenario with deep contemporary resonance. An urgent and moving novel from one of this country's most gifted storytellers.' (Publication summary)

'Outwardly Dr Nick Delaney has it all - the most successful veterinary practice in the district, a host of loyal clients and friends, and muscular good looks cementing his position as Bowral's most eligible bachelor. According to the local rumour mill Nick's sad past is the reason his 'bachelor' tag is probably here to stay - that is until the beautiful, cultured and feisty Jordana Talbot comes to town, fleeing a past of her own. The second in Diana Thompson's Bowral series, Unbridled Passion sheds more light on the strong undercurrent of romance and drama in the deceptively placid Southern Highlands of New South Wales.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'London, 1927. The jazz age. Aviators seek to conquer new frontiers in the sky.

'Former wartime ace James Harrington has his sights set on being the first person to fly from Britain to Australia in a light aircraft. With so much desert and ocean to cross, he's been told it can't be done.

Feisty Australian Sarah Carson can help make his dream a reality, but only on the condition that he takes her with him. So begins the flying adventure of a lifetime, until halfway across the world, the plane disappears...

Reporting on it all back home is Sarah's boyfriend, Fleet Street aviation correspondent Daniel Anderson, whose job it is to uncover the truth. Where in the world are they? And what is really going on?

From Australia's master of the historical blockbuster comes this highly entertaining adventure-romance about an ambitious and heroic pair. Glory Girl is an unforgettable story about the risks they take and the sacrifices they make for their chance of glory.' (From the publisher's website.)

'They were our golden youth, seeking adventure on foreign battlefields. The First World War, everyone said in 1914, would be over by Christmas, and Stephen Conway rushes to enlist in the belief he should fight for King and Empire. Leaving behind a new wife and a baby on the way, he soon finds himself in the trenches of Gallipoli. Four horrific years later, Stephen is the only survivor of his platoon, shell-shocked and disillusioned, and during the heat of battle on the blood-stained fields of France, he mysteriously disappears.

'Stephen's ultimate fate is still a mystery when more than eighty years later his grandson Patrick finds a diary that leads him to Britain and France on a journey to discover what really happened . . . a journey during which he unexpectedly finds love, and the truth about his grandfather's fate that is even stranger and more shocking than he imagined.' (Publisher's blurb)

'The small town of Gundagai in the 1930s is no place for the attractive and flamboyant Belle Carson and her young son, Teddy – particularly when she longs for him to achieve the success that eluded her on the stage and screen. Determined to pursue this dream, she abandons her husband and their Murrumbidgee River home for a more vibrant city life. But Belle’s obsession leads her and Teddy – whom the press christens ‘the Murrumbidgee Kid’ – into a world where nothing is safe or familiar. And from her carefully hidden past a threat soon emerges to make their precarious lives even more vulnerable . . .

'From rural Gundagai to the bright lights and shady underbelly of 1930s Sydney, this is a beautifully written and absorbing story about an unconventional family’s coming-of-age.'

Source : author's blurb

'Senator William Patterson, wealthy and influential, hides a scandal from his past that could ruin him. Stefan Muller, a young penniless immigrant, seeks a promised new life in a land that does not welcome him. When the senator’s cherished daughter Elizabeth falls in love with the impoverished Stefan, it creates a family conflict that threatens to destroy them.

'From a tumultuous and vibrant Sydney to the lyrical landscape of the Barossa Valley, A Bitter Harvest is an epic saga of prejudice, political turmoil and lasting love from one of Australia’s favourite storytellers.'

Source : author's website

'Daniel Johnson and Matthew Conway are currency lads – born and bred in the new land now being called Australia. Closer than brothers, they harbour a secret that binds them for life. But change is coming. When the British government resolves to turn back the clock and renew convict transportation, Daniel and Matthew find themselves on opposite sides of a fierce conflict that threatens to tear their friendship apart.

'Set in the bustling maritime world of 1830s Sydney, and spanning two decades, this is an unforgettable novel of loyalty and love that captures the spirit and energy of early Australia.' (Publication summary)

''Still, he looked for hoof prints, glad there was nobody to laugh at him for doing so. He shaded his eyes and squinted at a dark object, half covered in sand, then began to walk towards it. He should should have been wearing sunglasses to protect his eyes, but he never thought of things like that. It was a women's coat, black, or at least it has been.'

'A young camel disappears from its trainers paddock and the coat of a murdered women is found abandoned in the sand dunes. These seemingly unrelated events are a far cry from the regular police duties of Constable Chris Blackie and his rookie recruit from Melbourne, Anthea Merritt, in the small seaside town of Queenscliff. Little by little and with a burgeoning sense of menace, these two unlikely detectives carefully navigate the eclectic, often eccentric personalities of the town, as well as the disdain of law enforcement colleagues further afield, to uncover the unsettling truth.

'Described as a 'sea-change mystery' Through a Camel's Eye deftly juxtaposes the idyllic surroundings of a coastal Victorian town with the gravity of murder. ' (Publication summary)