AustLit

'When Luzma’s brother Jair unwittingly uncovers the plan by Colombia’s most notorious drug cartel to smuggle an unprecedented cocaine shipment into the US, it puts their family in grave danger. Jair’s kidnapping by the cartel forces Luzma to go face to face with vicious paramilitary leader, El Cubano, and General Ordonez, ruthless head of the military, men who will stop at nothing to protect their empires. But for Luzma, nothing is more important than saving her family, not even her own life.' (Publication summary)

'After her mother's death, Sky leaves her city life to move in with her aunt and uncle in a small Australian town. But the city isn't all that she leaves behind. Trying to fit in with her new friends means doing things she never dreamt she'd do. Just as she thinks everything is starting to feel normal, Sky stumbles on a case of animal cruelty that forces her to make some tough decisions. Will Sky risk everything to stand up for what she believes in?' (Synopsis)

'It's February 1946, and Robert Booker is just home from the war. Home is a pretty weatherboard house in Summer Hill, where his wife, Catherine, is waiting. They haven't seen each other for three years, yet they are separated by so much more than time.

'Robert is haunted by the battlefields of New Guinea, and Catherine harbours the guilt of her affair with a charismatic US marine - and other secrets too painful to confront. Her heart divided between two men, she finds herself longing for what she has lost. With all that's changed between them, can Catherine and Robert find their way back to each other?' (From the publisher's website.)

'The whole of the harbour was touched with gold - the tops of the quiet waves, warehouse roofs, the bulging folds of sails at rest, the tips of seagull wings - giving him one sweeping glimpse of beauty just as he was leaving, a vision of things as they ought always to be just as they were not...

'March, 1912. A sultry Indian summer hangs over the west coast of Australia and aboard the luxury steamship SS Koombana, three tales entwine.

'Irene Everley longs to leave her first-class fishbowl existence, secretly penning a gossip column as her life spirals out of control into soulless liaisons and alcohol, the long shadow of a tragedy clouding her view.

'James Sinclair, an investor on his way to Broome is not the man he says he is but can he be trusted?

'Abraham Davis, a wealthy dealer whose scandalous divorce is being dragged through the press, prepares to take the gamble of his life: to purchase an infamous, stolen pearl along the journey north.

'Perfectly round, perfectly pink, this pearl comes with a curse and with a warning - destroying all who keep it from returning to the sea.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'I needed someone I could trust. Someone others would trust. Someone with no criminal record. With no previous involvement. A cleanskin. Someone to come over, do the job, and go home ...

'Some days, even Halley can't find the person she once was. She's changed her name and no one - least of all her husband and son - knows of her past. No one except Aidan, who turns up one day in her small Australian town and shatters the faCade she's built so carefully.

'Aidan is on a mission. But why is he still taking orders from his brother in an English jail - at the cost of his own happiness?

'When Aidan forces Halley to face what she's done, what they discover not only changes their understanding of what happened back then, it changes everything now.

'Laura Bloom deftly goes to the dark heart of The Troubles to explore the lingering damage wrought by sectarian conflict on communities, families and individuals. Based on real events, The Cleanskin is a story of intense human relationships with a cast of flawed and entirely believable characters.' (Publication summary)

'Wild Chicory is the story of a journey from Ireland to Australia in the early 1900s, along threads of love, family, war and peace. It's a slice of ordinary life rich in history, folklore and fairy tale, and a portrait of the precious bond between a granddaughter, Brigid, and her grandmother, Nell.

'From the windswept, emerald coast of County Kerry, to the slums of Sydney's Surry Hills; and from the bitter sectarian violence of Ulster, to tranquillity of rural New South Wales, Brigid weaves her grandmother's tales into a small but beautiful epic of romance and tragedy, of laughter and the cold reality of loss. It's Nell's tales, tall and true, that spur Brigid to write her own, too.

'Ultimately, it's a story of finding your feet in a new land - be that a new country, or a new emotional space - and the wonderful trove of narrative we carry with us wherever we might go.

'In many ways Brigid and Nell are Kim and her grandmother Lillian Kelly, and many snippets of story in this work belong especially to them. It is primarily a work of fiction, but while the Kennedys and the O'Halligans in Wild Chicory are not the Kellys and O'Reillys of Kim's own family history, they have sprung direct from her heart, and show readers just how it is she came to be a writer of stories herself.' (Publication summary)

'“In that moment I knew the meaning of milk-blood. Desperate addicts will decant some of their own blood while the drug is still pumping through their veins to save as ‘insurance’ to inject later.”

'Adrian Simon, 38, is the son of Warren Fellows, the infamous heroin smuggler who was imprisoned in Bangkwang Prison in Bangkok for 12 years and published the bestselling memoir “The Damage Done”. But Warren wasn’t the only one affected by the experience. In his searing autobiography “Milk-Blood – Growing up the son of a convicted drug trafficker”, Adrian tells his side of the story; growing up in suburban Australia the son of two unconventional parents, while trying to make sense of his father’s terrible decisions and witnessing his mother being shunned by society at every turn.

'“It was his decisions that led to me having a nervous breakdown as an innocent child, and like a disease that experience clung to me throughout my life. And just like my arthritic condition, I had a bandaid solution but no cure. In a small way I could never be completely free of the past, he was my damage within that I would never be able to eradicate completely.”

'Refusing to give in to the dark shadow his father casts over his life, Adrian lives life to the full, and always on his own terms, right from the get-go. His inherent drive and thirst for adventure sees him abandoning school in favour of chasing the good times, wherever they may lie.

'Later, this morphs into a deeper search for meaning and purpose, which sees him travel around the globe in a non-stop whirlwind of run-ins and adventures. But it’s here, on the road, where he begins to make sense of his fractured life, righting the wrongs of his past and starting the painstaking task of restoring the damage done to his family chi.

'“People rarely knew my story and how my emotions were like a river, a wild torrent boring through my soul. I grew to understand that we all have our own storm within, that we share the same path to find happiness and self-expression. Deep down, I knew one day I would tell this story. I just had to wait for more chapters to play out. I never thought of myself as a writer, rather as someone with a big story to tell.”

'This raw and honest work tackles complex issues and themes, such as mental health, addiction, and coming-of-age, but ultimately, it is a story of hope, strength of spirit, humanity and self-determination, told with universal themes and the wit and candour of a seasoned story-teller.' (Publication summary)

'In contemporary India on the eve of Diwali, a macaque monkey and a Pariah dog are poised to touch the lives of millions of people.

'The night that senior New Delhi Municipal Council official Pushpant Godboley falls to his death from a Hastinapuri Estate balcony after a bizarre monkey attack, ambitious reporter Sita Unival sniffs out more than just the unusual death of a bent bureaucrat. The hunt for a scoop leads her to a story powerful enough to make her the first female reporter-in-chief at the New Delhi Times.

'Kamla Nehru Ridge is the base camp for despotic monkey and civil servant killer Paksheet. He aims to rule the park, and the world beyond, by eradicating everything on two or four feet standing in his way. But Paksheet doesn’t count on domesticated Pariah dog Rocky. Recently abandoned, now wounded and alone on enemy turf, Rocky shares more than he realises with his Hollywood namesake.

'Poona Sheena is preparing for Diwali at Hastinapuri Estate, New Delhi’s premier boutique hotel. Poona is more than a brilliant businesswoman and born hostess. In her spare time she protects the Civil Lines native dog population from starvation and neglect with a one-woman crusade of food and medical services. Rocky evades her attempts at triage in the park, but unbeknown to Poona as she searches for him, he will be her only defender against a violent rapist.

'In the kitchen at Hastinapuri Estate, disgruntled cook Malina dreams of elevation from servitude via her only son, Geet – a party boy on the verge of flunking university. Through a cross continent chain of shady deals, Malina arranges a visa driven marriage between Geet and Lola Wedd, a young Sydney girl, to enable her son’s emigration and elevation to a white tiger in the land Down Under.

'Malina’s dreams, however, didn’t predict Geet being gay and fleeing to Bombay to be with his boyfriend before he ties the knot with unsuspecting Lola.

'Leaving behind a messy love affair with a tabla player, Lola naïvely thought she would ‘find herself’ in India. Instead, she is lost and alone in an escalating family drama, with her only ally a love-struck chauffeur and local 'fixer' called Baj.

'When Gaurav Kamboj, the errant son of a political dynasty, is hastily elevated to a replacement role in the New Delhi Municipal council, he declares a brutal eradication of the monkeys and dogs of New Delhi to punish his ex-wife and raise his own profile. In doing so, he ignites a series of events that lead to a Diwali more explosive than anyone in Civil Lines imagined.' (Publication summary)