AustLit

'James Brandt didn’t look back when he got away from his rural hometown as a teenager. Now he has returned to Kippen for the first time in twenty years because his cousin Tony has been found dead under the local bridge.

'The news that Tony has left him the entire family farm triggers James’s journalistic curiosity – and his anxiety – both of which cropped up during his turbulent journey to adulthood. But it is the unexpected homophobic attack he survives that draws James into a hunt for the reasons one lonely Kippen farm boy in every generation kills himself.

'Standing in the way is James’s father, the town’s recently retired top cop, who is not prepared to investigate crimes no-one reckons have taken place. James must use every newshound’s trick he ever learned in order to uncover the brutal truth.

'A coming-of-age story and crime thriller with a large and gentle heart.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'1901. The slide clunks into the lantern, and Phantoms come alive on the wall. The father-and-son Magic Lantern team of Bert and Tom Eliot are masters of The Art of the Story. The only problem is that they are missing a wife and mother. Then one morning eleven-year-old Tom wakes to find his father missing, too.

'The Lanternist’s apprentice is thrown out of home, forced to work for the arch-criminal Jimmy Sacks, arrested and imprisoned. Will he ever be able to escape with his new friend Max and make the long, flea-bitten, rat-infested journey to Sydney in search of his parents?

'The Lanternist is a story about stories, and how they show us a way through life, despite callous landladies, corrupt officials, criminal companions and the problems with living in incinerators. But mostly, it is about searching, and making your own endings.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Denver flushes all kinds of things down the toilet but never stops to think about what happens to them once they are gone. One night, while he sleeps, the ocean begins to stir, no longer able to supress its fury over how it's being treated. Can Denver and his sister Maisy make things right before it's too late?

'This engaging story touches on the concepts of sustainability and the protection of our natural environment all while keeping a tongue placed firmly in its cheek.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'Molly can see the music. Colours flash brilliantly as she listens. The music takes her on a journey into places filled with colour, revealing connections between music, emotions, and the world we live in.
'The Colour of Music mixes art, music and the written word in a truly synesthetic experience.' (Publication summary)

'Imagine a world where all seems normal yet nothing is -a world very much like our own yet jarringly unlike. A world where two clandestine organisations, the Ghost Squad and the Base, are engaged in a secret battle for control of information so dangerous it could literally change life as humans have always known it…

'A bold, exciting novel with thrilling twists and turns, The Ghost Squad is a novel that will keep readers guessing – and keep them awake at night!' (Publication summary)

'Hannah Bird has just arrived in Thailand. Disoriented and out of her depth, she meets Deven, a fierce and gutsy Australian expat who sweeps her into thrilling adventures rescuing elephants.

'As they head deeper and deeper into the fraught world of elephant tourism, their lives become tangled in ways Hannah never imagined. But how far will they go to save a life?

'Hannah is about to make a critical decision from which there will be no turning back, with shattering consequences.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'The River People and the Mountain People have survived for another season. But at what cost? Pandora has returned to her village. She is haunted both by her failure to bring her friend home and the vision she has seen of the last days, The Burning, when creatures swarmed the city. How did these monsters come into being in the first place? And are the last remnants of humanity really safe from them?

'Whilst Pan now knows how to shoot an arrow, she still does not know the shape of her own heart and the river stone remains in pieces …'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Each day Esmeralda collects a variety of objects and waddles down the hill.

'Everyone wonders why the Saddleback sow is carrying a bottle, fencing wire and a pair of sneakers in her mouth.

'Only Esmeralda knows. Nothing will stop her.

'Esmeralda's Nest is a sweet story introducing children to the days of the week and the way that animals nest.' (Publication summary)

'Marian Matta’s Life, Bound moves through time and place, following characters who struggle to escape the past and strive to shape the future.

'Free agents or captives of our past? In Life, Bound, characters find themselves caught in situations not of their own making, or trapped by ingrained habits, walking in grooves carved out by past events.

'An artist’s progress is pleasingly channelled into a pattern laid down a century earlier. A solitary man’s story is almost preordained, but is indecipherable to researchers looking back some sixty years later. Karma mops up in the wake of a mousy clerk. A local legend falls foul of the town gossip. Spouses are constrained or liberated by love. Sexuality, gender, resentments, attachments and perversities all play a part. Yet the grip of the past needn’t always hold firm. Many protagonists are offered a potentially life-changing moment; whether or not they grasp it is up to them.

'Matta began concentrating on the short story format in 2006 after being inspired by Annie Proulx’s Brokeback Mountain. Her stories have subsequently appeared in several anthologies, but Life, Bound is her first solo collection.

‘Marian Matta’s superb stories are both uplifting and heart wrenching. She delves into the psyche with characters so astutely drawn that you want to follow them off the page. This is a deeply rewarding collection from a writer who knows how to express the intricacies of what it means to be human in a world that pulses with beauty, uncertainty and despair.’ – Joanna Atherfold Finn, author of Watermark

‘Warm and witty stories. Marian Matta reveals her characters with razor-sharp clarity.’ – Lynette Washington, author of
Plane Tree Drive'

(Source: publisher's blurb)

'Margaret Hickey’s Rural Dreams takes a look at life outside the big smoke, introducing us to the kind of characters you might expect in the country, as well as some you might not.

'Funny, heartbreaking and true; the characters in Rural Dreams are the people we know and grew up with. Some of them might even be us. A girl finds strength in poetry, a football coach ponders obsession, a woman grapples with the fall-out of an affair and a mother can’t and won’t stop swearing. In ‘Binky’, the character asks, ‘who gets the farm?’ and in ‘Rescue’, a backpacker is pulled out of a crocodile swamp. Written through the lens of landscape, Rural Dreams highlights the richness of life on the land and showcases the beauty of lives lived outside city walls.

'From stories of hardship and loss to homecomings and new beginnings, Hickey’s writing offers both comedy and tragedy, and a snapshot into how the lives of these characters intersect with the Australian landscape.'

(Source: publisher's blurb)

'After she is set a challenge to test her wisdom, Ling Li returns from the village marketplace with only a lantern to light her way. How will she prove herself to her father?

'Ling Li's Lantern is a heart-warming story of compassion, kindness and the true nature of wisdom.' (Publication summary)

'Mama Ocean had eyes that sparkled, like sunlight on the sea, and tresses which tumbled and trailed through the tides. But something is troubling Mama Ocean. Who will help her?

'An imaginative and lyrical story which tackles the world-wide problem of plastics in the oceans.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'In 1956 Melbourne hosted the Summer Olympic Games. Student John Wing was so proud of his country, one of the friendliest places on earth. But when world tensions dominated the news, John wrote an urgent letter suggesting how to change the Closing Ceremony to bring all nations together as one.

'Based on the incredible true story of how one child’s determination can change the way we see the world.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'A young man can’t make love. A pedantic father spots a blemish in his new shorts and returns to the shop to demand their exchange. A girl rocks up to a Tinder date wearing a helmet.

'In nineteen short stories, No Neat Endings pits its characters against the challenges of modern life, sex, love, work and the world. A man observes his brother’s rise to comic stardom with envy and angst. A father faces his fortieth with mortal paranoia. A friend returns from Brazil to become embroiled in a drug-fuelled romp in a share house. It doesn’t work out. For so many of the characters in these stories, it doesn’t end well. They succumb to their own vices, impulses, insecurities. They have, more often than not, only themselves to blame.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Like a dark unsettling road movie, Hide takes us on a chilling ride from 80s urban Britain to the menace of the Australian outback.

'It's 1983 in Thatcher's Britain.

'Alec Johnston has left his comfortable family home in Cardiff and taken a flat with bikers Minto, Stobes and Black. There he meets Sindy, Minto’s strange and vulnerable young girlfriend. When she starts to view Alec as a possible saviour from her abusive relationship, it earns Alec a big target on his back.

'Hide takes us on a dark, unsettling journey: one that begins in a small town in Wales and continues through the vast Australian outback. As the threats get closer, Alec fears this is one journey from which he may never return.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'For many refugees the alphabet represents the start of a new language and a new future, but Anisa’s Alphabet is different. A poignant and highly imaginative telling of one girl’s story which will appeal to children and adults alike ... Come with Anisa, and see things through her eyes.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Born in 1889 on a farm in rural South Australia, Harry Butler was determined to fly. Follow Harry’s remarkable journey from studying the flight of his chickens to becoming one of Australia’s most significant pioneer aviators.

'An inspiring true story of a young Australian hero who proved that anything is possible if you believe in yourself and follow your dreams.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Rafferty Kaminski is a 13-year-old who believes in facts. Not like his Cryptozoologist father, who searches for creatures not proven to exist.

'When their father disappears in the Flinders Ranges, strange things start happening to Raff and his younger sister Zara. They learn that their father belongs to a secret organisation and they are suddenly being pursued by bunyip hunters.

'Raff is drawn into the weird world of Cryptozoology as he and Zara follow 'sightings' of creatures around country Victoria. Will they find their father? And what is the ancient voice that only Raff can hear as they approach the Wombat State Forest?'  (Publication summary)

'What would you do if you could pluck the moon from the sky? Would you scoop it up in an ice cream cone, or ride it like a snail shell across the night sky? I Would Dangle the Moon is an imaginative and playful story about all the wonderful things a mother would do with the moon for her child if she could do anything in the world.

Lyrical and poetic, this unique and beautifully illustrated story evokes the love and warmth between a parent and child.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.