AustLit

'On her way to become a mail order bride, Jewel Simmons suddenly has a five-month-old baby foisted upon her. She has little choice but to take charge of her, otherwise the sheriff will deliver the child to a nearby orphanage.

'Adam Harrigan anxiously awaits his mail order bride. Ordering such a person goes against the grain, but he was becoming desperate. After all, at thirty years old, he couldn’t wait much longer to produce an heir. When the stagecoach finally arrives, he is aghast. How dare she turn up with another man’s child?

'Will these two sort out their differences? And if Adam allows her to stay, can they ever find their happily ever after ending?

'Author's Promise: This is a heartwarming historical novella with a happily ever after ending and no cliffhangers. It is a clean and wholesome story with nothing more than hugs, kisses, and holding hands.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'A new year begins with the community of Thompson’s Ridge united in grief at the sudden death of much-loved local Fran Hobart. Her passing was not unexpected - everyone knew she was fighting a grim battle with cancer. However, her death at the height of a raging dust storm seems to underscore the woes that have befallen the small Australian town during a savage summer.

'The once-thriving community has slowly withered since the closure of the local saw mill. As families left, the high school was closed and businesses struggled. In more recent years, drought has seared the countryside, threatening the precarious survival of farm stock. And now a spate of dust storms torment the town with their cruel winds and rainless thunder and lightning.

'The townsfolk rally round Fran’s husband, Father George, the local priest, and her funeral is one of the biggest the town has ever seen. Ironically, it brings with it the end of the drought - a drenching rain storm that suggests hope for the future.

'Former primary school principal Maggie Hardcastle and recent Thompson’s Creek arrival Louise Smith discover that Fran had been trying to persuade troubled and reclusive widow Patricia Carmody to seek professional help. What’s more, she was simultaneously supporting Patricia’s daughter Becky who should be starting high school this year in the town of Coorbong 70km away.

'Maggie is able to secure a generous scholarship offer for Becky, but she and Louise meet with bitter resistance from the child’s mother.

'Bob Wilson’s dinner date with Kirsty McJames following the Christmas Orphans’ Club lunch went well, but, rather than the romance he hoped it might spark, he finds himself stuck in the friend zone and playing uncle to her twin boys.

'Then current primary school principal Jamie Zammit learns his and possibly the town’s greatest fear is about to come true - the authorities plan to close the school at the end of the year due to falling enrolments.

'And as the rain keeps falling too, it’s realized that the Diggers Lane hobby farm development promoted by a shonky real estate company a decade ago has never been tested by real downpours.

'Young Becky Carmody reflects on how Fran encouraged her to pray for rain, but she and everyone else in Thompson’s Ridge are about to learn it never rains, but it pours.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'To discover the identity of his enemy, Kiile first had to loosen the tongue of the assassin - a short, sassy and most outrageous wench. At an Argon's mercy she might be, but Katina had a surprise for this golden-haired sex god and it was all bad.' (Publication summary)

'When former Olympic champion, Michael Adams—now Canada’s hottest reality TV star—insults his fake showbiz wife on social media, he jumps on the first flight to Australia to escape the ensuing scandal. Desperate to experience ordinary life again—if only for a few weeks—he becomes “Adam”; just another tourist exploring the dusty Outback trails in a beat up truck. But with a reward out for his safe return and his fame’s nasty habit of catching up with him when he least expects, Adam needs a better disguise… and he’s just found one.

'Tired of lies and liars, British Backpacker Evie Blake is taking a year out of her busy London life, looking for adventure to heal her broken heart. So when the hot Canadian she meets at the campground offers to drive her through Western Australia’s wild Kimberley region, she grabs the chance, unaware he has the world out looking for him. He’s just a down-on-his-luck traveler, right?

'But when hot days turn into even hotter nights, how long does Adam have before Evie discovers who he really is?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Using a revolutionary telescope located at the edge of the solar system, scientists see an abandoned alien building 16.1 light-years away, on a planet orbiting the red dwarf star Gliese 832. The planet, Brokkr, is now home to the furthest of Earth’s interstellar colonies. An uneasy pair of separated husband and wife protagonists, Ikumi Hayashi and Quincy Tern, is sent with their teams to investigate. Using innovative augmented reality techniques pioneered in Quincy’s architectural practice, they hope to reach into the minds of its builders.

'But there are powerful forces threatening to undermine them. In over 300 years of space travel, no aliens have been found and many like the Universe is Ours movement, who have founded the colonies, have come to believe the universe is theirs for the taking. To them the alien building has come as a shock, and there are some who believe its existence is cause to take action. When a later discovery suggests the aliens are returning to Brokkr, all hell breaks loose. Ikumi, Quincy and their teams race to complete their research amidst a growing insurrection among the Gliese settlers, led by Brokkr’s chief of security, that threatens to destroy all their work.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'Clara just wanted to meet her idol. She didn't expect to have video game bad guys come after her in real life. 

'Clara Steele is thrilled when game developer Max Drosselmeier invites her to test out his new virtual reality system and the game Operation: Sugarplum. But Max didn't warn her about his tendency to accidentally pull characters out of his games and into the real world. 

'Instead of finishing her Christmas shopping, Clara finds herself attacked by a pixelated seven-headed Rat King intent on taking her back to his castle. 

'If Clara and Max can't lure the Rat King back into the game and defeat him on his own turf, they might end up as rat food rather than making it to Christmas dinner.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'Rob can't accept the sudden suicide of Indigo. He can't accept the happy, artistic friend he had once loved would willingly take her own life. He feels something is amiss, something is wrong. So he decides to investigate, and soon finds a pattern he can't ignore. 

'An unexpected string of suicides. A strange woman. A strange zodiac talisman everyone who died seems to be connected to.

'What does it all mean? And will Rob uncover the mystery before it is too late to save himself?'

Source : publisher's blurb

'How much would you trust your ex? Enough for a dungeon dive?

'Keat’s team needs a rogue, and Morgan Canciani just walked her designer heels into town. She says Cairns has a Nine Pillar Dungeon. She says that the Sheriff has the city hostage, along with her sister.

'Morgan always said a lot of things.

'Nugget doesn’t trust her. Mel wants to kick her butt. Trev has a bad feeling in his gut...but he might just need more fibre.

'Ride out again, with the Gap Year Six, on an epic journey from Broken Hill to tropical Cairns, where the largest living organism in the world, the Great Barrier Reef, lies.

'Who do you trust in the Aussie Mana Apocalypse? The Dungeons? The aliens Queenslanders?'

Source : publisher's blurb

'At the end of their gap years, Keat Walker and his mates repeat their camping trip to Broken Hill. Repeating their schoolies trip seemed like the perfect chance to have a yarn about their adventures over the last year. Then the apocalypse happened.

'Mana infuses the world overnight, and a country already containing the world's ten most poisonous snakes, crocodiles, and sharks, is overrun with monsters. Dungeons spring up, boss mobs roam the landscape, and there isn't a wiki to be found.

'Facing the Australian outback, Keat has his best mate Nugget, Nugget's sister Mel (who he definitely did not have a thing with), Mel's new boyfriend from Melbourne, and a British backpacker.

'Armed with only a BBQ fork he made in woodshop, his new class of jackaroo, and the potential to tame the monsters now roaming the outback, Keat must find a way towards Broken Hill.'

Source : authors website

'Upon succeeding his father as Laird of Clan Murphy after his untimely death, seventeen-year-old Aodhan Murphy struggles with the mantle of leadership as well as balancing his responsibilities as a new husband to his childhood sweetheart, Bridget.

'A mysterious stranger gifts him with the golden sword of the long-dead Kings of Aronmore, and a vision urges him to enter the mysterious Síoraí Forest.

'Meanwhile, Nicholas Harrington, king of neighbouring Riohdan, is obsessed with bringing his wife back to life. He consults a shadowy group known as The Grey Walkers, and recruits brilliant young swordsman William Robinson Beckwith to venture into The Síoraí Forest to seek a magical entity that can make the resurrection possible.

'There, William encounters Aodhan who informs him that, while there are powers that can bring the dead back to life, the repercussions of such actions would be disastrous for the living.

'William struggles with this realization, torn between his moral conscience and his duty to his king.

'All the while, the enigmatic Lady Isabelle stands in the shadow of the king. Is she simply a faithful servant or something more?

'Better the devil you know, or the one you accidentally married...

'Adventure is not my middle name. It’s not even a nickname I once got after a few drinks and a lot of bad judgment. No, Adventure is not something you’d associate with a safe, risk-averse witch like me. And I’m fine with that.

'But then...things start changing. One phone call spun my safe life right out of orbit. My late aunt just left me a vineyard in the middle of Transylvania.

'Transylvania!

'And it only gets weirder and worse from there. There’s a demon I accidentally married, and he’s literally the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. Oh, and let’s not forget about the vampires threatening my life...yeah, things have gotten exponentially worse.

'But the worst part is that my demon husband is hiding more than the secrets of my inheritance, which given my newfound luck just might do me in before the vamps get their chance.

'Mom always did say marriage was hell. If only she knew how right she was…'

Source : publisher's blurb

'Until his father’s death, Noah Adams believed the large piece of land gifted to him on his twenty-first birthday is legally his. Suddenly he discovers a condition comes with the ‘gift’. For the land to become lawfully his, Noah must marry within four weeks or lose everything. With no local women available, he has few choices.

'Mary Stanton is impoverished and barely surviving. After deciding he can no longer support his spinster daughter, her father promises her to a lecherous man whom she barely escaped in the past. When the chance of entering a proxy marriage is offered, Mary jumps at the chance.

'Can these two strangers turn a marriage of convenience into a love match? Or will Mary walk away at the end of the contract?'

Source : publisher's blurb

'Prince Montague Gustov was once a handsome young man. Since being burned in a horrific fire, he believes himself to be more hideous than any man in the kingdom. For this reason, and this reason alone, he has distanced himself from women, and therefore never married.

'Petunia Grayson was his best friend and confidante throughout their childhood. In their teenage years, she suddenly disappears, then years later, reappears.

'When his father dies suddenly, according to the conditions of the will, he must marry to become king. When Petunia proposes, he refuses, but she is determined.

'Can his perceived ideas of how others see him be rectified? And will he ever find true love with his childhood sweetheart?'

Source : publisher's blurb