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10 3 y separately published work icon Four Dead Queens Astrid Scholte , New York (City) : Penguin Books , 2020 15075135 2019 single work novel fantasy young adult

'Seventeen-year-old Keralie Corrington is one of Quadara's most skilled thieves, but when she steals an unexpectedly valuable package from a messenger she is soon entangled in a conspiracy that leads to all four of Quadara's queens being murdered. With no other choices and on the run from her former employer, Keralie teams up with Varin Bollt, the Eonist messenger she stole from, and together they race to discover who has killed the queens. But when dark secrets threaten their reluctant partnership and put everything at stake, Keralie and Varin must use all their daring to stay alive and untangle the mysteries behind the nation's four dead queens.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

2 6 y separately published work icon The Scholar Dervla McTiernan , New York (City) : Penguin Books , 2019 14975069 2019 single work novel crime

'From the author of The Ruin comes a compulsive new crime thriller set in the fiercely competitive, cutthroat world of research and academia, where the brightest minds will stop at nothing to succeed.

'When Dr. Emma Sweeney stumbles across the victim of a hit-and-run outside Galway University early one morning, she calls her boyfriend, Detective Cormac Reilly, bringing him first to the scene of a murder that would otherwise never have been assigned to him. The dead girl is carrying an ID that will put this crime at the center of a scandal--her card identifies her as Carline Darcy, heir apparent to Darcy Therapeutics, Ireland's most successful pharmaceutical company. Darcy Therapeutics has a finger in every pie, from sponsoring university research facilities to funding political parties to philanthropy--it has even funded Emma's own ground-breaking research.

'As the murder investigation twists in unexpected ways and Cormac's running of the case comes under scrutiny from the department and his colleagues, he is forced to question himself and the beliefs that he has long held as truths. Who really is Emma? And who is Carline Darcy?

'A gripping and atmospheric follow-up to The Ruin, an "expertly plotted, complex web of secrets that refuse to stay hidden" (Karen Dionne, author of The Marsh King's Daughter), The Scholar is perfect for fans of Tana French and Flynn Berry.' (Publication summary)

4 1 y separately published work icon The Rúin Dervla McTiernan , New York (City) : Penguin Books , 2018 12932996 2018 single work novel crime

'Galway 1993: Young Garda Cormac Reilly is called to a scene he will never forget. Two silent, neglected children - fifteen-year-old Maude and five-year-old Jack - are waiting for him at a crumbling country house. Upstairs, their mother lies dead.

'Twenty years later, a body surfaces in the icy black waters of the River Corrib. At first it looks like an open-and-shut case, but then doubt is cast on the investigation's findings - and the integrity of the police. Cormac is thrown back into the cold case that has haunted him his entire career - what links the two deaths, two decades apart? As he navigates his way through police politics and the ghosts of the past, Detective Reilly uncovers shocking secrets and finds himself questioning who among his colleagues he can trust.

'What really did happen in that house where he first met Maude and Jack? The Ruin draws us deep into the dark heart of Ireland and asks who will protect you when the authorities can't - or won't.' (Publication Summary)

15 11 y separately published work icon The Dressmaker Rosalie Ham , New York (City) : Penguin Books , 2015 Z668510 2000 single work novel (taught in 1 units) Dungatar is a small town like any other in the Victorian wheatlands - except that the women dress like Paris models. This is the story of the exotic Tilly, a talented and beautiful misfit, who returns from Europe to Dungatar to nurse her mad old mother. Her reappearance after twenty years is met with suspicion and malice from the eccentric locals until they discover her startling dressmaking skills. Gradually, she wins over the town with her fabulous creations. Then she falls in love and things start to go terribly wrong. (Source: Trove)
2 1 y separately published work icon The Royal Ranger John Flanagan , New York (City) : Penguin Books , 2014 Z1935301 2013 single work children's fiction children's fantasy

'After a senseless tragedy destroys his life, Will is obsessed with punishing those responsible, even if it means leaving the Ranger Corps. His worried friends must find a way to stop him taking such a dark path. It is Halt who suggests the solution: Will must take an apprentice. The candidate Halt has in mind will surprise everyone, and it will be a request that Will cannot refuse. Training a rebellious, unwilling apprentice is hard enough. But when a routine mission uncovers a shocking web of crime, Will must decide where his priorities lie, finishing his quest for revenge, or saving innocent lives?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

9 68 y separately published work icon Picnic at Hanging Rock Joan Lindsay , New York (City) : Penguin Books , 2014 Z305085 1967 single work novel historical fiction mystery (taught in 2 units)

'It was a cloudless summer day in the year 1900. Everyone at Appleyard College for Young Ladies agreed it was just right for a picnic at Hanging Rock. After lunch, a group of three girls climbed into the blaze of the afternoon sun, pressing on through the scrub into the shadows of the secluded volcanic outcropping. Farther, higher, until at last they disappeared. They never returned. ...'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Penguin Random House, 2014).

8 9 y separately published work icon Lexicon Max Barry , New York (City) : Penguin Books , 2014 5983688 2013 single work novel fantasy science fiction 'Two years ago, something terrible was unleashed in an Australian mining town called Broken Hill. Thousands died. Few people know what really happened. Emily Ruff is one of them. She belongs to an elite organisation of 'poets': masters of manipulation who use language to warp others to their will. She was one of their most promising recruits until she made a catastrophic mistake: she fell in love. Wil Parke knows the truth too, only he doesn't remember it. And he doesn't know why he's immune to the poets' powers. But he knows he needs to run. As their stories converge, the past is revealed, and the race is on for a deadly weapon: a word. Because the poets know that words can kill...' (Publisher's blurb)
2 4 y separately published work icon In Falling Snow Mary-Rose MacColl , New York (City) : Penguin Books , 2013 Z1884615 2012 single work novel (taught in 1 units)

' "In the beginning, it was the summers I remembered - long warm days under the palest blue skies, the cornflowers and forget-me-nots lining the road through the Lys forest, the buzz of insects going about their work, Violet telling me lies."

Iris is getting old. A widow, her days are spent living quietly and worrying about her granddaughter, Grace, a headstrong young doctor. It's a small sort of life. But one day an invitation comes for Iris through the post to a reunion in France, where she served in a hospital during WWI. Determined to go, Iris is overcome by the memories of the past, when as a shy, naive young woman she followed her fifteen-year-old brother, Tom, to France in 1914 intending to bring him home. On her way to find Tom, Iris comes across the charismatic Miss Ivens, who is setting up a field hospital in the old abbey of Royaumont, north of Paris.

Putting her fears aside, Iris decides to stay at Royaumont, and it is there that she truly comes of age, finding her capability and her strength, discovering her passion for medicine, making friends with the vivacious Violet and falling in love.

But war is a brutal thing, and when the ultimate tragedy happens, there is a terrible price that Iris has to pay, a price that will echo down the generations. A moving and uplifting novel about the small, unsung acts of heroism of which love makes us capable.' Source: http://www.curtisbrown.co.uk/ (Sighted 04/09/2012).

1 y separately published work icon The Light Blade Kylie Griffin , 2012 Penguin Books , 2012 Z1880902 2012 series - author novel fantasy romance
1 y separately published work icon Vengeance Born Kylie Griffin , New York (City) : Penguin Books Berkley Publishing Corporation , 2012 Z1880833 2012 single work novel fantasy romance

'There is no mercy in the demon realm. No escape. In this place of desperation and conflict, anyone who is not pure bred is virtually powerless. Until an unlikely champion is born...

'Annika, half-blood daughter of the Na'Reish King, longs for more than her tormented life among her father's people. Conceived in hatred and bred as a tool of retribution, she's gifted with a special talent that can heal as well as destroy...

'With the Na'Reish vastly outnumbering them, Kalan, a Light Blade warrior, knows the future of humankind depends on him alone. Incursions into human territory and raids for blood-slaves by the Na'Reish Horde have increased. As Chosen-leader, he faces the task of stopping the demons-and convincing the Council of aging Light Blade warriors that change is necessary for survival.

'When Annika learns Kalan is a prisoner in her father's dungeon, her dream of escape seems within reach. She agrees to free him in exchange for his protection once they reach human territory. Now, marked for death for helping him, Annika must learn to trust Kalan as they face not only the perilous journey to the border but enemies within the Council-and discover a shocking truth that could throw the human race into civil war...'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

26 114 y separately published work icon The Slap Christos Tsiolkas , New York (City) : Penguin Books , 2012 Z1739894 2008 single work novel (taught in 40 units)

'At a suburban barbecue, a man slaps a child who is not his own.

'This event has a shocking ricochet effect on a group of people, mostly friends, who are directly or indirectly influenced by the event.

'In this remarkable novel, Christos Tsiolkas turns his unflinching and all-seeing eye onto that which connects us all: the modern family and domestic life in the twenty-first century. The Slap is told from the points of view of eight people who were present at the barbecue. The slap and its consequences force them all to question their own families and the way they live, their expectations, beliefs and desires.

'What unfolds is a powerful, haunting novel about love, sex and marriage, parenting and children, and the fury and intensity - all the passions and conflicting beliefs - that family can arouse. In its clear-eyed and forensic dissection of the ever-growing middle class and its aspirations and fears, The Slap is also a poignant, provocative novel about the nature of loyalty and happiness, compromise and truth.' (Publisher's blurb)

9 20 y separately published work icon The Household Guide To Dying Debra Adelaide , Toronto : Penguin Books , 2010 Z1490014 2008 single work novel

'When Delia Bennet - author and domestic advice columnist - is diagnosed with cancer, she knows it's time to get her house in order. After all, she's got to secure the future for her husband, their two daughters and their five beloved chickens. But as she writes lists and makes plans, questions both large and small creep in. Should she divulge her best culinary secrets? Read her favourite novels one last time? Plan her daughters' far-off weddings?

'Complicating her dilemma is the matter of the past, and a remote country town where she fled as a pregnant teenager, only to leave broken-hearted eight years later.

'Researching and writing her final Household Guide, Delia is forced to confront the pieces of herself she left behind. She learns what matters is not the past but the present - that the art of dying is all about truly living.' (Publisher's blurb)

8 2 y separately published work icon Blood Kin Ceridwen Dovey , New York (City) : Penguin Books , 2009 Z1468673 2007 single work novel thriller

'A chef, a portraitist and a barber are taken hostage in a coup to overthrow their boss, the president of a nameless country. They are held captive in a palatial retreat in the mountains high above the capital city. Meanwhile, the chef's daughter, the portraitist's pregnant wife and the barber's lover watch their men from the shadows – for in such precarious times, intimate relationships are as dangerous as political ones. As the old order falls, so does the veil that hides the truth about the secret passions of these men and women.

'Drawing her readers masterfully towards the novel's devastating climax, Ceridwen Dovey reveals how humanity's most atavistic impulses – vanity, vengeance and greed – seethe, relentlessly, just beneath the surface of everyday life. '

4 38 y separately published work icon Unpolished Gem Unpolished Gem : My Mother, My Grandmother, and Me Alice Pung , New York (City) : Penguin Books , 2009 Z1301370 2006 single work autobiography (taught in 6 units)

Unpolished Gem tells the story of growing up with a Chinese-Cambodian family in Australia, Alice dives headfirst into schooling, romance and the getting of wisdom. Meanwhile, her mother becomes an Aussie Battler - an outworker, that is, her father starts up a chain of electrical appliance stores, and her grandmother blesses Father Government every day for giving old people money. (Back cover blurb).


11 138 y separately published work icon My Brilliant Career Miles Franklin , New York (City) : Penguin Books , 2007 Z161522 1901 single work novel (taught in 56 units)

'My Brilliant Career was written by Stella Franklin (1879-1954) when she was just nineteen years old. The novel struggled to find an Australian publisher, but was published in London and Edinburgh in 1901 after receiving an endorsement from Henry Lawson. Although Franklin wrote under the pseudonym 'Miles Franklin', Lawson’s preface makes it clear that Franklin is, as Lawson puts it 'a girl.'

'The novel relates the story of Sybylla Melvyn, a strong-willed young woman of the 1890s growing up in the Goulburn area of New South Wales and longing to be a writer.' (Publication summary)

1 4 y separately published work icon Peeps Scott Westerfeld , New York (City) : Penguin Books , 2006 Z1249344 2005 single work novel science fiction horror young adult (taught in 1 units)

Taking a scientific approach to vampirism in this New York-based novel, Westerfierld draws parallels between vampires and parasites, noting that not all parasites are bad for you... (Jason Nahrung, 'Vampires in the Sunburnt Country,' 2007, p.57).

'Right after Cal Thompson moves from Texas to New York for college, he loses his virginity and become infected with the parasite that causes vampirism. Fortunately, Cal is "partly immune," so while he is parasite-positive, or a peep, he only experiences some effects, such as night vision. The 19-year-old works for Night Watch, the city's ancient peep-hunting organization. As Cal begins to track Morgan, the woman who infected him after a drunken one-night stand, he stumbles upon a mystery that eventually makes him question the very organization for which he works. He also finds a love interest in the strong-willed journalism student now living in Morgan's old building, but because of the disease he cannot act on his feelings' (Barbes and Noble website).

1 10 y separately published work icon The Woman I Am : A Memoir Helen Reddy , New York (City) : Jeremy P. Tarcher Penguin Books , 2006 Z1185834 2005 single work autobiography

With her song "I Am Woman," Reddy provided the feminist anthem of the 1970s. She became the first Australian to win a Grammy, to have her own prime-time variety show on a U.S. television network, and to have three number-one singles in the same year. Then, at the height of her career, Reddy's world was shattered by the death of both her parents, and simultaneously, the news that she had a rare, incurable disease. In this memoir, Reddy reveals the emotional highs and lows that have shaped her as an artist and as a complex woman, with a rich inner life sustained by a strong spiritual faith.

- From publisher description.

13 45 y separately published work icon March Geraldine Brooks , New York (City) : Penguin Books , 2005 Z1182868 2005 single work novel historical fiction (taught in 2 units) "An idealistic abolitionist, March has gone as chaplain to serve the Union cause. But the war tests his faith not only in the Union, which is also capable of barbarism and racism, but in himself. As he recovers from a near-fatal illness, March must reassemble and reconnect with his family, who have no idea of what he has endured. A love story set in a time of catastrophe, March explores the passions between a man and a woman, the tenderness of parent and child, and the life-changing power of an ardently held belief." -- Book Jacket
26 10 y separately published work icon Youth : Scenes from Provincial Life J. M. Coetzee , New York (City) : Penguin Books , 2003 Z1212327 2002 single work novel (taught in 1 units)

"The narrator of Youth, a student in the South Africa of the 1950s, has long been plotting an escape from his native country: from the stifling love of his mother, from a father whose failures haunt him, and from what he is sure is impending revolution. Studying mathematics, reading poetry, saving money, he tries to ensure that when he arrives in the real world, wherever that may be, he will be prepared to experience life to its full intensity, and transform it into art." "Arriving at last in London, however, he finds neither poetry nor romance. Instead he succumbs to the monotony of life as a computer programmer, from which random, loveless affairs offer no relief. Devoid of inspiration, he stops writing. An awkward colonial, a constitutional outsider, he begins a dark pilgrimage in which he is continually tested and continually found wanting" (Source: Viking publisher's blurb)

2 20 y separately published work icon If the Moon Smiled Chandani Lokuge , New York (City) : Penguin Books , 2000 Z180356 2000 single work novel

'I go down to the river, unheeding my mother’s disapproval. I dip into the lazily flowing water. Here, at least, nothing has changed.The bath-cloth balloons around my body and I press it down. I loosen my hair and let it spread where it will. I open my hands upwards on the water’s surface, languidly remembering. All, that is familiar. The promise. The promise of life. As a young woman in Sri Lanka, Manthri marvels at the promise of life and yearns for a future of fulfilled dreams. Years on, she finds herself in a loveless marriage, in a foreign land, and estranged from her two Australian children. Torn between an idyllic past to which she cannot return and a present that breaks her heart, she never loses touch with those dreams, nor abandons her passionate enchantment with life. As a young woman in Sri Lanka, Manthri marvels at the promise of life and years for a future of fulfilled dreams. Years on, she finds herself in a loveless marriage, in a foreign land, and estranged from her two Australian children. Torn between an idyllic past to which she cannot return and a present that breaks her heart, she never loses touch with those dreams, nor abandons her passionate enchantment with life.' (Synopsis)

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