AustLit

'Vivian Walker is dying. This is not on her list of things to do. A darkly funny debut that proves even the most imperfect of lives is worth celebrating.

'Now that I've got cancer, I know I should be letting go and just being in the moment with my child but, seriously, what mother has got time to spend with their kids?

'Vivian Walker's life is exceptionally ordinary. Average husband, check. Darling son, check. Refrigerator in a state of permanent disarray, check. Everything is thoroughly and frustratingly routine, even being terminally ill.

'After receiving her diagnosis, Viv's family won't let her lift a finger . . . for at least a week. But once the novelty wears off, she's lucky to get a cup of tea for her trouble. In preparation for D-day, self-professed control freak Viv has made a list of essential things to do, such as decluttering the playroom and preparing her taxes. She doesn't expect to become spiritually enlightened or have any outlandish last-minute successes. All she wants is to finish her unfinished business.

'As her final days unfold, Viv realises her life has become a love letter to the mundane but she still manages to keep her wicked sense of humour and cynical take on life unapologetically intact. 

'The Very Last List of Vivian Walker will make you ugly cry, snort tea out your nose with laughter and want to embrace humanity in all its selfishness, beauty and awkwardness.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'On Reckoning tells of the moment when the personal became very political, when rape became the national conversation.

'What happens when the usual political tactics of deflect and dodge are no longer enough?

'A reckoning.

'The Guardian's political reporter Amy Remeikis has spoken before about being a survivor of sexual assault, but Brittany Higgins going public with her story ripped the curtain back not just on political attempts to deal with real-world issues, but also how unsafe women can be, even inside the most protected building in the country.

'Amy didn't expect to see political leaders fumble the moment so completely. And what followed was people taking back the conversation from the politicians.

'On Reckoning is a searing account of Amy's personal and professional rage, taking you inside the parliament - and out - during one of the most confronting and uncomfortable conversations in recent memory.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'Defiant, ferocious and unyielding - The Furies is a unique and breathtakingly powerful debut novel from Mandy Beaumont. For those who love Charlotte Wood, Margaret Atwood and Carmen Maria Machado.

'Cynthia was just about to turn sixteen when the unthinkable happened. Her mother was taken away by the police, and her father left without a word three months later. After that night, Cynthia began to walk in slow circles outside the family home looking for traces of her sister Mallory - she's sure that she must be somewhere else now, wherever that is.

'Cynthia knows that she doesn't belong here. Her mother never belonged here either. This is the place of violence. Despair. The long dry. Blood caked under the nails. Desperate men. Long silences. The place where mothers go mad in locked bedrooms, where women like Cynthia imagine better futures.

'As a threatening wind begins to dry-whirl around her, seldom seen black clouds form above, roll over the golden-brown land - is that Mallory she can hear in the growling mass? In the harsh drought-stricken landscape of outback Queensland a woman can be lost in so many ways. The question is, will Cynthia be one of them?'

Source : publisher's blurb

'Alex Blackwell, captain of the Australian women's cricket team through World Cup and Ashes victories, provides a rare insight into life - the highs and lows - in Australia's most loved sporting team. This is a fascinating account of one of Australia's most accomplished sportspeople and of the game she loves.

'Alex Blackwell lived and breathed our national sport of cricket for thirty years.

'Starting as a kid, she spent her childhood and teen years playing and competing with her identical twin, Kate, who was equally devoted to the bat and ball. But it was Alex who went on to consolidate a spot in the national side, eventually rising to the captaincy, notching up an eye-watering list of sporting achievements and earning her a name as one of the greats of the game.

'But life off field brought challenges of its own. From her professional debut, Alex was unafraid to call out hypocrisy and go in to battle against the traditional hierarchies of the game. Speaking out and becoming a passionate advocate for women and LGBTIQ+ people in sport won her many fans and much respect, but it didn't come without a price.

'Fair Game is an unflinching account of life in Australia's most loved sporting team, told by one of its most lauded members. It reveals not only the extreme dedication and skill it takes to be the best, but also how it feels to be on the outer - even as one of the game's most decorated players.

'Representing Australia 251 times across Tests, one day internationals and T20 matches, no woman in history has played more matches for the Australian Women's cricket team than Alex Blackwell. And no one knows better both the extreme highs and devastating lows that come with playing this majestic but at times brutal game at the highest level.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'A beautiful, beguiling and multi-layered novel, Fugitive Blue tells the story of a young art conservator and her work on an unusual panel painting in striking ultramarine. As she restores the fragile artwork, she begins to speculate on its provenance - its controversial creation in Renaissance Venice and reappearance three hundred years later during a young nobleman's Grand Tour of Europe, passing through nineteenth-century Paris before its eventual arrival in Australia as one of the scarce possessions of a post-war Greek migrant family.

'Threaded through the painting's progress is the story of the young conservator's own life in contemporary Melbourne, her developing passion for her work and the demise of her relationship with an actor named Mark.' (Publisher's blurb)

'I used to think that I'd escaped Southport . . .
Now I realised, Southport had been coming for me all this time.

'Erin Sloane was sixteen when high school senior Andre Villiers was murdered by his friends. They were her friends, too, led by the intense, charismatic Ricky Hell. Five people went into West Cypress Road Woods the night Andre was murdered. Only three came out.

'Ativan, alcohol and distance had dimmed Erin's memories of that time. But nearly twenty years later, an ageing father will bring her home. Now a journalist, she is asked to write a story about the Southport Three and the thrill-kill murder that mesmerised the country. Erin's investigation propels her closer and closer to a terrifying truth. And closer and closer to danger.' (Publication summary)

''The utterly inspirational story behind one of our country's most superb journalists. To have played even the tiniest of roles in helping to ignite Lisa's early fire for journalism gives me more joy than she will ever know.' Lisa Wilkinson

'Lisa Millar has spent her whole life showing up, getting things done and making things happen. As a child growing up in country Queensland, she dreamed of a big life. Working as a foreign correspondent gave her that, but it also meant confronting the worst that humanity can bring. Three decades as a journalist witnessing tragedy had a cost. And an ever-escalating fear of flying threatened to rob her of her ability to work at all.

'For that young girl from small-town Kilkivan, who had to push herself to keep going, push herself to conquer fear, push herself to tell important stories, finally came the realisation that sometimes all we really need is what we already have. And she shows us that we are all stronger and more resilient than we give ourselves credit for if we just dare to let ourselves fly.' (Publication summary)

'It's not just a war over horses. It's a battle for the soul of Australia.

'This is a book about the intense culture war raging around Australia's wild horses, known as brumbies. It pits a vision of the legendary Man from Snowy River and the iconic ANZAC Light Horse against the spectre of ecosystems destroyed by feral pests. The debate involves powerful politicians and media commentators, and stars an animal mythologised in Australian poetry and prose. But in essence, this is about us. The Brumby Wars is about Australians at war with each other over their vision of an ideal Australia.

'To ecologists and people who ski, walk and fish in the High Country and other areas where the brumbies proliferate, they are a feral menace which must be removed to save delicate alpine landscapes. To the descendants of cattle families and many Australians in urban and regional areas, brumbies are untouchable, a symbol of wildness and freedom.

'Something has to give. But what? The land or the horses? This war is set to escalate dramatically before we have an answer. Featuring interviews with characters from all sides of the debate, The Brumby Wars is the riveting account of a major national issue and the very human passions it inspires. It is also a journey, a quest to understand what makes us tick in our increasingly polarised country.' (Publication summary)

'Birth is a throw of the dice. The consequences last a lifetime.

'We like to think of Australia as the land of the 'fair go', a land of choice and equal opportunity. But behind the facade of meritocracy lies an uncomfortable truth: much of your life is already decided by the lottery of where you are born and who you are born to. Entrenched inter-generational poverty, like the property of the wealthy, can be handed down from parent to child.

'With one in eight adults and one in six children living below the poverty line in Australia, Glyn Davis asks the question: If life is a game of chance, what responsibility do those who are given a head start have to look after those less fortunate?'

Source : publisher's blurb

'we are all just one small disaster

away from sinking,

and sometimes you only realise

when you're gasping for air

'On a daylight street in Minneapolis Minnesota, a Black man is asphyxiated - by callous knee of an officer, by cruel might of state, and under crushing weight of colony. In Melbourne the body of another woman has been found - this time, after catching a late tram home.

'The Atlantic has run out of the English alphabet, when christening hurricanes this season. The earth is on fire - from the redwoods of California, to Australia's east coast. The sea draws back, and tsunamis lash out in Samoa and Sumatra. Water rises in Sulawesi and Nagasaki. Bloated cod are surfacing, all along the Murray Darling.

'The virus arrives, and the virus thrives. Authorities seal the public housing towers up, and truck in one cop to every five residents. Notre Dame is ablaze - the cathedral spire blackened, and teetering.

'Out in Biloela, the deportation vans have arrived. Every Friday, in cities all across the world, children are walking out of school. The wolves are circling. The wolves are circling.

'These poems speak of the world that is, and sing for a world that may one day be.' (Production summary)

'AFTER THE FIRES. AFTER THE VIRUS. THEY CAME. A remarkable literary novel from the multi-award-nominated Australian writer

'It's night, and the walls of Rachel's home creak as they settle into the cover of darkness. Fear has led her to a reclusive life on the land, her only occasional contact with her sister.

'A hammering on the door. There stand a mother, Hannah, and her sick baby. They are running for their lives from a mysterious death sweeping the Australian countryside.

'Now Rachel must face her worst fears: should she take up the fight to help these strangers survive in a society she has rejected for so long' (Production summary) 

The extraordinary, must-read story of the brave, bold Hubert Wilkins - Australia's most adventurous explorer, naturalist, photographer, war hero, aviator, spy and daredevil - brought to life by Australia's greatest storyteller.

'Sir Hubert Wilkins is one of the most remarkable Australians who ever lived.

'The son of pioneer pastoralists in South Australia, Hubert studied engineering before moving on to photography. In 1908 he sailed for England and a job producing films with the Gaumont Film Co. Brave and bold, he became a polar expeditioner, a brilliant war photographer, a spy in the Soviet Union, a pioneering aviator-navigator, a death-defying submariner - all while being an explorer and chronicler of the planet and its life forms that would do Vasco da Gama and Sir David Attenborough proud. As a WW1 photographer he was twice awarded the Military Cross for bravery under fire, the only Australian photographer in any war to be decorated. He explored the Antarctic with Sir Ernest Shackleton, led a groundbreaking ornithological study in Australia and was knighted in 1928 for his aviation exploits, but many more astounding achievements would follow. Wilkins' quest for knowledge and polar explorations were lifelong passions and his missions to polar regions aboard the submarine Nautilus the stuff of legend.

'With masterful storytelling skill, Peter FitzSimons illuminates the life of Hubert Wilkins and his incredible achievements. Thrills and spills, derring-do, new worlds discovered - this is the most unforgettable tale of the most extraordinary life lived by any Australian.' (Publication summary)

For as long as we both shall live? A pulse-racing standalone thriller by the #1 bestselling author of The Secrets She Keeps , now a major TV series

Philomena McCarthy has defied the odds and become a promising young officer with the Metropolitan Police despite being the daughter of a notorious London gangster. Called to the scene of a domestic assault one day, she rescues a bloodied young woman, Tempe Brown , the mistress of a decorated detective. The incident is hushed up, but Phil has unwittingly made a dangerous enemy with powerful friends.

Determined to protect each other, the two women strike up a tentative friendship. Tempe is thoughtful and sweet and makes herself indispensable to Phil, but sinister things keep happening and something isn't quite right about the stories Tempe tells. When a journalist with links to Phil's father and to the detective is found floating in the Thames, Phil doesn't know where to turn, who to blame or who she can trust.

This exhilarating thriller from the bestselling author - whose books have sold more than 6 million copies - is Michael Robotham's finest page-turner yet. (Publication summary)

'From the critically acclaimed author of Jennifer Government and Lexicon comes a mind-bending speculative psychological suspense about a serial killer pursuing his victim across time and space, and the woman who is determined to stop him, even if it upends her own reality.

''If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.'

'In Queens, New York, 22-year-old real estate agent Madison May is showing a house. The buyer, a man she's never met, is friendly, engaging . . . and claims to be her soulmate from a parallel life. She's in danger, he tells her. He's come to save her.

'Later that day, newspaper journalist Felicity Staples is assigned to report on Madison May's murder. Discontent with her own life, Felicity finds herself drawn into a shocking conspiracy involving a powerful group who have harnessed the ability to slip between lives - to move between one version of reality to another.

'On the run, turned into an imposter in her own life, Felicity is forced to seek the truth behind Madison May, the woman who is murdered over and over, in different ways, wherever she goes. For only by saving Madison May can Felicity reassemble the broken pieces of herself.' (Publication summary)

'Welcome to Horror Heights: can the children who live here conceal the strange goings on behind closed doors? GOOSEBUMPS for a new generation, by award-winning comedian and CITV presenter, Bec Hill.

Connie hasn't found her talent yet, but at least she has her slime collection - if it's gooey, she's got it! She hopes that by adding a few extra ingredients to a simple recipe she will uncover a talent for slime-making, but alas, all she uncovers is a hot, stinky mess which ends up in the bin. It's shaping up to be another uneventful weekend ... until her failed slime experiment wakes her up the next morning. It's alive! And can talk! And is named... Big.

Big adores Connie and wants to protect her from everything at all times, which is very sweet. At first. But when it gets bigger, grows teeth and threatens to eat her friends and father, can Connie uncover her TRUE talents in order to protect everything from THE SLIME?

The first in a creeptastic new series for readers aged 8 and up - are you brave enough to discover the scares behind every door at Horror Heights?' (Publication summary)

'Dissolve is a deeply personal, profoundly intimate reflection on love and female creativity in a man's world, and what happens when it all collides. Having lived through the humiliation and bewildering complexity of a time of failure, Nikki Gemmell eventually resurfaced. Decades later she has written a meditation on women's lives and creative desires.

'This is a conversation. A conversation with the beautiful young women of her teenage daughter's generation, and of course with men. With husbands and male artists.

'Dissolve is a hopeful, exhilarating book about women finding their voice.' (Publication summary)

'Ever have the feeling you're being watched? A smart, unsettling, unputdownable literary thriller from the award-winning, critically acclaimed writer

'Lina and Cain are doing their best to stay afloat. Money has been tight since Cain returned from active duty, and starting a family is proving harder than they thought. Putting Lina's inherited lake house up for rent at weekends seems like the solution to at least one of their problems. The secluded house is more of a burden than a retreat, anyway, and fixing up the old place makes Cain feel useful for once. But letting strangers stay in their house might not be the best idea. Someone is watching - their most mundane tasks, their most intimate moments - and all the things Lina and Cain want to keep hidden will be exposed.

'A darkly riveting psychological thriller from the bestselling author of Call Me Evie, In the Clearing and Tell Me Lies.' (Publication summary)