NEW RELEASES

Adult Fiction

We Chase Shadows
(Comical Crime)
Richard Osman
$34.99

Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle – and her followers are sick with envy. Her charming farmhouse on her working ranch is artfully cluttered, her husband is a handsome cowboy, her homemade sourdough boules are each more beautiful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers and industrial-grade ovens behind the scenes? What her followers don’t know won’t hurt them.
Then, one morning, Natalie wakes up in a strange, horrible version of reality. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Is this a hoax? A reality show? A test from God?
Natalie knows just two things for sure: this isn't her perfect life, and she must escape, by any means possible.
As darkly funny as it is shocking and gripping, Yesteryear is an electrifying examination of tradition, fame, faith and the grand performance of womanhood, from a thrilling new talent in fiction.

Yesteryear
(Psychological Thriller)
Caro Claire Burke
$34.99

In the cramped basement office of their university newspaper, Jake and Nadia break a huge story that exposes a decade of institutional corruption. In the quieter hours, they also fall in love.
Then Nadia leaves.
A decade later, she returns from New York, once a fast-rising finance hotshot, now exiled after a deal gone wrong. Back in Sydney, Jake has forged a reputation as a crusading reporter whose by-line regularly brings down the rich and powerful.
Battlelines are drawn when they're each pulled into the orbit of a biotech visionary
whose startup becomes Nadia's big break and the target of Jake's latest investigation. As old wounds flare, both must decide how far they'll go to come out on top.

Good Intentions
(Fiction & related items)
Jessy Wu
$34.99

Sergeant Harper Quinn has returned to her sleepy hometown of Koorinda in search of a quieter life. Until she learns that the town's once glittering waterpark is being reopened, on the shores of its famous Red Lake: the place her little brother vanished into thin air 30 years ago.And then Harper receives a call: a body has been found at the park.
Once again, Harper finds her family at the centre of a shocking criminal investigation. This time, she is determined to find her own answers.
But when secrets run this deep, the truth can drag you under . . .

Red Lake
(Thriller / suspense)
Jason Summers
$34.99

The players call it The Game. There are just two rules:No killing close to home.No Killing outside the gameBut what happens when those rules get broken?When the drowned body of a troubled teenager is recovered from a river in Maine's Kennebec Valley, and a young woman disappears from a small rural town, they draw the attention of the private investigator named Charlie Parker.Now Parker will be forced to confront a band of men without morality and without loyalty, not even to one another, in a place where the very darkness is alive.Because something has emerged from the
shadows, something very bad.And it wants revenge.

A River Red With Blood
(Crime & mystery)
John Connolly
$34.99

The Carrier
(Thriller / suspense)
Ruth Newton
$34.99

Nicola Fischer knows all about infamous parents – her father was just convicted of murdering five young women, including her best friend. Jobless, vilified and spiralling, she’s barely holding it together when an email arrives from Greer Woods – the magnetic host of To Catch a Killer, the true-crime show responsible for her father's arrest.
There’s no apology. Just a cryptic invitation.
The Death Row Club is an exclusive, off-grid annual gathering for people like Nicola. Desperate to outrun her past, she joins a group bound by bloodlines they didn’t choose . . . but might not be able to deny.
When an uninvited guest shows up, everyone is put on high alert, and by morning, one of them is dead.
Trapped in the wilderness with no way out, suspicion turns inward. Because if the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, which of them is the bad seed?

The Death Row Club
(Thriller / suspense)
V.A. Vazquez
$34.99

In 1870, three Chinese women arrive in the small, dusty and violent pueblo of Los Angeles. Dove, the bound-footed daughter of an imperial scholar, is entrancing and innocent, poised to fulfill her filial role by agreeing to an arranged marriage to a much older merchant. Petal, the big-footed daughter of peasants, is arriving on the shores of Gold Mountain – America – after being sold into servitude by her parents. And Moon, married to a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine, is educated and beautiful, yet her failed footbinding as a child has left her with a limp that lessens her value in the eyes of many.
Each woman has her own desires. Dove
wants to love and be loved, Petal desires freedom and Moon seeks justice. Together they face a ruthless society, devoid of goodwill and increasingly hostile to all three women, despite their different backgrounds. Set during a period of rampant anti-Chinese sentiment in Los Angeles, Daughters of the Sun and Moon is a gripping tale of an exhilarating but tumultuous society in a fever pitch and three women who must navigate its unique challenges.
In the wake of the real-life Night of Horrors, a long-forgotten, bloody episode of American history, Dove, Petal and Moon are brought together by hardship and heartbreak, and they must use their bravery, endurance, and
ability to ‘eat bitterness’ to discover their voices, find freedom, and connect through solace and friendship. Together they are daughters of the sun and moon.

Daughters of The Sun And Moon 
Lisa See
$34.99

Tell me about your dreamsabout your sleepabout your nightmares.Tell me everything,he says as he leanstowards me,his eyes restingon my thighs.
January Clare Colson is longing for sleep, for release from the wakefulness that is consuming her, haunted by the tragic drowning of her best friend years ago when they were rebellious teens. She's a mess of pills and broken promises, swimming in desperation.
Then he walks back into her life, changed but the same, and the events of long ago take a new grip on her. She needs to know what happened. She needs to know him. To call him to account.
But her strategy is dangerous, obsessive, warped by insomnia and the intense power of thwarted desire.
January Clare Colson is standing on the brink of destruction.

Night Swimming(Thriller / suspense)Sharon Kernot$34.99

After thirty long years, Louisa's daughters can finally look after themselves ... or so she thinks.
Because suddenly, they're back - apparently for good. Meg's second-guessing her marriage. Jo's career hangs in the balance. Amy has inexplicably quit university. None of them empty the dishwasher.
Louisa knows it's time for some life lessons. She adores her girls, but if she's ever going to get her (sex) life back, they'll have to grow up - and go.
But maybe they're not the only ones with lessons to learn... And Louisa might just
discover that her daughters have something to teach her about being an adult too.

All Grown Up
(Modern & contemporary fiction)
Daisy Buchanan
$34.99

When Daphne notices an older gentleman following her around the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, she doesn't expect it to be Eddie her former stepfather.Married to her mother for a short time when Daphne was nine, she hasn't seen Eddie for many years; not since the fateful event that changed the direction of both their lives.Meeting again now, Daphne and Eddie feel that time has fallen away. Their earlier relationship was brief but had a profound impact on both of them. Together, they consider not only their past, but the joys of the present and their commitment to face the future together.

Whistler
(Modern & contemporary fiction)
Ann Patchett
$34.99

Can a broken heart bloom again?
When Hilary finds her husband of thirty years dead on his way to the compost heap, it is the end of the world as she knows it. In a fit of grief, she destroys every inch of the beautiful garden to which George devoted his life. Only the trees are left standing - because Hilary can't get the safety off thechainsaw.
In the hazy days after the funeral, a group of strangers knock at the door. Announcing themselves as The Secret Garden Club, they tell Hilary that George was a member and one of their dearest friends.So why has Hilary never heard of them?
Could they be connected to the mysterious mourner, who had George's favourite pale blue orchid pinned to her chest?
While the club vows to restore the garden, Hilary makes a promise of her own: to uncover the truth.Will George's secret break her heart all over again - or show her the seeds of a new life filled with hope and friendship?

The Secret Garden Club
(Modern & contemporary fiction)
Wendy Lynn Newton
$34.99

Linda and Levi will never meet. But they're going to change each other's lives.
In her role at the council's Unclaimed Heirs Unit, Linda Standish investigates the lives of those who've died alone and tracks down any living relatives. She's been a friend to the friendless for the past thirty-three years. And now she's looking forward to an early retirement.
But before she hangs up her lanyard, Linda takes on one last case - that of Levi Norman - a Welshman who made his home on a remote Scottish island for the past five years.
What brought Levi here? And who did he
leave behind? Obliged to travel (by hearse) with her arch nemesis Fergus Murray, and helped (and hindered) by local residents, Linda searches for clues to a life now lost. And in the process unexpectedly makes new friends, and discovers things about herself she never knew.

By Your Side(Modern & contemporary fiction)Ruth Jones$34.99

The Midnight Train(Modern & contemporary fiction)Matt Haig$34.99

A dead judge. A silent defendant. And a courtroom full of liars. When Leila Reynolds is handed her first murder case, she’s shocked at how high-profile it is: the murder of a well-respected, well-known judge. This shouldn’t be the kind of case she’s leading; it’s way beyond her expertise. But the defendant, Jack Millman, is clear. He wants her, and only her.
To make things worse, he’s refusing to talk. How is she supposed to prove herself on what appears to be an unwinnable case?
Losing is not an option. She must find the most persuasive argument. Trials aren’t won
by convincing judges or fellow barristers – they’re all about convincing a jury.
Suddenly, Leila finds herself fighting not only to keep Jack out of prison, but also to keep her own secrets buried.
It’s true what they say – there are two sides to every story.
Guilty or not guilty? You decide . . .

Dissection of a Murder
(Crime & mystery)
Jo Murray
$34.99

New graduate Fei Fei Chou is an outlier at her prestigious law firm.
She's too quiet.She wears too much makeup.She’s only here because the boss has a thing for Asians.
But Fei isn’t here to climb the corporate ladder – she’s here for revenge. Thirty years ago, three schoolgirls were kidnapped and abused by a man who’s never been identified. The information Fei needs to find him is buried somewhere in the firm’s records. Deliberately placing herself in harm’s way, Fei will uncover a secret history of power
and privilege that haunts not only her firm, but the nation itself.

The Graduate(Political / legal thriller)Rebecca Lim$34.99

1704- Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk has been abandoned by his own shipmates on a remote, uninhabited island. With little hope of rescue, and wild goats and cats as his only companions, he is forced to confront not only the urgent challenges of survival, but also the troubled, unsavoury past that has brought him here. What kind of man is deliberately stranded by his crew, to face near-certain death? On the island, he must use his grit, tenacity and ingenuity to survive. As his isolation deepens, Selkirk's experience takes an extraordinary and often blackly comic turn, for the island's consolations
prove as unexpected as its trials. The longer he is stranded, the more Selkirk wonders if he will ever escape the island, and in what ways he will be changed if he does.
A tale of adventure and endurance, isolation and friendship, despair and hope, this gripping, singular novel asks who we are and who we become when everything else is stripped away.

Cast Away
(Historical fiction)
Francesca De Tores
$32.99

Parenting teens is not for the faint of heart but Madeline, Jane and Celeste have been through worse. It's been a decade since the school trivia night that changed their lives forever and now they're living blissfully ordinary suburban lives.
But when an anonymous grisly package arrives at the local high school, and a man in a green Volvo is seen lurking around the kids, everyone in their beautiful beachside community is uneasy.
Is this history repeating itself or something new and more shocking?
Can you ever truly outrun the mistakes of your past?
What big little truths are about to be revealed?

Big Little Truths
(General Fiction)
Liane Moriarty
$34.99

Sophie Pattison is such a lovely person. Warm, kind, amazingly positive. She works as a freelance sound technician for literary festivals. She is a massive reader and was recently forced to move house. She is bracingly lonely.* So much so, the absence of others feels like a physical weight, if that makes sense. But then Sophie discovers an author through work, and comes to adore her. Her books, interviews and podcasts, her wisdom and brilliance, her beautiful words. It's like solace and company. It's almost like love. And Sophie would love to meet her, although she never will, obviously. The author would never come to her festival. She's too famous for that. Too brilliant, too beautiful.
And in a way, thank goodness, because that would change everything. Sophie's entire life.
But ... what if she did?
*although she has a best friend called Emma, and an amazing brother. And a husband. But a number of things happened there.

Sophie, Standing There
(Contemporary Fiction)
Meg Mason
$34.99

Fact: In 1986, Picasso's Weeping Woman was stolen from the National Gallery of Victoria. To this day, the culprits have never been identified.
Here's what happened.
Maybe.
Phoebe is about to turn 70, and has grown sick of retirement. She enrols in an evening art course, where she befriends fellow retirees Eva and Dave. They also happen to be studying across the road from a two-million-dollar Picasso.
The trio make a promising start, only to find
that the school is to be closed due to arts cuts implemented by a blundering government minister. The protests of a student activist group - under 30s only - fall on deaf ears.
Enter Phoebe, Eva and Dave, who decide to take matters into their own hands ...

The Picasso Ransom
(Crime & mystery)
A.T. Prewett
$39.99

When writer Caroline Lash arrives in Greenhead, she falls immediately for its scenic beaches and New England charm - and even harder for Van Whittaker, a gorgeous, fleece-wearing, litter-collecting, kayak enthusiast.
She meets his friends- Augusta, old money and uptight; Fran, drowning in everyone else's problems whilst keeping two kids (and an inebriated husband) afloat; and Bailey, who is sexy, confident... and inconveniently pregnant with Van's child.
Determined nothing will dull the shine of her new romance, Caroline joins the friends as they run wild through Greenhead, drinking on
houseboats, gossiping on beaches while their children paddle, and playing risky games.
It seems the fun will last forever - until it doesn't. As decades-old friendships and marriages begin to fracture, Caroline's place in their world is called into question. And with all the group's most tightly held secrets at stake, who knows what might come out?

The Shampoo Effect
(Modern & contemporary fiction)
Jenny Jackson
$34.99

It has been made clear to her that people owe their lives to one another - to the driver who slows to a stop when she notices a jaywalker, and the roller-coaster operator who spots an improperly fastened harness . . . and Iqra's mother, who raised her, and the mother before her, who tried to stop the blood.
After the loss of a pregnancy, Iqra returns to her mother's home in the place where she grew up. The past is porous, her recollections fail her, yet she is suffocating with memory.
A couple of hours out of the city, Seam River pulls Iqra back into a state of bewilderment.
She revisits the stories of her parents and all the women before her, as dreams, memories, the uncertain and the impossible converge.
The future refuses to take form. She finds wonder.

The Clinging Thing
(Modern & contemporary fiction)
Munira Tabassum Ahmed
$34.99

Every Time She Wakes is a taut, time-bending thriller about family, identity and defying fate.
When careers counsellor Suze and her family are evacuated from their home during a bushfire emergency, she suddenly realises they're being kidnapped. The van crashes and Suze thinks it's the end.
But she wakes up two weeks back in time. No one else remembers the terror that came before. Is it all in her own mind?
Then it happens again. And again.
With every loop, her world twists into a new
version of itself. Suze must discover why it's happening and who is behind the kidnappings. She's running out of time to save her family and wake up in a world she recognises.

Every Time She Wakes
(Crime & mystery)
Petronella McGovern
$34.99

1918: Australia's last bushranger, Dulcie James, holds up Anna King's falling-down farmhouse. There's a scrawny unloved infant on the floor, Anna seems more furious than frightened, and it's the bushranger who's left shaken. And the next day, Anna disappears.
Twelve years later, Anna's daughter, Billie King, is a girl ready to explode. With a missing mother, the rent in arrears and her alcoholic father's gambling debts to cover, she has no time for school. But when child services threaten to remove Billie from her father, she must decide between continuing her search for her missing mother and keeping what's left of her family together. If she fails to hold onto her father, she'll be
taken away and placed in a children's home, but if she doesn't find her missing mother, who will?

Billie King 
(Historical fiction)
Shannon Kelly-White
$34.99

In a world where drastic measures have averted the global environmental crisis, humans too are now subject to great transformation.
Vivi should be happy she’s pregnant. But she’s troubled by a looming reality that seemingly bothers no one else: having a baby also means birthing an identical, nearly indestructible self who will eat her and take her place. “Rebirth” is simply a fact of life—nature’s way of equipping women for the challenges of motherhood. But as Vivi’s unborn child develops, so does her fear.
In a rare turn of events, Vivi emerges from rebirth weakened rather than strong. When
her husband cannot tolerate her defects, they divorce and Vivi relocates to the country with her baby to work for her old boss.
Chronically exhausted, mentally struggling, and on her own, Vivi must move on—for her own and her son’s sake. But just as with her failed rebirth, swapping old for new isn’t as straightforward as it seems. When Vivi finally discovers what went wrong during childbirth, it will rewrite her life utterly: future, present, and past.

But Won't I Miss Me
(Modern & contemporary fiction)
Tiffany Tsao
$34.99

Beautiful, manipulative Lacey is a lifestyle influencer turned bestselling author who preaches self-love and body confidence to her million followers.
But one of those followers is Teresa. She remembers Lacey as a prepubescent mean girl who kept the loyal members of her gang-Teresa included-on a short leash. Twenty years later, she watches Lacey from afar with the ghost of her younger self and a copy of Lacey's new self-help book for company. While Lacey seems to have rebranding down to an art form, Teresa can't shake their past so easily.

The Followers
(Modern & contemporary fiction)
Maree Spratt
$34.99

Their childhood was yours. They want it back . . .
Guinevere's late mother, Edith Sharpe, needs little introduction. Bestselling author of the unendingly successful Ninth City series, her books brought so much joy and inspired the imagination of countless children the world over. Guin's childhood with her mother, brother Ennis and her actor father was a blissful, bohemian affair, filled with continuous laughter and surrounded by artistic types in their Vermont barnhouse. At least, this is the story Guin presents as she prepares for the press tour for her upcoming memoir about life in the Sharpe family.
Now estranged from her brother and her parents long dead after a devastating fire, strange events threaten the veneer of serenity and familial harmony Guin is keen to project. Ennis, now a notorious artist with a troubled past, announces a new installation his first since a disastrous last show one year prior simply entitled Mother. And Guin can't help but worry that the truth behind their idyllic childhood is about to blow her world apart.

The Children(Modern & contemporary fiction)Melissa Albert$34.99

The Lover
(Thriller / suspense)
Mary Watson
$34.99

In the final week before a federal election, political adviser Francis McGuire is tasked with one job: launching the Opposition’s flagship health policy.
Every detail is in place.
Until the party’s ruthless campaign strategist decides to sabotage it.
When his plan backfires, Francis is made the scapegoat. Publicly shamed and hunted by the press, she flees to a small town on Western Australia’s south coast — the same place she escaped after her father’s fatal car accident years earlier.
But what awaits her is far more dangerous than political betrayal: organised crime; corruption reaching the highest office in the land; a coldblooded contest for power and control; and a murder that threatens to fracture the nation itself.
As enemies close in, Francis must decide how much she’s willing to risk to expose the truth.
Can she do that – or will the truth remain Unspoken?

Unspoken
D. A. Fletcher
$32.99

What is a happily ever after really worth?
Naomi was living the quintessential love story.
Boy meets girl. They fall in love, get married, buy a dream house, start a family...
Then-he kicks her out, hires the city's best divorce lawyers, drains their accounts, and takes up with a 20-something.
It's a brutal end to the story. Naomi should accept defeat- move into a dingy apartment, get back into the workforce, and piece together the shattered remains of her life.
Except, why should she?
Instead, Naomi fixates on her husband's new girlfriend. What begins as cynical curiosity soon twists into obsession-and then into something far darker. As Naomi uncovers secrets she never imagined, she realizes her own life may be in danger.
But if it keeps her perfect family intact, isn't it worth it?

The Divorce(Thriller / suspense)Freida McFadden$34.99

The Findlay family history has long been steeped in secrets, tragedy and dark rumours of madness. Generations of its women have been haunted by a dangerous luring melody and an insatiable longing for the sea.
It's 1923 and Isla Findlay lives with her parents on the edge of the ocean in Tasmania, in a rambling mansion full of whispers of this cursed legacy. When Isla discovers her estranged aunt is finally coming home, long-repressed memories of the selkie stories of her childhood start to resurface, along with disturbing dreams of seals and an eerie song that Isla starts to hear even in her waking hours.
As the line between what's real and imagined starts to blur, Isla and her aunt and mother must reckon with long-held secrets and ghosts who have not been properly laid to rest. The closer they get to the truths of the past, the louder they hear the seductive call of the ocean. Does it sing of freedom, or only more tragedy?

Daughters of the Tide
(Myth & legend told as fiction)
Arianne James
$32.99

he's lived by the rules. Now she's breaking them . . .
For more than eighty years, Joy Bridport has followed the rules - devoted wife, loving mother, steadfast neighbor in her small town. But when her best friend Hazel is given only months to live, Joy is forced to confront the truth- Hazel has lived fully, while she has only played it safe.Determined to change, Joy vows to live boldly in the time she and Hazel have left together. What begins as small rebellions soon snowballs into petty crimes, and Joy must decide whether she can embrace the freedom of 'Bad Joy' without losing the life and legacy she's built.

Good Joy Bad Joy
(Modern & contemporary fiction)
Mikki Brammer
$34.99

Someone will die here this morning, at this suburban train station. It will happen in the next five minutes when the 7:06 to London Victoria arrives.
Take note of their positions. The child, the mother, the businessman, the old woman and the gambler.
One of them will die despite your attachment to them. There is probably one you want to get rid of. You don’t have to admit who. But perhaps you should ask yourself why.
The train has stopped.
Someone is dead.
Was it who you chose?
It wasn’t your fault …
So why, dear reader, do you feel so guilty?

Five(Thriller / suspense)Ilona Bannister$32.99

By Command of The Queen, you are hereby directed to be present at –
There's a lot to get done ahead of the Queen's Coronation, and even more so when your livelihood is at stake.
Lucy Jones is Junior Wardrobe Assistant to the Queen, but dreams of being a singer. Caroline Brimstone loves her role as the Queen's Assistant Dresser, but behind closed doors, she fights for a better life for herself and her daughter. And Miranda Miller, an undercover journalist in the coronation office's planning committee, needs an inside scoop to keep her job – the only thing she has left.
They are all running away from their own demons but in order to succeed, they must shed their shame, trust themselves and reclaim their lives.
As Queen Elizabeth II takes the throne, will these three women be able to take their rightful places in the world?

The Palace Women
(Historical fiction)
Jennifer Ryan
$34.99

Flying runs in Charlotte Clarke's blood. As the daughter of a scenic flight company owner, her life is spent soaring over Sydney's glittering harbour—until a series of devastating tragedies sends her crashing to earth. First, the deaths of her beloved grandmother and father, then her boyfriend Connor's seaplane vanishes without a trace.
Haunted by his mysterious disappearance and convinced she’s being watched, Charlotte flees to a quiet coastal town and hits rock bottom, saved from a storm by a mysterious fisherman. But the calm is an illusion. Her paranoia peaks when she spots a man she believes is Connor, only to be told she's mistaken …
As she uncovers shocking secrets about those she holds closest, Charlotte realises her life isn't the only thing at risk. The truth about her past could be deadly.

Without A Tracew
(Thriller / suspense)
Susannah Glenn
$34.99

After Tina Lamb loses her family home in a bitter divorce, she finds herself living in a caravan on the city's fringes. Having raised four children and nursed her dying mum, she was not anticipating making a new start alone or from scratch. And while some of her new neighbours are welcoming, she soon finds herself getting far more attention than she bargained for.
When Tina finds work caring for a wealthy elderly woman, it is a welcome break from an ageist, sexist job market. But Mrs Bell is anything but predictable. Highly educated, acerbic and intimidating, she is not the straightforward charge that Tina had hoped for. As the two women form an unlikely
friendship, they soon discover that financial security is about more than having money.

People Like Us
(Modern & contemporary fiction)
Sally Piper
$34.99

Jodie always dreamed of being a housewife. And after a whirlwind romance, she marries renowned psychologist Dr. Roy Davies and moves into his perfect Beverly Hills home. But the fairy tale fades fast. Roy is distant, his friends view her as a gold-digger, and the house still reveres his late wife, Deborah, whose presence still looms over everyone and everything.
When Jodie learns Deborah became a recluse before death, she begins to suspect Roy was behind it. And the deeper she digs, the darker Roy's past appears-obsessive, controlling, unfaithful. Increasingly convinced he had something to do with Deborah's death, Jodie knows she should go
to the police, but that would require revealing her own secret. A secret that could destroy her.
But Jodie won't be silenced. Because the truth about Roy is worse than she imagined-and now, trapped in a house built on lies, she must find a way out before she becomes the next perfect wife to vanish.

The House Wife
(Thriller / suspense)
Natalie Barelli
$34.99

Welcome back to North Falls -- a small town with big secrets.
The house at 1601 Iris Drive looks like any other in the quiet, residential street. But rumours are rife about the Vickery family, and what goes on behind closed doors.
Then one afternoon gunshots ring out. Allison Vickery is found murdered in her own kitchen, her teenage daughter bleeding and left for dead.
Everyone thinks they know what happened. But they're wrong. The truth is more shocking than anyone could ever have imagined.
Secrets are everywhere in this small town. And it's up to Detective Emmy Clifton to uncover the truth ...

The Secrets We Hide
(Crime & mystery)
Karin Slaughter
$34.99

The annual Curlew Street scarecrow competition is back, and the residents of Melbourne’s inner north have never seen an entry like it. Shirt bloody, head and arms slumped over a scarecrow crucifix: Victoria’s most conservative Supreme Court Judge, Harry ‘The Pope’ Somerton, is dead.
Priyanka Pal, a former psychologist turned homicide detective, is disturbed when her investigation uncovers corruption close to home. Forced to confront the abuses of powerful men – the very reason she left psychology – Priyanka’s faith in the justice system falters.
Emma Bloom is sophisticated, intelligent,
and seems to have it all together. But her prickly, estranged sister, Margot, knows the truth. Their attempts at reconciliation spiral into crisis with the death of Emma’s abusive husband, The Pope.
As secrets unravel and Priyanka’s investigation cuts close to home, the sisters risk losing what fragile family ties they have left, and Priyanka’s career is on the edge. None of them will ever feel the same way about themselves (or their neighbours) again.
P.S. Mind the cat.

Neighbourhood Watch
Lauren Williams
$34.99

Old rivals become new adversaries in this explosive instalment of the bestselling Logan Booth series.
Retired assassin Logan Booth is ready to settle down – but Jacinta Murphy, the President of the United States, has other ideas. Paranoid he will expose her past mistakes, the President triggers a chain of events that drive Logan to Colombia and into the middle of a new war.
After colliding with the wrong cartel, Logan finds himself on the run across the mountainous Colombian countryside. His only chance of survival lies with Alice
Mason, an unlikely friend and confidant. Desperate to keep her out of harm’s way, Logan refuses to call on her for aid. But what if she turns up unbidden? How is he supposed to stop her running headfirst into danger when he’s barely keeping himself alive?

The Damned 
(Thriller / suspense)
Matt Rogers
$34.99

Now Brittany is occupied by her enemies, her treasury empty, and only one thing is lacking to complete her realm's subjugation- she is required, on pain of the sword, to marry the King of France.
But Anne cannot. She has promised her dead father that Brittany would never be conquered.
Defiantly, she betroths herself in secret to France's greatest enemy. But in a world where courts may spy on each other by magic, there is only one way to solemnize this illicit union.
Under the guise of a hunting party, Anne
takes her court deep into a deep forest, a strange place dogged with rumours of ancient enchantments; a place where diviners cannot see. She tells the French that she had gone there to hunt unicorns.
It's a ruse, a lie, a feint.
But when, against all expectations, a unicorn does appear and a wounded stranger stumbles from the trees and falls at her feet, Anne is plunged into a world of enchantment where a doomed sovereign might find the power to change the destiny of her nation - or be lost in the mist for ever.

The Unicorn Hunters(Fantasy)Katherine Arden$34.99

Meg Maher thought she was doing the right thing. Now she's on the run.
When a peaceful climate protest ends with a violent explosion in the city centre, every member of the protest group becomes a suspect. The incident is declared a terrorist attack.
But the authorities aren't the only ones hunting Meg.
Scared and alone, Meg seeks refuge with her father, Luke, knowing that every word she says puts him in danger too. But as the terrorism investigation closes in, Meg is forced to question everything: her friends,
her cause, even herself. Was her group of activists infiltrated from the start? Or has someone twisted their mission beyond recognition?
What happens when the truth is the first thing to burn?

Where Truth Ends
(Thriller / suspense)
Mark Smith
$34.99

Alice is a first-generation Chinese-American food blogger. A Chinese dissident who escaped China after Tiananmen Square, Vivien is now a globally recognized human rights activist and passionate advocate for a free and democratic China. While it makes some sense that the President would turn to Vivien, what isn't clear is why they'd want to talk to Alice.Caught up in the chaos, Vivien and Alice are uniquely placed to stop the next, cataclysmic attack. But there are forces deep within both the American and Chinese governments intent on stopping mother and daughter. The estranged pair, who excels at misunderstanding each other, must figure
out how to work together.The increasingly frantic search for answers takes the women from the Oval Office to an office building in Akron, Ohio, from the noodle shops of Hong Kong to the necropolis of the first emperor. Along the way they must decode an old legend, and an old language invented by women, for women.

The Last Mandarin
(Crime & mystery)
Mellissa Fung
$34.99

Seven years after escaping their rural hometown, the boys – Charlie, Zeke and Hammer – are back, though not as we left them.
Charlie's fighting spirit has faded as he's struggled to make it as a punk musician in Perth. The opening of a new gay bar by Curtis and Ahmed, an older gay couple who have become Charlie's mentors, offers him a different way to make his mark – but the bar's opponents have other ideas.
Zeke is lost. He knows what he stands against – the closeted life and conventional success his strict Italian parents demanded of him – but doesn't know what he stands
for. He surprises himself by joining a gay footy team: is it the mistake his friends think it is, or will playing footy finally give him what he's always wanted?
Hammer has it all – fame and fortune as a star football player – or so he thinks. He's still closeted, and can't stand the AFL stuffing diversity initiatives like Pride Round down everyone's throats, especially his. But when he opens his mouth, he ignites a furore that throws all the boys' lives into chaos.
Unapologetic and unforgettable, this is the story of three boys finding their way back to each other, and finding their own ways to become men.

Yeah The Boys
(Modern & contemporary fiction)
Holden Sheppard
$34.99

When Elizabeth finds a dead body on a park bench – her own – she knows it’s a sign that she needs to make some big changes in her life.
Staff at her retirement home are too busy to listen when she tries to get their attention, but she is persuaded she must leave its suffocating routine without further delay. In opening the door and walking away, Elizabeth makes an audacious decision – something she had forgotten she could do – in search of a better future and a connection to her past.
Elizabeth’s daughter, Lara, drowning in her own roles and schedules, experiences a
stunning trifecta of tipping points following her mother’s escape. Along with her troubled teenage daughter, Evie, Lara is forced into taking responsibility for herself and facing change. Having discovered how easy it is to get lost, all three soon realise how important it is to be found again.

Simply Beside Herself(Modern & contemporary fiction)Judith Katherine$34.99

1552, Paris: Against a backdrop of turmoil, suspicion, and paranoia, the printing press is quickly spreading new ideas across Europe, threatening the power of church and state and unleashing a wave of book burning and heretic hunting. When frightened ex-nun Lysbette Angiers arrives one day at Charlotte Guillard’s famous printing shop with her manuscript, neither woman knows just how far the powerful elite will go to prevent the spread of Lysbette’s audacious ideas.
1952, New York: Milly Bennett, lonely and unmoored, is a seemingly ordinary housewife with a secretive past. Balancing the day-to-day boredom of keeping house and struggling to find her way with the
mothers at her children’s school, she finds her life taking an unexpected turn as conspiracies spread amidst the paranoid clamors of McCarthy’s America. When a relic from her past presents her with a 400-year-old manuscript to decipher, she is reluctantly pulled into a vortex of danger that threatens to shatter her world.
From the risky backstreets of sixteenth-century Paris to the unpredictable suburbs of mid-twentieth century New York, the stakes couldn’t be higher when, 400 years apart, Milly, Lysbette, and Charlotte each face a reality where the spread of ideas are feared and every effort is made to suppress them.

Book of Forbidden Words
(Historical fiction)Louise Fein$34.99

On Tasmania's wild and remote Maria Island, eighteen-year-old Min is trying to break free from her controlling, overly protective father, the island's head ranger. Her unlikely ally is Werner, an eccentric, homeless biologist who has always taught her to care for the imperilled natural world around her - even as it sets them against Piers, her father, who has his own plans. When Lucie, a journalist haunted by her family's role in the thylacine's extinction, arrives from London to investigate the island's Tasmanian devil conservation project, she is drawn into the island's rare beauty and mysteries, discovering a community grappling with the tension between progress and preservation, care and control. After a tempestuous storm
sees a stranger wash ashore, a chain of events is set in motion that ends in a shocking and mysterious death, only weeks later.

Every Wild Soul
(Modern & contemporary fiction)
Katherine Johnson
$34.99

The Wife, The Maid and the Mistress
(Historical mysteries)
Ariel Lawhon
$34.99

Tracey Read is well and truly trapped. A globetrotting engineer in her thirties, as adept at fixing failing projects as she is at avoiding commitment, she's now paralysed after a major accident and warehoused in an aged care facility she nicknames The Last Resort. For the first time in her life Tracey can't just get up and go - not unless she channels her former self and stages a breakout.
Forced to interact with others who live and work in the 'home', Tracey overcomes her own prejudices to find pockets of kindness and community, and with each small moment of independence she claws back, she begins to recognise herself again.
But as her analytical brain comes back online, Tracey notices something darker going on. When her suspicions are ignored by the people in charge, it's left to her to speak up, a tricky proposition given her voice disappeared on the day of the accident and no one knows if it's coming back.
Underestimated, ignored, and facing the biggest challenge of her life, can Tracey expose the wrongdoing happening behind closed doors? And if she does, will she become the engine of her own story, or put everything at risk?

Things I Cannot Say
(Modern & contemporary fiction)
Geraldine Mellet
$34.99

When Elspeth returns from New York to her hometown of Geelong, it's not for a holiday - it's because her mother has vanished.
While her sister, Aoife, and Elspeth wait for news, they circle around their father's death years earlier, reopening old wounds. But Elspeth's own behaviour soon unsettles those around her, and the police begin to wonder if she's hiding something.
Elspeth teams up with a local crime reporter to search for the truth, leading to the discovery of her mother's unfinished memoir. It includes letters that expose long-buried betrayals and shocking secrets. As the investigation tightens, so does the net
around Elspeth. Is she an investigator, a grieving daughter, or someone more dangerous?
In a family built on lies, digging too deep can be deadly.

The Missing Mother
(Thriller / suspense)
Mali Cornish
$34.99