Item category 1: General Fiction

'In the first minute following her death, Tequila Leila's consciousness began to ebb, slowly and steadily, like a tide receding from the shore. Her brain cells, having run out of blood, were now completely deprived of oxygen. But they did not shut down. Not right away...' Our brains stay active f...

POETRY TEXTS & ANTHOLOGIES. Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), winner of the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature and author of one of the most popular poems in the English language, 'If-', has long captured the interest of poetry lovers. Here, Thomas Pinney brings together a selection of well-established f...

Kaylan and Arianna are new to middle school, and when they decide to make a list of eleven things that they want to accomplish before they turn twelve, including getting detention and helping humanity, they start to lose sight of their friendship.

Inspired by the success of their first birthday bucket list, Ari and her BFF Kaylan set twelve new goals for the next school year. And number one is 'keep our friendship strong'. But after a life-changing summer at camp, Ari feels torn between Kaylan and her camp friends. And as she faces down ev...

Ari and Kaylan aren't sure how they're going to survive their first summer apart. No pool. No sleepovers. No emergency late night chats on the porch. So as Ari returns to Camp Silver and Kaylan heads off to comedy camp, they come up with a new list of 13 and 3/4 ways to keep their friendship stro...

With winter break almost over and seventh grade spinning beyond their control, best friends Kaylan and Ari write a new list of 13 resolutions to make the New Year, middle school, and their friendship even more amazing. But what happens when their bestie bucket list reveals issues in their friend ...

Follows Lizzie, a young woman growing up in Mississauga, as she fights her way from fat to thin, but who still, even as a married adult woman, sees herself as a fat girl.

Lizzie doesn't like the way she looks. Though she dates guys online, she's afraid to send pictures: no-one wants a fat girl. So Lizzie starts to lose weight. With punishing drive, she counts almonds consumed and pounds dropped, navigating double-edged validation from her mother, her friends, her ...

Welcome to the cafe that never sleeps. Day and night Stella's Cafe opens its doors for the lonely and the lost, the morning people and the night owls. It is many things to many people but most of all it is a place where life can wait at the door. A place of small kindnesses. A place where anyone ...

A sweeping family saga (with a bit of a twist) about the life and loves of Archie Ferguson, a Jewish boy born to second-generation immigrants in the United States just after World War II.

Betsy Bow-Linnet is determined to become a world famous concert pianist like her parents. There's just one problem: no matter how hard she practises she doesn't share their musical talents. So when a mysterious letter arrives from a woman claiming to know of a Method that will make Betsy's playin...

A storybook collection of sweet tales based on the Netflix series starring Ada Twist. Each of the 12 stories retells a beloved episode from the show, making it perfect for group read alouds or when it's time to settle down for bed.

A man arrives at a house on the coast to write a book. Separated from his lover and family and friends, he finds the solitude he craves in the pyrotechnic beauty of nature, just as the world he has shut out is experiencing a cataclysmic shift. The preoccupations that have galvanised him and his w...

A man arrives at a house on the coast to write a book. Separated from his lover and family and friends, he finds the solitude he craves in the pyrotechnic beauty of nature, just as the world he has shut out is experiencing a cataclysmic shift. The preoccupations that have galvanised him and his w...

Camelia is a young Italian woman who lives with her mother in Leeds, a city where it is always December and winter has been underway for such a long time that nobody is old enough to have seen what came before. She's dropped out of university and translates instruction manuals for an Italian wash...

At the Golden Sunset retirement home, it is not unusual for residents to invent stories. So when elderly Ms Mook first begins to unspool her memories, the obituarist listening to her is sceptical. Stories of captivity, friendship, murder, adventure, assumed identities and spying. Stories that tak...

This ancient Noongar Dreamtime story is told in the words of Elder Cliff Humphries, one of the last fluent Noongar speakers in the world. It formed part of his body of work presented in Bennell v. State of Western Australia securing native title for the Noongar nation in 2006. This story was a fa...

It is time to elect a new abbess at the Convent of Crewe. There are two contenders: nuns Alexandra and Felicity. Alexandra is busy bugging the convent while Felicity calls the police when her love letters (to a young Jesuit priest) are stolen. A brilliant laugh-out-loud satire on the Watergate sc...

Novelist, cultural observer and social satirist Lionel Shriver is among the sharpest talents of our age. A writer who embraces 'under-expressed, unpopular or downright dangerous' points of view, she regularly deplores the conformity of thought and attitude that has overtaken society. Bringing tog...

David Winkler has lived on a remote Caribbean island for more than two decades, after running away from his former life, his wife Sandy and his daughter Grace. David fell in love with Sandy at a supermarket in Alaska - as he dreamt he would. Moving from Alaska to Ohio to escape his fear of the fu...

A debut novel about a young family forced to flee their war-ravaged homeland, forced to leave behind everything and everyone beloved and familiar. Old family photographs and the author's own lush watercolor paintings inspired by medieval illuminated manuscripts interweave with remembrances, ghost...

Natty copes with her parents splitting up, moving in with her grandparents, and starting a new school by maintaining and spreading a positive attitude, but she soon realizes it is more important to feel her feelings than it is to be eternally peppy.

The rebels will be hanged at dawn, and their brotherhood is already plotting revenge. Manchester, 1867: Stephen Doyle, an Irish-American veteran of the Civil War, arrives from New York with a thirst for blood. He has joined the Fenians, a secret society intent on ending British rule in Ireland by...

Evicted from their trailer on New Year's Eve, Henry and his son, Junior, have been reduced to living out of a pick-up truck. Six months later, things are even more desperate. Henry, barely a year out of prison for selling drugs, is down to his last pocketful of cash, and little remains between hi...

In the Black Mountains of Pakistan, the discovery of an unconscious, unknown man is the first stone in an avalanche of chaos. The head of the village is beset with problems, including the injured stranger and failing to find his way out. His daughter receives a love letter and incurs her father's...

Grace, Zoe and Imogen are three women whose worlds are linked by unseen connections to friends, family and lovers. In this psychological drama, set in contemporary Hobart, they move inexorably towards an event that will change them all forever. The Accident is an insightful exploration of the way...

There is a new girl at Billie's school, and Billie takes it upon herself to show her around, teach her the Biscuit Laws, and remind her that yes, two women can get married (after all, Billie's mums' wedding is the event of the year). But then suspicion sets in. The new girl seems very close to Bi...

Imaginative Omar goes through the ups and downs of starting a new school and making new friends with the help of his wonderful (and silly) Muslim family.

Iraqi aspiring pianist Nasim falls from favour with Saddam Hussein and his psychopathic son, triggering a perilous search for safety. In Australia, decades later, Gerry is in fear of his tyrannical father, Toohey, who has returned from the Iraq War bearing the physical and psychological scars of ...