Item category 2: Newmarket - Aussie authors

"A private investigator with a haunting past, Bill Edgar's life was never destined to be ordinary. Rising to international fame as the 'Coffin Confessor' - the man who crashes funerals on behalf of the deceased, giving voice to their last wishes - Bill dismantled many of the assumptions we hold a...

1996 - Cabramatta, Sydney. 'Just let him go.' Those are words Ky Tran will forever regret. The words she spoke when her parents called to ask if they should let her younger brother Denny out to celebrate his high school graduation with friends. That night, Denny - optimistic, guileless Denny - is...

Ilene, a working class mother, is struggling to survive and desperate to reconnect with her children, Jack and Lonnie, in the aftermath of a near-fatal tragedy. But her children vanish, setting off a chain reaction within the community. Suspended detective Omar helps out with the investigation, u...

In the beginning is the whatsitsname. The woman in the car park. She wears a nightgown and lies on her back, looking up at the sky. The nightgown is white and embroidered at the neck with blue . . . what do you call them? Forget-me-nots. A small crowd is gathered around her. All in their unicorns...

Anaesthetist Clare Carpenter has just lost her husband and her memory in a single-vehicle accident. So why is a stranger following her? After questioning patients about their dreams, she becomes convinced that an anaesthetic drug might help her access missing memories. But there's no way to be ce...

"Set in Melbourne in the late 1950s, and taking place over the course of two days and nights, Alone chronicles a young woman's hopelessness and obsession provoked by the ending of a passionate relationship. A fledgling writer, estranged from her family and a dropout from university, she recalls h...

1842, Hunter Valley: Lucy Stewart's life turns chaotic when she finds herself caught up in a murder investigation in order to save her brother-in-law, Joe, from the hangman's noose. Constable Sam Donovan believes the accusations levelled at Joe Stewart are suspicious at best and feels compelled t...

A grandson tries to learn the family story. But what kind of story is it? Is it a prison memoir, about the grandfather imprisoned without charge or trial by a revolutionary government? Is it an oral history of the grandmother left behind to look after the children? Or is it a love story? A detect...

Everything in this world has a price. A great work of art is no exception. And what fortune was ever built without a little subterfuge? Oli Darling is a queer artist from the country - it says so right at the top of every press release. His art has brought him fame, money, fashionable substance a...

Mornington Peninsula, 1999: Wife and now grandmother Joan has checked into the grand old Duchess Hotel to find herself again, having spent thirty-five years being who her husband and family have wanted her to be. Peninsula local and soon-to-be octogenarian Frances is distracting herself from gett...

In 1960, when the legendary icebreaker Magga Dan set sail for Antarctica, it contained a secret. Hiding on board was Nel Law, wife of expedition leader Phillip Law. She would make history by becoming the first Australian woman to set foot on the icy continent, but it was her art that would change...

Audrey Lamont has happily devoted herself to family life for the best part of 40 years, but lately she's become aware that she lost herself somewhere between 'I do' and the weekly shop. Worse, her academic husband Simon has found time for romance - just not with Audrey. Feeling invisible to every...

Ketty Clift's couture dressmaking business is thriving but the same can't be said for her staff. Lately, cracks have appeared in the team's harmony, testing relationships and causing issues with customers. Worse, the rumour that Ketty has lost her touch is circulating. So when Ketty's old friend ...

Beat Zen and the art of Dave is the latest travel memoir by Australian author, David McNamara. His new book expands on the world of independent global travel, to capture how the wonderment of an outbound adventure conspires towards an equally profound inner journey. It is a personal account that ...

An incomparable beauty. A promise to a king. A portrait that can never be completed. When Emilia Lennox loses everything after her husband's lands and title are confiscated, her beauty is her best bargaining chip with the only man who can restore their fortunes: King Charles II himself. But the k...

'Mothers are experts at overflow. You may forget the words or kisses or gifts they give but that doesn't mean they didn't happen. We don't need to remember all the love poured into us. We need to be thankful that it makes us. When it comes to love, it's all about being. Not remembering so much.' ...

**Shortlisted, Miles Franklin Literary Award 2024** When a troubled Sarah Hutchinson returns to Australia from boarding school in England and time spent in Europe, she is sent to live with her eccentric Uncle Ferny on the family property, Ngangahook. With the sound of the ocean surrounding every...

Mari and Elisabeth have been at the centre of each other's lives for years. Close friends since university, they're now drifting through their mid-twenties, working casual jobs and living in run-down share houses. When they meet Jack, a charming academic historian twenty years their senior, they'...

Beat is given a chance to shine when she is appointed dean of Turalong Music School, but her role is not what it seems. Fine tuning this institution is like playing a cracked violin with broken strings. She's determined to revive the school's reputation despite gender bias, staff conflict, fraud,...

Himalayas: Unknown Year. 'Ten thousand strands of trouble,' is what Bird's father says, watching as Bird's sister braids her hair. On the eve of her fourteenth year, that trouble finds Bird. Fleeing her home to escape an arranged marriage, she attempts to vanish into a crowd of pilgrims not knowi...

Beth doesn't feel like she belongs in her rambunctious, bohemian family. Apart from the special relationship she shares with her grandma, Elise. When Beth wins the lottery (on a ticket she bought to prove she could be spontaneous), she decides to spend it on treating Elise. But instead of anythin...

Black sheep - there's one in every family. Orphaned at sixteen, James Wakefield was determined to be a gun shearer like his father. Now he's killed twice, changed his name, and is on the run from the law. He had his reasons for both murders, and he felt no joy in taking life. Or did he? Ben McKin...

When Emily's beautiful cousin Aspen goes missing somewhere in the Outback, no one seems to take it seriously, not even the police. After all, Aspen has a history of drug use and a string of broken relationships to her name. Emily knows that her disappearance is totally out of character, even for ...

James Larwood's life is perfect - until a single mistake sees him lose everything. When James is released from prison, he is penniless and potentially homeless. Enter James' tradie brother, Larry, who employs him as a cleaner and starts a factory Book Club to try and get his brother back on his f...

Grace Porter has the perfect job, great pay, a beautiful office, everything she ever dreamed of, if not for one small detail. She's utterly and hopelessly in love with her boss. Gabriel Ferrara is tall and handsome, and most days she wants to stab her eyes out with a pencil, anything to stop her ...

What is lost when knowledge is withheld? In 1914, when the war draws the young men of Britain away to fight, it is the women who must keep the nation running. Two of those women are Peggy and Maude, twin sisters who work in the bindery at Oxford University Press in Jericho. Peggy is intelligent, ...

The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife is a warm, life-affirming debut about a bizarre case of mistaken identity that allows a lonely old man one last chance to be part of a family. 'A sincere, heartfelt and laugh-out-loud debut . . . a genuinely delightful read.' The Australian 'Would you mind te...

January 1997: In the small town of Jericho, New South Wales, Sylvia Knight is losing hope that the person who killed her husband will ever face justice. Since the night of the hit-and-run, her world has been shrouded in hazy darkness until she meets Theo St John, the discoverer of a rare comet so...

A group of school-leavers - free at last, ready to party, expectations high. And even though a remote island on the Western Australian coast wasn't exactly the plan, they're not going to let that hold them back. Leonardo, geeky, asthmatic, shy and prone to anxiety, has landed with them. He's terr...

Amy, Jin and Lucie are leading isolated lives in their partially renovated, inner city home. They are not happy, but they are also terrified of change. When they buy a pet rabbit for Lucie, and then Amy's mother, Pauline, comes to stay, the family is forced to confront long-buried secrets. Will o...