Item category 1: General Fiction

Anna Maria may have no name, no fortune, no family. But she has her ambition, and her talent. Her best hope lies in her teacher, Antonio Vivaldi. Soon she is his star pupil. But as Anna Maria's star rises, not everyone is happy. Because Anna Maria's shining light is threatening to eclipse that of...

Warning: You are about to read my utterly biggest secrets. Can I trust you? OK then. I'm Ella, and this is my diary. Join Ella in this bind up of two of her hilarious and relatable best friends forever stories, in which she navigates school plays, cooking projects and the ups and downs that come ...

The thing about friendships formed in childhood ... is that they're like an invisible tattoo. They mark you and mould you. They're under your skin. When a last collection of songs by British musical icon, James Bennett, is discovered in an old Somerset house, rumours about his mysterious death du...

1863. After their mother dies, Haidie Richards and her younger brother, Boots, are put to work in an orphanage. Their father left four years earlier to find a gold mine in Colorado Territory, and since then he's sent only three letters. Still, Haidie is certain that he is alive, has struck gold, ...

This multigenerational novel follows the Bright family across four generations as they navigate secrets, addiction, and unexpected reunions. Newlyweds Ryan and Lillian Bright are raising their daughter, Georgette, while each harbors a hidden truth -- Lillian has a son from a previous relationship...

This is a compelling debut that fearlessly challenges stereotypes surrounding Palestinian culture. With humour and poignancy, this book delves into the intimate lives of three primary Palestinian immigrant families in America - the Baladis, the Salamehs, and the Ammars - whose destinies and strug...

Based on actual events. The foreign currency bank loans scheme that occurred in Australia in the 1980's adversely affected approximately 4500 families. This is a story about money and how it impacts on the lives of farmers and small business owners in an environment where privileged bankers and p...

The young women studying at the Grimaldi yearn for new kinds of life. Monitored by the nuns who run the college, eight of them form a close group, sharing confidences and hopes for the future. But each, too, has her private secrets -- a child from an early love affair, frustrated artistic ambitio...

Singapore, 1951. When Josephina is a girl, her parents lock her in a room with the father of the boy to whom she's betrothed. What happens next will determine the lives of generations to come. New Zealand, 1984. Josephina and her family leave Sri Lanka for New Zealand. But their new home is not w...

Mai is navigating life in 90s London as a first generation British-Vietnamese teenager, caught between two cultures. Her mother, Trinh, is constantly reminding her to work hard and be grateful. But Trinh was young once too, living a vibrant and complicated life in Vietnam until forced to flee her...

In her letters to family and friends we come to know the life of Sybil Van Antwerp: stubborn, cantankerous, opinionated, always steadfast in her belief in the power of the written word. But as the clock begins to tick for Sybil, the need for a few post-scripts to the life she's led becomes appare...

Elom can't make sense of love. It's like a language he can't speak, though he's heard the words before. He wants to feel understood by his well-meaning yet misapprehending family, his self-assured partner Ben, and his boisterous friends but he never knows the right thing to say. How can you know ...

"A dying father in the grip of fever and delirium recounts his youth, his Grand Tour, the Venetian palaces populated by fascinating and evil figures, his ruin, and his most beautiful journey—the crossing on foot of the frozen Hudson River. His son, still a child, sits at the foot of the bed, atte...

New York, 2022. Jessa Gidney is trying to have it all -- a high-powered legal career, a meaningful marriage, and hopefully, one day, a child. But when her professional ambitions come up short and Jessa finds herself at a turning point, she leans into her family's history of activism by taking on ...

Willow has everything worked out. The steady partner. The successful career. The grown-up house. Until she doesn't - and she's cast adrift on the sea of heartbreak, grieving a future that's barely begun. With her life transformed beyond recognition, and her friends busy 'moving forwards', Willow ...

'Hi, I'm Luna! This diary you're reading? My mum's idea. She said it will help me to focus. You see, my mind is always racing with a million thoughts! I have so much I want to say and do! So, I'm going to use this diary to show you everything that's going on in my world...' Luna Merrian is a ten-...

Three inventive and daring kids, along with their families, live in a three-story apartment block called' Parrot Palace'. Hari, Lily-Rosa, and Mikey come from different cultures, but their differences unite them as they form a close-knit team. They share their secrets as they navigate their dream...

A tale of sex, drugs, and power - in heels. Meet Beanie Rosen, the fast-talking and even faster-thinking Valley girl who knows where she wants to go, and doesn't care if she doesn't look the part. Mercedes Baxter, who learned early on how to leverage the monied friends of her monied friends' pare...

Finch and Wren were as close as a brother and sister can be. When he vanished, when they were nine years old, her world cracked in two. Finch was never found. On the same day that Finch disappeared, another girl was lost, too. Her name was Ava. Her parents were rich tourists, from Sydney. Ava's s...

There are people everywhere who need help, who might seem okay on the outside but aren't on the inside. Josh wants a friend but he doesn't know how to find somewhere to belong... Ollie wants to express herself but doesn't want to be noticed... Small Acts introduces two kids with great hearts who ...

When Russ Callaghan and Aurora Roberts cross paths at a college party, a drinking game results in a passionate one-night stand. Never one to overstay her welcome (or expect much from a man), Aurora slips away before Russ even has the chance to ask her full name. Imagine their surprise when they b...

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...

A poet's life is turned inside out by a sudden, wrenching pain. The pain brings him to his knees, and eventually to the ICU. Confined to bed, plunged into the dysfunctional American healthcare system, he struggles to understand what is happening to his body, as someone who has lived for many year...

This powerful new novella is a darkly comic portrait of a Jewish family in today's Poland, struggling to express their love for one another in the face of a past that cannot and will not be forgotten. The grandfather is a doctor, a Holocaust survivor who has now vowed to live only for pleasure. H...

Call Me Ishmaelle reimagines the epic battle between man and nature in Herman Melville's Moby Dick from a feminist perspective, offering an exploration of nature, gender and human purpose. 1843. Ishmaelle is born in a small village on the stormy Kent coast where she grows up swimming with dolphin...

When retired Maths teacher Grace Winters is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook and no plan. Among the rugged hills and golden beaches of the Balearics Grace searches for ...

Lenora Allbright is thirteen when her father convinces her mother, Cora, to move to Kaneq, Alaska. It's 1974, and the former Vietnam POW sees a better future away from the noise and nightmares that plague him. Having been left a homestead by a buddy who died in the war, Ernt is secure in his beli...

Clementine Rose was delivered not in the usual way, at a hospital, but in the back of a mini-van, in a basket of dinner rolls. So begins the story of a lovely little girl who lives in Penberthy Floss in a large ramshackle house with her mother, Lady Clarissa, Digby Pertwhistle the butler and a ve...

Summer Dawidowitz has spent the past year caring for her grandmother, Josie - a lifelong Communist, a dedicated teacher, and the founder of an organization that tutors schoolchildren. When Josie dies, everything that seemed solid in Summer's life comes into question. What sort of relationship wil...

Amelie is first drawn to Henri Matisse as a way of escaping the conventional life expected of her. A free spirit, she sees in this budding young artist a glorious future for them both. Ambitious and driven, she gives everything for her husband's art, ploughing her own desires, her time, her money...