Item category 1: General Fiction

"Sometimes the day begins with nothing to look forward to"--Back cover.

On a boat in the Thames estuary, Marlow tells his travelling companions of his reconnaissance expedition for a Belgian trading company to its most remote outpost in central Africa, which brought him on the trail of the elusive Kurtz, a brilliant idealist gone rogue. His account relates not only t...

One paper plane flies straight and fast and true, Dylan's. Twelve-year-old Dylan Webber lives in outback Western Australia in a small country town. When he discovers he has a talent for folding and flying paper planes, Dylan begins a journey to reach the World Junior Paper Plane Championships in ...

Sentaro has failed. He has a criminal record, drinks too much, and his dream of becoming a writer is just a distant memory. With only the blossoming of the cherry trees to mark the passing of time, he spends his days in a tiny confectionery shop selling dorayaki, a type of pancake filled with swe...

EARLY LEARNING: RHYMING & WORDPLAY BOOKS. Just how wacky can a Wednesday get?! With shoes on the wall, tortoises in trees, pigs without legs and teachers on roller skates, children will have lots of fun counting all the wacky things they can find on each spread of this entertaining book. With hi...

Bill, 72, feels left behind after the death of his adored wife. He relies heavily on his only daughter, Sarah. Sarah, career woman and perfectionist homemaker, struggles to keep up with the Joneses. As her husband grows distant, she has no support network. Emma, a down-to-earth nurse and busy mot...

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath.Death has never been busier, and will become busier By her brother's graveside, Liesel's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, left there by accident, and it is...

Dawn thinks she knows everything there is to know about dying. As a death doula she helps her clients fix what is left undone so they can peacefully make the final transition. But when her plane plummets from the sky and she thinks she is experiencing the last moments of her life, she is shocked ...

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...

Two families escape the rat race to holiday at a remote coastal retreat, but what lies are they telling themselves and each other? The new family drama by beloved Australian storyteller Fiona Palmer Ashley has recently lost her husband. Daughter Emily is being bullied online. Best friend Nikki is...

Grandpa used to say it all the time: books have tremendous power. But what is that power really? Bookish high school student Rintaro Natsuki is about to close the secondhand bookshop he inherited from his beloved grandfather. Then, a talking cat named Tiger appears with an unusual request. The c...

When Charlotte Perkins enters the 'Become a Jetsetter' contest, she dreams of reuniting her estranged children: Lee, an almost-famous actress; Cord, a handsome Manhattan venture capitalist; and Regan, a harried mother who has never got over Charlotte's gift of a Weight Watchers voucher for her bi...

Permafrost's no-bullshit lesbian narrator is an uninhibited lover, a no-hope employee, and a some-time suicidal student of her own dislocated self. As she tries to break out of the roles set for her by a controlling, overprotective mother, a relentlessly positive sister, and a society which impos...

Olivia McAfee and Ava Campanello have each had a change of life forced upon them. Olivia never dreamt that after her messy divorce she would find herself back in her sleepy New Hampshire home town, living in the house she grew up in and taking over her father's beekeeping business. Ava is also in...

There are 4 things you should know about Ben: 1. He's 12 years old 2. He's the new kid at school 3. His special number is 4 4. He has a bully in his brain. Sometimes Ben's brain makes him count to 4 to prevent bad things happening. Sometimes it makes him tap or blink in 4s. Mostly it makes the sm...

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...

Meet Ella and Olivia. Big sister. Little sister. Best friends! This treasury edition features two books in one - Best Friends Stories plus Sisters' Day Out Stories.

Saskia Spark-Lee is a sparkle collector -- shimmery rocks, glittery wrapping paper, even dewdrops off the leaves in her garden. Entranced with a classmate's shiny quartz stone, Saskia promises to trade her real diamond for it. The only problem is, she doesn't have a diamond! But with the advice o...

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...

From Russia's Anna Karenina to Vietnam's Lady Trieu, from Cio-Cio-San to Frankenstein's second creature, suffering, madness, or death is the fate of far too many women in classic literature. Anna Karenina Isn't Dead undoes that. In this anthology of literary women, these women live. Do they have ...

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...

Shifts in tone, setting and narration create a sense of the uncanny in Beam of Light, Kinsella's haunting collection of stories. A man is disturbed by the sight of a familiar dining table and chairs atop an impending bonfire of bulldozed trees, a girl finds a fox skeleton and feels compelled to p...

The crumbling Victorian had been abandoned long before Jane ever discovered it as a child. It was painted a sweet violet color, and the gingerbread trim was blue and green, but inside was shambles--broken glass, a dollhouse ravaged by mice, bedsheets twisted as though someone had left in a hurry....

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...

In the distant highlands, a puma named Dusk is killing shepherds. Down in the lowlands, twins Iris and Floyd are out of work, money and friends. When they hear that a bounty has been placed on Dusk, they reluctantly decide to join the hunt. As they journey up into this wild, haunted country, they...

It is spring 1919, and John Sawtelle's imagination has gotten him into trouble, again. Now John and his newlywed wife, Mary, along with their two best friends and their three dogs, are setting off for Wisconsin's Northwoods, where they hope to make a fresh start, and, with a little luck, discover...

Always on the periphery, looking on, young Frankie Howe was never quite sure enough of herself to take centre stage - after all, life had already judged her harshly. Now old, Frankie finds it easier to forget the life that came before. Then Damian, a young Irish carer, arrives at her London flat,...

Saskia Spark-Lee loves animals – she’s almost adopted a whole zoo-worth! But when Da and Dee say they can’t add another to the collection, she must come up with a new plan to continue supporting her furry friends. With some help from Nanna, and the amazing fundraising skills of her friends, Saski...

A novel about four generations of Black women contending with motherhood and daughterhood, generational trauma and the deeply ingrained tensions and wounds that divide them as they redefine happiness and healing for themselves.

Old friends Renee and Flo couldn't be more different. Flo wants to be invisible, Renee wants to be a somebody. But old friendships are magnetic. In their early twenties, and on the cusp of the rest of their lives, Renee and Flo both fly home to Guernsey: to the island where it all began. Back in ...