Crime fiction

Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor

Without a doubt Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor is one of the most exciting releases so far this year. This epic family saga meets crime thriller is the perfect marriage of substance and seduction. Politics, power and pleasure are the lynch pins fastening Kapoor’s characters together as she deftly navigates their intertwined yet drastically different lives in contemporary India.

‘Kapoor has delivered an expansive, cinematic literary thriller … At the outset, five people are killed when an expensive car ploughs into pedestrians on a busy street in New Delhi. Narratively speaking, the ripples from this event propel readers into a tale of corruption, greed and revenge, with the legendary, criminal Wadia family at its centre.’ — Julia Jackson, assistant manager at Readings Carlton

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Australian fiction

Little Plum by Laura McPhee-Browne

The follow-up to her acclaimed debut, Cherry Beach, Melbourne-based author Laura McPhee-Browne's sophomore effort does not disappoint.

Coral discovers she is pregnant, and decides to keep the baby, just shy of her thirtieth birthday. Although the result of a casual sexual encounter, she has always wanted to be a mother and considers herself in an okay place in life to take this new step independently. Throughout her pregnancy she, like many expectant mothers, is also scared of what is to come. Her feelings of untetheredness and fear are further complicated by her OCD that, until recently, was managed well-enough through medication, but which is increasingly seeming ineffective.

'Laura McPhee-Browne’s exquisite, velvety writing creeps up on you unexpectedly, and what initially feels solid can suddenly disappear all at once. Coral says at one point that the whole of her is ‘raw and uncomfortably tender’, which perfectly describes the experience of reading this book. – Aurelia Orr, Readings Carlton

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Translated fiction

Weasels in the Attic by Hiroko Oyamada (translated from Japanese by David Boyd)

A unique collection of conversational tales built around the occasional meetings of two friends, who swap stories over dinner in the back room of a Pet shop; perfect for those looking for somethings shorter this month, but that still has plenty to dissect and discuss.

In a remote new home in the mountains, they look for a solution to a weasel infestation. During a dinner party in a blizzard, a mounting claustrophobia makes way for uneasy dreams. Their conversations often take them in surprising directions, but when one of the men becomes a father, more and more is left unsaid in their conversations.

With emotional acuity and a wry humour, Weasels in the Attic it is an uncanny and striking reflection on fertility, masculinity, and marriage in contemporary Japan.

Romance fiction

The Matchmaker by Saman Shad

Saima runs a matchmaking service that focuses on compatibility. And she's good at her work. But her local Desi community is not so sure about her methods that seemingly shirk tradition – and they're talking about it. With business almost completely dried up, she's readying to move back in with her Ammy when she encounters a lucrative opportunity. The parents of extremely eligible bachelor Kal want her to find his perfect match – but there's strings galore – Kal can't know his parents have been involved – and the additional complication of Saima and Kal having clashed in a recent chance encounter. But the biggest complication of all? Saima herself may just be Kal's perfect match.

'As a self-professed romance novel-holic, Saman Shad’s The Matchmaker captivated me from its first couple of pages. She delivers a beautiful love story, while also opening a door to allow us readers a peak into Sydney’s rich and vibrant Desi community.' – Mary-Louisa Horrigan, Readings Doncaster

Sci-fi, fantasy & speculative fiction

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

Emily Wilde is good at many things: she is the foremost expert on the study of faeries. She is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world’s first encylopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people. So when she arrives in the hardscrabble village of Hransvik, Emily has no intention of befriending the gruff townsfolk. Nor does she care to spend time with another new arrival: her dashing and insufferably handsome academic rival Wendell Bambleby, who manages to charm the townsfolk, get in the middle of her research, and utterly confound and frustrate Emily.

But as Emily gets closer and closer to uncovering the secrets of the Hidden Ones – the most elusive of all faeries – lurking in the shadowy forest outside the town, she also finds herself on the trail of another mystery: who is Wendell Bambleby, and what does he really want?

LGBTQIA+

A Minor Chorus by Billy-Ray Belcourt

An unnamed narrator abandons his unfinished thesis and returns to northern Alberta in search of what eludes him- the shape of the novel he yearns to write, an autobiography of his rural hometown, the answers to existential questions about family, love, and happiness.

What ensues is a series of conversations, connections, and disconnections that reveals the texture of life in a town literature has left unexplored, where the friction between possibility and constraint provides an insistent background score.

Debut fiction

Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey

When 28-year-old Maggie finds herself suddenly, shockingly, divorced after just 608 days of marriage she embarks upon a journey of self-discovery that mostly consists of eating hamburgers at 4am, taking up a variety of new hobbies, and trying to embrace life as a Surprisingly Young Divorcée™ in the age of dating apps. laugh-out-loud funny with razor sharp dialogue, this painfully relatable book about modern love is the debut novel from comedian, essayist, and Schitt's Creek screenwriter Monica Heisey.

Bridget Jones meets Heartburn for the Tinder-era, Really Good, Actually is an acerbically funny examination of modern heartbreak from comedian, essayist, and Schitt's Creek screenwriter Monica Heisey. – Lian Hingee, digital marketing manager