I Want Everything
Dominic Amerena
The legendary career of reclusive cult author Brenda Shales remains one of Australia’s last unsolved literary mysteries. Her books took the literary world by storm before she disappeared from the public eye, after a mysterious plagiarism case. But when an ambitious young writer stumbles across Brenda at a Melbourne pool, he realises the scoop of a lifetime is floating in front of him: the truth behind why she vanished without a trace. The only problem? He must pretend to be someone he’s not to trick the story out of her.
One innocent lie leads to a slew that are definitively not, as Brenda reveals the strange and troubling truth of where her books came from. Yet the more the young author unravels about Brenda’s past, the more he begins to question whether Brenda is a reliable narrator. Is Brenda spilling secrets or spinning tales? Is she, like him, little more than a talented thief? Just who is deceiving whom? To write the book which will make his name, he must balance his ethics and ambition and decide what he’s willing to sacrifice to become the next great Australian writer.
Read our staff review here.
Letters to Our Robot Son
Cadance Bell
An unexpected story of life, family, hope, and redemption-at the end of the world (maybe).
Arto wakes up in a desolate world devoid of humanity – he's a robot, he knows that much – but he has no memory of how he got here. With a mysterious letter and a cheeky kitten as his only companion, he embarks on a quest to understand his existence.
As Arto navigates this unfamiliar landscape, he stumbles upon a cantankerous robot who claims to be his sister.
And that's a problem, because she might be the reason there are no more people.
Read our staff review here.
Nightingale
Laura Elvery
Inspired by the life of Florence Nightingale, this literary gem is part historical fiction, part ghost story, and utterly original.
Mayfair, 1910. At the age of ninety, Florence Nightingale is frail and no longer of sound mind. After a storied career as a nurse, writer and statistician, she now leads a reclusive existence. One summer evening she is astonished to receive a visitor – a young man named Silas Bradley, who claims to have met her during the Crimean War fifty-five years ago. But how can this be? And how does the elusive Jean Frawley connect their two lives?
In this eagerly anticipated novel, Laura Elvery shows why she is one of the most lauded writers of her generation. Nightingale is a luminous tale of faith and love, bravery and care, and the vitality of women's work.
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The Opposite of Lonely
Hilde Hinton
Rose knows that she should be happy. She has a thoughtful son, a kind boss and a dream box full of savings for a rainy day. But sometimes the brick in her chest gets so heavy that it's all she can do to simply watch the minutes tick by on the oven clock.
Things change when a stranger arrives. Rose can't believe that someone like Ellie would want to be her friend. Ellie always knows what to do. She is bright and shiny and seems so caring. With Ellie by her side, things feel possible again, and Rose starts to remember who she is. Soon, she can't imagine how it was without Ellie there.
Sometimes, all you need is one friend to change your life. Because the best things in life are free. Aren't they?
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Lonely Mouth
Jacqueline Maley
Matilda and Lara are half-sisters who share an unreliable mother and a chaotic past. In every other way, though, they are very different from each other. Lara, ten years younger than Matilda, is a model, living and working in Paris – for her, life is expansive, carefree, beautiful, careless. Matilda's life, in contrast, is solitary, contained, ordered. She works in one of Sydney's buzziest restaurants, Bocca, with an unrequited crush on her boss, celebrity chef Colson. If she's careful – and she always is – she can keep everything in its proper place. Hold the balance between hunger and satiation.
But when Lara's father, the long-absent, erratic Angus Del Ray, comes back into the sisters' lives, determined to apologise for his past misdeeds, Matilda's compartmentalised life goes seriously awry. As everything blows apart, Matilda is forced to come to a reckoning with who she is, and how to satisfy the hunger she wants to deny.
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The Bearcat
Georgia Rose Phillips
bearcat: a large, tree-dwelling mammal; 1920s slang for a fiery girl or woman.
1987. Family is everything to Anne. Our Messiah. And Anne demands everything from The Family; their loyalty, their money, even their children. In return, she promises existential comfort to the lost and weary women. Because Anne knows how hard it is to build a family – and how devastatingly easy it is to lose one.
1921. A child is born on a sticky summer evening. Our Anne. Her mother, Florence, is isolated and overwhelmed, trapped at home with an indifferent husband and a newborn whose demands are relentless. A childless neighbour's offer of help is a lifeline as Florence struggles to reconcile motherhood and her shifting sense of self. For both Anne and Florence, the past is for escaping, and love is impossible to trust. All they can hope for is that their family will save them.
The Bearcat is a dark and nuanced exploration of longing, power and the inviolable grip of history.
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Little World
Josephine Rowe
'He has no notion of how to care for a saint. Even a small one. Does not even believe … Still. Catholic or not. You don't turn away a saint.'
In the north-western corner of 1950s Australia, a saint arrives at the home of a retired engineer, who unwittingly becomes her custodian. A girl of indeterminate age, her body remains as it was when she died, incorruptible. And though no one knows it, she is conscious, reflecting on past and present.
Little World stretches across continents and eras – from the Canal Zone in Panama and the island of Nauru all the way to the onset of Covid in contemporary Victoria. Beautiful, rich and strange, it weaves a tale of interconnected fates as characters grapple with the unknowable, and in this way come face to face with their deepest needs.
Read our staff review here.
Rytual
Chloe Elisabeth Wilson
I support women's rights, but more importantly I support women's wrongs.
Marnie Sellick is adrift when she lands a job at the coveted, mysterious beauty brand rytuał cosmetica. The enigmatic founder and CEO, Luna Peters, takes a liking to Marnie, and as the two grow closer Marnie becomes intoxicated by the life that Luna, and rytuał, can offer her.
But all is not what it seems at rytuał. Luna has a cult-like hold over the all-female staff, and that's not to mention what happens at their weekly Friday Night Drinks. As Marnie edges closer to the darkness at the centre of rytuał's millennial pink facade, cracks begin to show. Luna is hiding something, but will Marnie uncover the truth – and the role Luna has cast her in – before it's too late?
Both a darkly funny deconstruction of the beauty industry and a gripping examination of identity, beauty and desire, Rytual asks the question – what if your favourite cult beauty brand was actually a cult?
Read our staff review here.
