Australia Day by Melanie Cheng

In her debut story collection, Melanie Cheng offers a fresh perspective on contemporary Australia and asks crucial questions about the possibility of human connection in a globalised world. The people she writes about are young, old, rich, poor, married, widowed, Chinese, Lebanese, Christian, Muslim – but no matter who they are or where they come from, they all share a desire to belong. Hawthorn bookseller Annie Condon describes this collection as ‘a wonderful feat of storytelling’.

Half Wild by Pip Smith

Half Wild is the dazzling debut from Sydney writer Pip Smith. Set over several decades and across New Zealand and Australia, this novel is based on the life of Eugenia Falleni, a female-to-male transgender person who captivated Sydney in 1920 when Eugenia, living as Harry Crawford, was arrested for the murder of Annie Birkett, his wife, who disappeared in 1917. Carlton bookseller George Delaney writes: ’This enjoyable historical novel, driven by characters and mystery, will appeal to a broad audience.’

Sad Girls by Lang Leav

Audrey told a lie. Now her classmate Ana is dead, and Audrey’s started getting panic attacks. Her world spinning out of control, Audrey meets the enigmatic Rad – but will their ill-timed romance drive her closer to the edge? Sad Girls is the much-anticipated debut novel from bestselling poet Lang Leav. This is an emotionally charged and poetic coming-of-age story, where young love, dark secrets and tragedy collide.

Get Poor Slow by David Free

Ray Saint is the most reviled literary critic in Australia – a hatchet-man with an unpublished novel in his bottom drawer and a finely-honed bullshit detector. After being visited by Jade Howe, a marketing assistant at a respected publishing house, he falls heads over heels. Then she turns up dead and Ray finds himself the prime suspect. The police and the press have few doubts about the critic’s guilt, and so it’s up to Ray alone to find the man responsible for Jade’s murder. Get Poor Slow is a satisfying psychological thriller set within the literary world.

Wimmera by Mark Brandi

Ben and Fab are best friends growing up in north-west Victoria of the late eighties. Almost teenagers, they spend their days playing cricket, yabbying in local dams, wanting a pair of Nike Air Maxes and not talking about how Fab’s dad hits him or how the sudden death of Ben’s next-door neighbour unsettled him. Then a newcomer arrives in their lives and changes everything. 20 years later and Fab is still stuck in town, going nowhere but hoping for somewhere better. When a body is found in the river, Fab realises he can’t ignore the past any more.

The Last Man in Europe by Dennis Glover

In his debut novel, political speechwriter and academic Dennis Glover explores the creation of George Orwell’s classic work, Nineteen Eighty-Four. The Last Man in Europe is at once a captivating drama, a unique literary excavation and an unflinching portrait of a beloved British writer. Doncaster bookseller Oliver Driscoll says that this novel, ‘provides excellent new insight into the works, the man, and what it means to both fear and stare down popularism and the totalitarian impulse’.

Hello, Goodbye by Emily Brewin

Hello, Goodbye is a profoundly moving story of love during a time of great social change. With her devoutly religious mother and her gentle but damaged father fighting, 17-year-old May Callaghan lies to her parents and takes the train to visit her boyfriend Sam in Melbourne. Here, her world opens wide in glorious complexity causing her to question her upbringing. But then, something happens that will change her life forever.

The Pacific Room by Michael Fitzgerald

In 1892, Girolamo Nerli travels by steamer from Sydney to Apia. He is intending to create a portrait of the famous author, Robert Louis Stevenson – or Tusitala, 'the teller of tales’, as he has come to be known as in Samoa. More than a century later, art historian Lewis Wakefield also comes to Samoa to research the painting of Tusitala’s portrait by the long-forgotten Italian artist. Set in an evocative tropical landscape haunted by the lives and spirits which drift across it, The Pacific Room is both a love letter to Samoa and a lush and tender exploration of artistic creation, of secret passions and merging dualities.