Cirrus@Austlit

'Frances is an artist in her forties living a quiet life in a remote mountain town in NSW, far away from the glittering lights and famous personalities of the Sydney art world she once knew. When an invitation arrives from a former lover to attend his exhibition at a state gallery, Frances is plunged back into the past, where a single irrevocable act changed the course of her story.

'Told across two time periods, Frances's story wrestles with themes of power and privilege, womanhood and motherhood, artistic doubt, the male gaze upon the female body, and the commodification of art. It looks at the fraught relationships between artists and their muses, the sacrifices of a life devoted to art, and asks if it is ever really possible for two ambitious artists to thrive in one relationship.' (Publication summary) 

'Welcome to Avalon. Keep your enemies close.

'When Brigit Harper lifts the mists to the ancient world of Avalon she learns her destiny is to become the next High Priestess. Her fate is to marry the young King Herne and form an alliance as Queen of the Summer Country. But can she trust Herne - and herself when she is with him?

'As her power and magic grows, Brigit must protect Avalon and her priestesses from a ruthless invasion, and herself from the passions and betrayals of love.

'In this original and absorbing tale, Arthurian legend, medieval romances and centuries of Celtic myth combine to create a fantastical journey of love, magic and redemption.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'A man runs for his life in a forest.
A woman plans sabotage.
A body is unearthed.

'Newly-minted homicide detective Nell Buchanan returns to her home town, annoyed at being assigned a decades-old murder - a 'file and forget'.

'But this is no ordinary cold case, as the discovery of more bodies triggers a chain of escalating events in the present day. As Nell starts to join the pieces together, she begins to question how well she truly knows those closest to her. Could her own family be implicated in the crimes?

'The nearer Nell comes to uncovering the secrets of the past, the more dangerous the present becomes for her, as she battles shadowy assailants and sinister forces. Can she survive this harrowing investigation and what price will she have to pay for the truth?

'Gripping and atmospheric, The Tilt is a stunning multi-layered novel by the acclaimed and award- inning author of the international bestsellers Scrublands, Silver, Trust and Treasure & Dirt.' (Publication summary)

'When her partner of twenty-five years dies, Rebecca Collins discovers the secret life he had been living. Grieving, and with her sense of self in ruins, she embarks on a quest to uncover the truth about the man she loved, and to recreate the shattered image of herself.

'Rebecca is constantly challenged in her quest by visions of her dead partner. Is she going insane or is her current sorrow and anger beginning to mesh with the remnants of an earlier trauma, one she has long ago repressed?

'Seeking the help of a therapist, Rebecca is forced to travel the hidden recesses of her mind. Agonising memories begin to resurface, and she eventually uncovers the well-spring of a far more profound grief ...

'Set in Gerringong, London, Sydney and Geneva, Everything I Am follows the journey of a woman pursued by a past she thought she had abandoned two decades earlier.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Like a smack in the face.  That’s how I’d describe it.

'On the precipice of something life changing, a young Palawa man plunges into an exploration of self and Country. 

'Carried with the winds of a metaphysical Flinders Island, the land of his mob and the place where it all happened, he is drawn back to the dawn of colonization. To a woman who bore the brunt of the oppressors’ violence and then forward to her granddaughter, who buried the truth as a means of survival. Stirring up stories together, with parts both  achingly sad and unexpectedly funny, what unfolds reveals by slow degrees painful but important truths.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'A collection of stories about the outsiders – the criminals, the soldiers, the addicts, the mathematicians, the gamblers and the cage fighters, the refugees and the rebels. From the battlefield to alternate realities to the mean streets of the dark city, we walk in the shoes of those who struggle to survive in a neon-saturated, tech-noir future.

'Twelve hard-edged stories from the dark, often violent, sometimes strange heart of cyberpunk, this collection – as with all the best science fiction – is an exploration of who were are now. In the tradition of Dashiell Hammett, Philip K Dick, and David Mitchell, Neon Leviathan is a remarkable debut collection from a breakout new author.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Are you still a liar? The crafting of those five words, even without dispatch, left her chilled.

'Arctic Circle, 2012. On a lightless day at the end of the polar winter, landscape architect Evie Waddell finds herself exhuming the past as she buries Australian seeds in a frozen mountain vault - insurance against catastrophe.

'Molong, 1953. Catastrophe is all seven-year-old Paddy O'Connor has known. Shipped from institutional care in London to an Australian farm school, his world is a shadowy place where lies scaffold fragile truths and painful memories. To Paddy's south in Canberra, young Evie is safe in her family's embrace, yet soon learns there are some paths from which you can't turn back; impulses and threats that she only half understands but seems to have known forever.

'Blue Mountains, 1962. From their first meeting as teenagers at a country market, Paddy and Evie grow a compulsive, unconventional love that spans decades and crosses continents, taking them in directions neither could have foreseen.

'Set against the uneasy relationship society has with its own truth-telling in history, war and politics, Desire Lines is an epic story of love and the lies we tell ourselves to survive - and a moving reminder that even truths which seem lost forever can find their way home.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.