Cirrus@Austlit

'A Scottish businessman at the beginning of the 20th century. A magical, moving pub in 1990s Melbourne. Ships. Ghosts. A lot of talk about wood – not a metaphor, just wood. Hubris and other human fallibilities. I wanted to love Jock Serong’s Cherrywood – for the ambitiousness and reach of its plot, for its parallels with Enid Blyton’s The Faraway Tree series, for its consideration of colonialism and gentrification – but it left me cold.' (Introduction)

'Reading Abbey Lay’s debut novel, I was beset by a case of déjà vu. The narrative follows protagonist Millie, a smart but insecure teenager who develops an obsession with her thespian classmate Olive. Their relationship is saturated in unease – there is always a sense that something important is not being said. At sleepovers they philosophise about sex, intimacy and self-knowledge, and at school they ignore each other. Eventually Olive ghosts Millie, and Millie cannot for the life of her work out why. She wraps herself in self-pity and refuses to see the obvious truth.' (Introduction)

'A witty, profound and painfully relatable debut novel exploring solitude, desire, and the allure of chasing something that promises nothing.

'Hera Stephen is clawing through her mid-twenties, working as an underpaid comment moderator in an overly air-conditioned newsroom by day and kicking around Sydney with her two best friends by night. Instead of money or stability, she has so far accrued one ex-girlfriend, several hundred hangovers and a dog-eared novel collection.

'While everyone around her seems to have slipped effortlessly into adulthood, Hera has spent the years since school caught between feeling that she is purposefully rejecting traditional markers of success to forge a life of her own and wondering if she's actually just being left behind. Then she meets Arthur, an older, married colleague. Intoxicated by the promise of ordinary happiness he represents, Hera falls headlong into a workplace romance that everyone, including her, knows is doomed to fail.

'With her daringly specific and intimate voice, Madeleine Gray has created an irresistible and messy love story about the terrible allure of wanting something that promises nothing; about the joys and indignities of coming into adulthood against the pitfalls of the twenty-first century; and the winding, torturous and often very funny journey we take in deciding who we are and who we want to be.' (Publication summary)