Cirrus@Austlit

'These ladies know a perfect match when they see one...

'Bree Johnston has given up trying to be the perfect lawyer. It's time to focus on her own dreams, so she decides to leave the city and set up an alpaca farm and wool shop. Her grandmother Rose might be her only supporter, but that's fine. Bree's done trying to win her parents' approval.

'She finds the perfect property in the charming small town of Wagtail Ridge but gets more than she bargained for when sparks start flying with the handsome real estate agent.

'Being a dad is the most important thing in Matt Ambrose's life. His small agency is struggling, but he's committed to raising his young daughter, Vicki, in the country, the way he and her late mother had planned. But Vicki's grandmother wants to take control, and her interference is only getting worse, putting his little family at risk.

'Although these two have a lot on their plates, the ladies of the newly formed Wagtail Ridge Knitting Club know a perfect match when they see one. Or rather two perfect matches, when shearing boss Mike walks onto Bree's farm and into her grandmother's life. With needles, yarn and cups of tea to hand, the matchmaking begins...' (Publication summary)

'A story of enduring love and friendship, and bold wild women who refuse the dictates of their times.

'London 1833: The cast-out child of an aristocratic mother, Hannah 'Birdie' Bird is a laundry maid with a hidden past and a suspicion that the wealthy family she serves is hers.

'Longing for beauty and liberation, Birdie risks everything to change her circumstances. She falls into love and crime, committing an audacious heist. When she is betrayed, she finds herself swept into a wave of female convicts, transported to the ends of her known world.

'The journey to the early Australian settlement drives the women to deepest despair. Birdie finds wonder in even this darkest hour, and forms deep bonds with her fellow prisoners. But greater than even the trials onboard is the fear of what awaits them in Sydney Cove.

'What chance does Birdie have of beating the odds? Can she fight her way to freedom?'  (Publication summary)

'Paris 1946: A young woman, Eve Archer, has come to Paris to find the father she never knew. She is soon caught up in a desperate race to prove her father’s innocence against the accusation that he sold a French national treasure to Hitler during the war, and murdered the original owner to obtain it. Her efforts uncover the complicated friendship between two art dealers and the woman they both loved, a Russian artist named Kristina Belova.

'‘The Masterpiece is a triumph of storytelling. Its descriptions are painterly and its characters fascinating. With Paris, art, spirited women and so many tantalising secrets hiding in its pages, The Masterpiece is certain to be one of the big books of the year.’ Natasha Lester, New York Times bestselling author of The Three Lives of Alix St Pierre'  (Publication summary)

'Intricate threads from the past and the present bind together a yellow silk dress, lost gold and a missing grandmother in a twisty historical mystery from the bestselling author of The Talented Mrs Greenway.

'Maitland, 1889

'When nineteen-year-old Constance Montague wakes one Wednesday she expects the day to unfold like any other. Breakfast with her grandmother Nell and her mother Faith, a meeting in Maitland with the ladies of the Benevolent Society, perhaps a gentle stroll along the banks of the Hunter River. But this Wednesday is different. Nell has vanished.

'Concerned, Connie determines to track Nell down and follows a lead to Old Government House in Parramatta, now a guest house. There, to her astonishment she finds her grandmother holding court.

'When Nell introduces her as her companion to a varied cast of colourful guests, including a frail but observant old lady, a travelling salesmen, a bearded lothario, a clever articled clerk, a lively seamstress and an enigmatic housekeeper who is connected with Nell's past, Connie begins to realise that her grandmother is not who she seems. Nell is looking for something and following a thread stitched long ago, a thread that leads from some missing gold, to a damask dress and the attic of Government House. As the story unravels so do the secrets of the past, secrets that surface into the present to threaten not just Nell, but Connie too.'  (Publication summary)

'‘The city was stuffed full of wickedness, everyone knew that …’

'Banished to the Midwatch Institute for Orphans, Runaways and Unwanted Girls, Maggie Fishbone is sure she’s in for a life of drudgery. But she soon discovers there’s more to the Midwatch than meets the eye …

'The city shimmers with jewels and secrets, and when a woman goes missing, Maggie is thrust into an adventure that takes her deep underground, high above the clouds and face to face with danger itself.

'Turn the page and prepare to be drawn into a lavishly illustrated world, brimming with mystery, unlikely heroines and an adventure as big as the sky.' (Publication summary)

'From the author of the Miles Franklin Award shortlisted Storyland, comes a rich, layered and thrilling novel of love, war and friendship, To Sing of War.

'December 1944: In New Guinea, a young Australian nurse, Lotte Wyld, chances upon her first love, Virgil Nicholson, there to fight the Japanese and keen to prove his worth as a man. Against the backdrop of a hard-fought jungle campaign, the two negotiate their troubled past. Meanwhile, in Los Alamos, young physicists Miriam Carver and Fred Johnson join Robert Oppenheimer and a team of brilliant scientists in a collective dream to build a weapon that will stop all war, with Oppenheimer also juggling the competing demands of the American military and his clever wife, Kitty. Far away, on the sacred island of Miyajima, Hiroko Narushima helps her husband's grandmother run a ryokan, however, when one of her daughters encounters danger, Hiroko must act to ensure her family's safety.

'Each of these people yearns to belong, yet each fiercely protects their independence. Secrets, misunderstandings and fears burden them, shame shapes them, hope and imagination lift them up. They are caught in a moment of history, both enthralled and appalled by actions they must undertake. The novel asks what we can learn from this time, when a weapon of mass destruction changed the nature of war and made irreversible changes to our planet. How does fear shape our behaviour, affect our moral being? What is unforgiveable, in love and war, and what must be forgiven? How can one person make a difference in a world that is wondrous, thrilling and endangered?

'From Miles Franklin-shortlisted author, Catherine McKinnon, comes a beautiful, rich and intricately woven novel of conflict, death, sacrifice and forgiveness, a novel that insists on our interconnectedness and hums with the energy of the world, a blazingly powerful and deeply moving account of friendship, love and war.' (Publication summary)

'Joy Meredith has just turned eighteen and is stretching her wings, defying her mother by moving to her own place in the city and starting a veterinary science degree. With a job in the local pub alongside her boyfriend and good friends by her side, her future path seems set. Then Joy meets Mick Harris. Charismatic and talented, Mick heads up a band that is going places - fast. Within a couple of years, Joy has deferred her degree and jetted off with Mick and the band for the bright lights of London. And the lights in London are truly bright, but they also start to expose the cracks - in Mick, in Joy's relationship, and in her own life. When everything begins to crumble, Joy must follow her heart around the world to find her way home.' (Publication summary)

'Their love transcends every boundary. Can it cheat death?

'Orphia dreams of something more than the warrior crafts she's been forced to learn. Hidden away on a far-flung island, her blood sings with poetry and her words can move flowers to bloom and forests to grow ... but her father, the sun god Apollo, has forbidden her this art.

'A chance meeting with a young shield-maker, Eurydicius, gives her the courage to use her voice. After wielding all her gifts to defeat one final champion, Orphia draws the scrutiny of the gods. Performing her poetry, she wins the protection of the goddesses of the arts: the powerful Muses, who welcome her to their sanctuary on Mount Parnassus. Orphia learns to hone her talents, crafting words of magic infused with history, love and tragedy.

'When Eurydicius joins her, Orphia struggles with her desire for fame and her budding love. As her bond with the gentle shield-maker grows, she joins the Argonauts on their quest for the Golden Fleece. Facing dragons, sirens and ruthless warriors on the voyage, Orphia earns unparalleled fame, but she longs to return to Eurydicius.

'Yet she has a darker journey to make - one which will see her fight for her love with all the power of her poetry.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Her family offered her a neat life of privilege and power, until Lotti turned away from her father's plans and toward what she really wanted. Now happy as a primary school teacher, Lotti may even have found the right man, a single dad, not the kind of guy who will fit in with her family, but who nonetheless feels like home. But Lotti isn't the only one running from her past. August's strong silent demeanor may be part of his attraction, but as they get closer, his inability to talk about his past begins to interfere with their future. When August receives a cryptic text message that prompts an immediate departure, Lotti and Augie's six-year-old son Otto follow him to his small hometown where decades of lies begin to unravel. When details of a shocking crime emerge, Lotti will have to decide if she trusts the man August has become more than she fears the man he once was.' (Publication summary)

'Lives are about to be irrevocably changed following a typhus outbreak on a cramped emigrant ship bound for Australia.

'1850 For Sarah Hallow, orphaned, penniless and alone, with only the skills learned from her midwife mother to guide her, passage on a ship bound for the new colony of Brisbane, Australia, is her last option. Though her skills are quickly dismissed by the ship's doctor, Sarah is pleased to find instant friendship with her cabin mate, Bridie, a fiery Irish girl with a sharp tongue and midwifery skills of her own.

'When the two women come to the aid of a labouring woman onboard, Sarah's dreams of opening her own midwifery practice in the colony don't seem so impossible. Certainly not as impossible as her daydreams about a certain doctor's son, who only seems to have eyes for her friend.

'But something else is lurking on the ship: a disease that has the power to take down even the strongest man and is about to rip through the ship like wildfire, leaving only devastation in its path. As caring for patients stretch Sarah and Bridie to their absolute limit, thoughts of the future are rapidly eclipsed by their determination to survive. If only they can make it to Australia with their lives and loves intact ...

'Inspired by true events, this is a meticulously researched, eye-opening, heart-breaking, soul-warming story of survival, love and grit for readers of Darry Fraser, Alison Stuart and Tea Cooper.' (Publication summary) 

'In 1914, when the war draws the young men of Britain away to fight, it is the women who must keep the nation running. Two of those women are Peggy and Maude, twin sisters who work in the bindery at Oxford University Press in Jericho. Peggy is intelligent, ambitious and dreams of going to Oxford University, but for most of her life she has been told her job is to bind the books, not read them. Maude, meanwhile, wants nothing more than what she has. She is extraordinary but vulnerable. Peggy needs to watch over her.

'When refugees arrive from the devastated cities of Belgium, it sends ripples through the community and through the sisters' lives. Peggy begins to see the possibility of another future where she can use her intellect and not just her hands, but as war and illness reshape her world, it is love, and the responsibility that comes with it, that threaten to hold her back.

'In this beautiful companion to the international bestseller The Dictionary of Lost Words, Pip Williams explores another little-known slice of history seen through women's eyes. Evocative, subversive and rich with unforgettable characters, The Bookbinder of Jericho is a story about knowledge who gets to make it, who gets to access it, and what is lost when it is withheld.'  (Publication summary)

'Gabe is alone at the cliff's edge. His arms are outstretched, palms facing the empty air.'

'He said she jumped. He wouldn't lie.

'Before the woman went over the cliff, Pippa and Gabe were happy. They have the kind of marriage that everyone envies, as well as two sweet young daughters, a supportive family, and a picturesque cliff-side home - which would have been idyllic had the tall beachside cliffs not become so popular among those wishing to end their lives.

'Gabe has become somewhat of a local hero since they moved to the cliff house, talking seven people down from stepping off the edge. But when Gabe fails to save the eighth, Amanda, a sordid web of secrets begins to unravel, pushing bonds of loyalty and love to the brink.

'What wouldn't you do for your soulmate?'  (Publication summary)

'A heart-in-the-mouth and utterly addictive adventure thriller from a phenomenal debut Australian talent.

'UN surgeon Rachel Forester is posted at a remote medical clinic deep in the jungle of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. With violence escalating in the region, Dr Forester risks her life by remaining to tend an injured child while the rest of her team evacuates. On the cusp of her final desperate chance to leave, a soldier is carried into the camp by three other members of his unit, his condition so critical, his airlift must take priority over hers.

'With no help coming, and in the path of warring militias, this small unit must flee through the heart of the jungle to reach the safety of the province capital. But in the dark wilderness lies a strangling web of crime and corruption. As they get deeper, they discover a sinister mining operation and stolen children with evidence indicating shadowy ties to the UN. But aren't those the people Dr Forester works for? The only people who know she's still lost out there? And now, the people who want her dead?

'The further they delve, the more the web closes around them. Will they make it out alive?' (Publication summary)

'Five months after Mel told her husband to leave, a ghost moved in upstairs. A young man who reminds her, with eerie intensity, of a past lover, someone who changed Mel's life and then vanished. When the man's travelling girlfriend joins him, Mel's obsession with the couple upstairs builds and the boundaries between the two homes begin to blur, with devastating consequences. The Couple Upstairs is about one strange Summer of dazzling, curdling infatuation. Writing with both a light touch and vivid intensity, Holly Wainwright explores love, regret, whether you can stop history repeating, and whether or not you should.'  (Publication summary)