Cirrus@Austlit

'Paris, 2020. A writer is confined to her hotel room during the early days of the pandemic, struggling to finish a novel about Hortense Cezanne, wife and sometime muse of the famous painter. Dead for more than a century, Hortense has been reawakened by this creative endeavour, and now shadows the writer through the locked-down city. But Hortense, subject to the gaze of others, increasingly intrigued by the woman before her. Who is she and what event hides in her past?

'Heartbreaking and perfectly formed, The Sitter explores the tension between artist and subject, and between the stories told about us and the stories we choose to tell.' (Publication summary)

'Husband and wife GPs Alan and Heather Winterbottom have worked side by side in their idyllic rural practice for over forty years but now they've decided to hang up their stethoscopes and retire. Joy! Celebration! Or not . . . Heather dreams of exploring the Greek Islands, of escaping the shackles of her routine life and embracing an exciting new adventure. Alan dreams of growing his own vegetables.

'When things come to a head at a family lunch, Heather announces that she has decided to take a year off. From her old life, from her marriage - from Alan. Alone in beautiful Greece, Heather embarks on her very own odyssey - complete with unforgettable experiences, pitfalls and temptations. But could what's waiting for her back in Netherwood be Heather's biggest adventure yet?' (Publication summary)

'An uplifting and delightfully bookish memoir about an 89-year-old woman who reclaims her life by re-reading each of Jane Austen's novels.

'As she approached the age of seventy, Ruth Wilson began to have recurring dreams about losing her voice. Unable to dismiss her feelings of unexplainable sadness, she made the radical decision to retreat from her conventional life with her husband to a sunshine-yellow cottage in the Southern Highlands where she lived alone for the next decade.

'Ruth had fostered a lifelong love of reading, and from the moment she first encountered Pride and Prejudice in the 1940s she had looked to Jane Austen's heroines as her models for the sort of woman she wanted to become.

'As Ruth settled into her cottage, she resolved to re-read Austen's six novels and rediscover the heroines who had inspired her; to read between the lines of both the novels and her own life. And as she read, she began to reclaim her voice.

'The Jane Austen Remedy is a beautiful, life-affirming memoir of love, self-acceptance and the curative power of reading. Published the year Ruth turns ninety, it is an inspirational account of the lessons learned from Jane Austen over nearly eight decades, as well as a timely reminder that it's never too late to seize a second chance.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'A mother–daughter memoir of mental health, trauma and the cracks that run through all family relationships. 

'The Silence Between Us is a raw and original double memoir tracing a mother and daughter as they try to understand and rebuild their relationship.

'Because Oceane had just turned eighteen when she tried to end her life, the hospital had to respect her request: to not notify her parents. Years later, when Oceane asked her mother, Cécile, to write something together about this period of their lives, she never expected that Cécile would already have so many pages hidden away, filled with words that she began to write when she eventually learned of Oceane’s suicide attempt.

'In The Silence Between Us, Oceane pieces together her story through old diary entries, emails, hospital records and psychiatric reports, interspersed with Cécile’s own intense account of caring for her fiercely independent daughter. Slowly we learn about the intergenerational trauma that forced the chasm between Oceane and Cécile, as well as the campus sexual assault that pushed Oceane over the edge. As Oceane lets Cécile back into her life and they attempt to negotiate both the mental health and legal systems, we also see the fractures start to mend.

'At once delicate and unflinching, The Silence Between Us dares to say all the things we’d rather avoid, especially between mother and daughter.

'Includes foreword by psychiatrist Pat McGorry AO, professor of youth mental health and former Australian of the Year' (Publication summary)

'With university behind her, Emily Stanton finds herself on the threshold of life. Introduced to a Scottish engineer, the exoticism of his life in Paris beckons, and she leaves her family home in 1920s Melbourne to become his wife. But far from providing answers, her conventional marriage awakens in her an ardent desire to find a reason for living beyond that of simply wife and mother. This desire leads her to flirt with risk, passion and unorthodox friendships, and carries her to Tunisia on a journey of self-questioning and intellectual reawakening. Conditions of Faith is both a provocative romance and an elegant meditation on a timeless dilemma. Impetuous yet entirely sympathetic, Emily Stanton, like Henry James' Isabel Archer, is in search of a reason for living in a society where motherhood is deemed reason enough. This mesmerising and thought-provoking story of dreams, obsessions and destiny will hold you in thrall.' (Publication summary)