Cirrus@Austlit

'From the bestselling author of Elizabeth & Elizabeth and That Bligh Girl, comes another fascinating story of female friendship, betrayal and triumphs based on historical events.

'When future governor Philip Gidley King sailed with the First Fleet to the new colony, he had his pick of the convict women to look after him.

'Two years, and two sons, later, he set out back to England to provide a report on Sydney and its newly tamed Norfolk Island, as his mistress Ann Inet begged him to return to her and their children.

'After a year and a half he did - but bringing with him a shocking secret that would cut her to the core, and forevermore change all their lives.

'This is the story of tangled love affairs, female friendship, twisted loyalties, betrayals, hardship, male infidelity, and the tragedies and triumphs of life in a new land.'  (Publication summary)

'From multi-award-winning author Jock Serong comes Cherrywood, an imaginative, darkly playful and deeply meaningful delight, a novel about legacy, community, wonder, love and reinvention.

''One rainy Friday evening in the winter of 1993, a taxi swept through the streets of East Melbourne, on its way from the city to Richmond. That year was one of the few remaining when a great deal was known of the world but not yet so much that the world had become over-known. Small gaps remained ...'

'Edinburgh, 1916: A rich Scottish industrialist, Thomas Wrenfether, impulsively embarks on a mad scheme to build a paddlesteamer out of dubiously sourced European cherrywood on the other side of the world, in booming Melbourne, Australia. But nothing goes according to plan.

'Melbourne, 1993: Martha is a clever, lonely and frustrated lawyer. One night, on impulse, she stops at a strange pub in Fitzroy, The Cherrywood, for a bottle of wine. The mysterious building and its inhabitants make an indelible impression, and she slowly begins to deduce odd truths about the pub.

'From multi-award-winning author Jock Serong comes a darkly delicious, playful and rich novel about legacy, community, wonder, love and reinvention - Cherrywood is haunting, magical and a true original.' (Publication summary)

'A triumphant story of hope and survival

'I am dying. I know that I'm dying, despite not having been told by my doctors that I am dying. I know I am dying because I'm in the dying room.

'Carly-Jay Metcalfe was born with cystic fibrosis, survived a double-lung transplant at the age of twenty-one and faced a rare cancer at the age of thirty. What she has endured should have killed her, but her humour, courage and optimism became her best survival skills.

'From her hospitalised childhood to her many friendships, loves and losses, Carly-Jay shares the fickle nature of life with candour and warmth. She writes with compelling insight about organ donation, opioid addiction and survivor's guilt, while still managing to find joy amongst the wreckage.

'Breath is a stunningly frank and darkly funny memoir about living, dying and trying to breathe.' (Publication summary)