Cirrus@Austlit

'Violet Armengard never thinks of her extraordinary beauty as anything other than a nuisance. That is until she ends up broke and alone in Paris, discarded by both her husband and the tennis star she sleeps with in an attempt to ease the hurt of her disastrous marriage. Through a series of chance encounters in hotel lobbies, Violet finds herself an object of interest to men rich enough to know the price of everything, including the privilege of bedding supremely beautiful women. As her addiction to grand hotels and haute couture takes hold, she convinces herself that she is only doing what women have done for millennia - trading sex for life's little luxuries. But then she meets Florin, a man with an unknowable past who leads her further into a world where human feeling is a negotiable commodity and sex is as much about power as it is pleasure. Brilliantly observed and darkly erotic, The Woman in the Lobby is a provocative and compulsively readable novel about the intriguing possibilities of separating sex and love.' (Publisher's blurb.)

'Two Shanes is Lee Tulloch’s best and funniest novel. A brilliantly plotted romantic comedy that readers won’t be able to put down, it tells the story of two Australians living in New York, a surfer named Shane Dekker, and Cheyne Burdekin, an aspiring actor. The lives of these strangers overlap in hilariously unpredictable ways, especially after Shane meets the dark-haired Finley Rule in a surf shop, and Cheyne’s old flame Avalon jets in from Brisbane.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Berenger hovers on the edge of the hard mattress but makes no dent in it. I was, like, cursed, she says.

'‘Oh, come on,’ I scoff. I saw how much you suffered. Trunks of couture gowns and Concorde everywhere and Spanish playboys following you in packs.