Cirrus@Austlit

'Jane is a contact tracer. She has to call a lot of people and some of them don’t want to talk. Various reasons – tax or immigration issues, infidelity. Domestic abuse.

'Jane knows all about that. She and her daughter Tara have spent years in hiding from Tara’s manipulative and terrifying ex. Now, as Jane talks to a close contact, she realises the woman on the phone is scared of the same man – and he’s close. Too close.

'Suddenly the past comes slamming back into the present as Jane realises she and Tara can’t keep running forever.

'One day, they’re going to be found.' (Publication summary) 

'Robyn Ayres works as the camp caretaker on Finch Island, a former leper colony off the coast of Queensland. Her current clients are a group of ex-military men who run a tough-love program for troubled teens.

'The latest crop looks like the usual mix of bad boys and sad boys. Then Robyn takes a second look at a kid called Darren. Last time she saw him his name was Aaron, and Robyn was his primary school teacher. And she was somehow at the centre of a vicious small-town custody battle involving his terrifying grandmother.

'Bruising classroom dynamics, manipulative parents and carers and horrendous small-town politics form the backdrop to a nail-biting thriller in which the tensions of ten years ago start to play themselves out, building to a violent climax in the present day.

'Robyn escaped the past once. Now it’s back—and this time there’s no way out.' (Publication summary)

'Meg lives alone. A little place in the bush outside town. A perfect place to hide. That's one of the reasons she offers to shelter Nerine, who's escaping a violent ex. The other is that Meg knows what it's like to live with an abusive partner.

'Nerine is jumpy and her two little girls are frightened. It tells Meg all she needs to know about where they've come from and she's not that surprised when Nerine asks her to get hold of a gun. But she knows it's unnecessary. They're safe now.

'Then she starts to wonder about some little things. A disturbed flyscreen. A tune playing on her windchimes. Has Nerine's ex tracked them down? Has Meg's husband turned up to torment her some more?

'By the time she finds out it'll be too late to do anything but run for her life.' (Publication summary)