Atria Books Atria Books i(A83619 works by) (Organisation) assertion
Born: Established: New York (City), New York (State),
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United States of America (USA),
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Americas, ;
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8 y separately published work icon The Nazis Knew My Name : A Remarkable Story of Survival and Courage in Auschwitz Magda Hellinger , Maya Lee , David Brewster , Cammeray : Simon and Schuster Australia , 2021 21864390 2021 single work autobiography

'The extraordinarily moving memoir by Australian Slovakian Holocaust survivor Magda Hellinger, who saved an untold number of lives at Auschwitz through everyday acts of courage, kindness and ingenuity.

'In March 1942, twenty-five-year-old kindergarten teacher Magda Hellinger and nearly a thousand other young Slovakian women were deported to Poland on the second transportation of Jewish people sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. The women were told they'd be working at a shoe factory.

'At Auschwitz the SS soon discovered that by putting Jewish prisoners in charge of the day-to-day running of the accommodation blocks, camp administration and workforces, they could both reduce the number of guards required and deflect the distrust of the prisoner population away from themselves. Magda was one such prisoner selected for leadership and over three years served in many prisoner leader roles, from room leader, to block leader – at one time in charge of the notorious Experimental Block 10 where reproductive experiments were performed on hundreds of women – and eventually camp leader, responsible for 30,000 women.

'She found herself constantly walking a dangerously fine line: using every possible opportunity to save lives while avoiding suspicion by the SS, and risking torture or execution. Through her bold intelligence, sheer audacity, inner strength and shrewd survival instincts, she was able to rise above the horror and cruelty of the camps and build pivotal relationships with the women under her watch, and even some of Auschwitz's most notorious Nazi senior officers including the Commandant, Josef Kramer.

'Based on Magda's personal account and completed by her daughter Maya's extensive research, including testimonies from fellow Auschwitz survivors, this awe-inspiring tale offers us incredible insight into human nature, the power of resilience, and the goodness that can shine through even in the most horrific of conditions.' (Publication summary)
1 y separately published work icon It Had to Be You Georgia Clark , New York (City) : Atria Books , 2021 21555142 2021 single work novel 'For the past twenty years, Liv and Eliot Goldenhorn have run In Love in New York, Brooklyn’s beloved wedding-planning business. When Eliot dies unexpectedly, he even more unexpectedly leaves half of the business to his younger, blonder girlfriend, Savannah. Liv and Savannah are not a match made in heaven, to say the least. But what starts as a personal and professional nightmare transforms into something even savvy, cynical Liv Goldenhorn couldn’t begin to imagine.

'It Had to Be You cleverly unites Liv, Savannah, and couples as diverse and unique as New York City itself, in a joyous Love-Actually-style braided narrative. The result is a smart, modern love story that truly speaks to our times. Second chances, secret romance, and steamy soul mates are front and center in this sexy, tender, and utterly charming rom-com.' (Publication summary)
 
1 y separately published work icon Lana's War Anita Abriel , Cammeray : Simon and Schuster Australia , 2020 20094148 2020 single work novel historical fiction 'Paris, 1943. Lana Antanov is rushing to see her husband, Frederic, to tell him the news that she is pregnant. But as she arrives at the convent where Frederic teaches music, she watches in horror as a Gestapo officer executes Frederic for hiding a Jewish girl in a piano. Overcome with grief, Lana loses the baby.

'A few months later, Lana is approached by a member of the French Resistance to work as a spy on the French Riviera and help save Jews from execution. As a ‘White Russian’, daughter of a Russian countess, Lana is the ideal choice to infiltrate the émigré community of Russian aristocrats who socialise with German officers. But Lana has a very personal motive for taking on this mission – the Gestapo officer in charge, Alois Brunner, is the man who shot Frederic.

'Lana’s cover story makes her the mistress of a wealthy Swiss playboy, the darkly handsome and charismatic Guy Pascal, and her base his villa on the Riviera. Together they make a ruthlessly effective team. The information they gather at parties and the casino at Monte Carlo helps thwart several raids and enables countless Jews to escape to Morocco by boat.

'But Lana has not counted on becoming attached to a young Jewish girl named Odette, or on falling helplessly in love with Guy. As the Nazis close in, her desire to protect the ones she loves threatens to put them all at risk.' (Publication summary)
1 y separately published work icon The Year of the Locust The Year of the Locust : A Thriller Terry Hayes , New York (City) : Atria Books , 2021 20078589 2021 single work novel thriller

'Luke Truman is a junior officer on board the USS Leviathan, the most advanced and powerful warship ever built. It is an eight-hundred-foot-long submarine which, among its vast array of weaponry and secret systems, boasts a top secret “cloaking technology.” Bending light around objects to render them invisible, it is the hottest military research innovation not just in the US, but throughout the world. Now the time has come for the first large-scale trial of its effectiveness. But neither Luke nor the United States government realizes the astonishing forces this experiment will unleash. What Luke discovers on board the Leviathan is that the future of our world is at a deadly tipping point and that only he will be able to stop the cascade of events which are leading them all inexorably towards doom.

'A breakneck story of nonstop suspense, The Year of the Locust is a high-concept thriller unlike any you’ve read before.'

Source: publisher's blurb
2 5 y separately published work icon The Dickens Boy Thomas Keneally , North Sydney : Vintage Australia , 2020 18608019 2020 single work novel historical fiction

'In the late 1800s, rather than run the risk of his under-achieving sons tarnishing his reputation at home, Charles Dickens sent two of them to Australia.

'The tenth child of Charles Dickens, Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens, known as Plorn, had consistently proved unable ‘to apply himself ’ to school or life. So aged sixteen, he is sent, as his brother Alfred was before him, to Australia.

'Plorn arrives in Melbourne in late 1868 carrying a terrible secret. He has never read a word of his father’s work. He is sent out to a 2000-square-mile station in remotest New South Wales to learn to become a man, and a gentleman stockman, from the most diverse and toughest of companions. In the outback he becomes enmeshed with Paakantji, colonists, colonial-born, ex-convicts, ex-soldiers, and very few women.

'Plorn, unexpectedly, encounters the same veneration of his father and familiarity with Dickens’ work in Australia as was rampant in England. Against this backdrop, and featuring cricket tournaments, horse-racing, bushrangers, sheep droving, shifty stock and station agents, frontier wars and first encounters with Australian women, Plorn meets extraordinary people and enjoys wonderful adventures as he works to prove himself.

'This is Tom Keneally in his most familiar terrain. Taking historical figures and events and reimagining them with verve, compassion and humour. It is a triumph.'(Publication summary)
4 1 y separately published work icon The Light After the War Anita Abriel , Cammeray : Simon and Schuster Australia , 2020 17465854 2020 single work novel historical fiction

'In 1946 two young Hungarian refugees arrive in Naples determined to start a new life after losing everyone they loved before the war. Vera Frankel and her best friend, Edith Ban, are haunted by their terrifying escape from a train headed for Auschwitz after their mothers threw them from the carriage, promising they would follow. But instead the girls found themselves alone in a frozen, alien land. They managed to find refuge and barter for their lives by working on an isolated farm in Austria until the end of the war.

'Armed with a letter of recommendation from an American general, Vera finds work and new hope at the United States Embassy and, despite her best intentions, falls in love the handsome and enigmatic Captain Anton Wight. But as Vera and Edith grapple with the aftermath of the war, so too does Anton, and when he suddenly disappears, Vera is forced to drastically change course. Their quest to overcome their terrible losses and rebuild their lives takes Vera and Edith from Naples to Ellis Island to Venezuela and finally Sydney as they begin to build careers, reunite with old friends – and find love.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.
2 y separately published work icon Under Your Wings Tiffany Tsao , Melbourne : Penguin , 2018 14130004 2018 single work novel thriller

'A powerful and evocative literary thriller from a stunning new Australian voice, for fans of Donna Tartt and Alice Sebold.

'Gwendolyn and Estella have always been as close as sisters can be. Growing up in a wealthy, powerful and sometimes treacherous family, they’ve relied on each other for support and confidence. Now, though, Gwendolyn is lying in a coma, the sole survivor of Estella’s poisoning of their whole family. What in their dark and complicated past has brought them to this point?

'As Gwendolyn struggles to regain consciousness, she desperately retraces her memories, trying to uncover the moment that led to this brutal act. Their aunt’s supposed death at sea; Estella’s unhappy marriage to the brutish Leonard; the shifting loyalties and unspoken resentments at the heart of the opulent world they inhabit – one by one, the facts float up, forcing Gwendolyn to confront the truth about who she and her sister really are, and the secrets in their family’s past.

'Travelling from the luxurious world of the rich and powerful in Jakarta to the most spectacular shows at Paris Fashion Week, from the coasts of California to the melting pot of Melbourne’s university scene, Under Your Wings is a powerful, evocative and deeply compelling novel about the secrets that can build a family empire - and then ultimately bring it crashing down. ' (Publication summary)
 
3 2 y separately published work icon The Helpline Katherine Collette , Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2018 13939772 2018 single work novel

'GERMAINE Johnson may not be all that good with people but she’s great with numbers. Unfortunately, as she discovers after the incident at Wallace Insurance, there are very few openings these days for senior mathematicians.

'Then her cousin gets her a job at the local council. On the Senior Citizens Helpline.

'It’s not the résumé entry Germaine wanted—but it turns out Mayor Verity Bainbridge has something more interesting in mind for her. A secret project involving the troublemakers at the senior citizens centre and their feud with the golf club next door. Which is run by the strangely attractive Don Thomas.

'Don and the mayor want the seniors closed down. Germaine wants what Don and the mayor want. But when she’s forced to get to know the ‘troublemakers’, things get more complicated.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.
7 6 y separately published work icon Scrublands Chris Hammer , Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2018 13651343 2018 single work novel crime

'Set in a fictional Riverina town at the height of a devastating drought, Scrublands is one of the most powerful, compelling and original crime novels to be written in Australia

'In an isolated country town brought to its knees by endless drought, a charismatic and dedicated young priest calmly opens fire on his congregation, killing five parishioners before being shot dead himself.

'A year later, troubled journalist Martin Scarsden arrives in Riversend to write a feature on the anniversary of the tragedy. But the stories he hears from the locals about the priest and incidents leading up to the shooting don't fit with the accepted version of events his own newspaper reported in an award-winning investigation. Martin can't ignore his doubts, nor the urgings of some locals to unearth the real reason behind the priest's deadly rampage.

'Just as Martin believes he is making headway, a shocking new development rocks the town, which becomes the biggest story in Australia. The media descends on Riversend and Martin is now the one in the spotlight. His reasons for investigating the shooting have suddenly become very personal.

'Wrestling with his own demons, Martin finds himself risking everything to discover a truth that becomes darker and more complex with every twist. But there are powerful forces determined to stop him, and he has no idea how far they will go to make sure the town's secrets stay buried.' (Source: Publisher's blurb)
25 y separately published work icon The Clockmaker's Daughter Kate Morton , Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2018 13651016 2018 single work novel mystery

'My real name, no one remembers.
The truth about that summer, no one else knows.

'In the summer of 1862, a group of young artists led by the passionate and talented Edward Radcliffe descends upon Birchwood Manor in rural Oxfordshire. Their plan: to spend a secluded summer month in a haze of inspiration and creativity. But by the time their stay is over, one woman has been shot dead while another has disappeared; a priceless heirloom is missing; and Edward Radcliffe's life is in ruins.

'Over one hundred and fifty years later, Elodie Winslow, a young archivist in London, uncovers a leather satchel containing two seemingly unrelated items: a sepia photograph of an arresting-looking woman in Victorian clothing, and an artist's sketchbook containing the drawing of a twin-gabled house on the bend of a river.

'Why does Birchwood Manor feel so familiar to Elodie? And who is the beautiful woman in the photograph? Will she ever give up her secrets?

'Told by multiple voices across time, The Clockmaker's Daughter is a story of murder, mystery and thievery, of art, love and loss. And flowing through its pages like a river, is the voice of a woman who stands outside time, whose name has been forgotten by history, but who has watched it all unfold: Birdie Bell, the clockmaker's daughter.' (Source: Publisher's blurb)
1 4 y separately published work icon Shell : A Novel Kristina Olsson , Cammeray : Scribner , 2018 13998429 2018 single work novel war literature

'In this spellbinding and poignant historical novel--perfect for fans of All the Light We Cannot See and The Flamethrowers--a Swedish glassmaker and a fiercely independent Australian journalist are thrown together amidst the turmoil of the 1960s and the dawning of a new modern era.

'1965: As the United States becomes further embroiled in the Vietnam War, the ripple effects are far-reaching--even to the other side of the world. In Australia, a national military draft has been announced and Pearl Keogh, a headstrong and ambitious newspaper reporter, has put her job in jeopardy to become involved in the anti-war movement. Desperate to locate her two runaway brothers before they're called to serve, Pearl is also hiding a secret shame--the guilt she feels for not doing more for her younger siblings after their mother's untimely death.

'Newly arrived from Sweden, Axel Lindquist is set to work as a sculptor on the besieged Sydney Opera House. After a childhood in Europe, where the shadow of WWII loomed large, he seeks to reinvent himself in this utterly foreign landscape, and finds artistic inspiration--and salvation--in the monument to modernity that is being constructed on Sydney's Harbor. But as the nation hurtles towards yet another war, Jørn Utzon, the Opera House's controversial architect, is nowhere to be found--and Axel fears that the past he has tried to outrun may be catching up with him.

'As the seas of change swirl around them, Pearl and Axel's lives orbit each other and collide in this sweeping novel of art and culture, love and destiny"--'(Publication summary)
1 y separately published work icon The Bucket List : A Novel Georgia Clark , New York (City) : Atria Books , 2018 13539035 2018 single work novel

'Twenty-five-old Lacey Whitman is blindsided when she’s diagnosed with the BCRA1 gene mutation: the “breast cancer” gene. Her high hereditary risk forces a decision: increased surveillance or the more radical step of a preventative double mastectomy. Lacey doesn't want to lose her breasts. For one, she’s juggling two career paths; her work with the prestigious New York trend forecaster Hoffman House, and her role on the founding team of a sustainable fashion app with friend/mentor, Vivian Chang. Secondly, small-town Lacey’s not so in touch with her sexuality: she doesn’t want to sacrifice her breasts before she’s had the chance to give them their hey-day. To help her make her choice, she (and her friends) creates a “boob bucket list”: everything she wants do with and for her boobs before a possible surgery.

'This kicks off a year of sensual exploration and sexual entertainment for the quick-witted Lacey Whitman. The Bucket List cleverly and compassionately explores Lacey’s relationship to her body and her future. Both are things Lacey thought she could control through hard work and sacrifice. But the future, it turns out, is more complicated than she could ever imagine.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.
1 y separately published work icon A Dangerous Crossing Rachel Rhys , New York (City) : Atria Books , 2018 12305476 2018 single work novel historical fiction

'1939: Europe is on the brink of war when young Lily Shepherd boards an ocean liner in Essex, bound for Australia. She is ready to start anew, leaving behind the shadows in her past. The passage proves magical, complete with live music, cocktails, and fancy dress balls. With stops at exotic locations along the way—Naples, Cairo, Ceylon—the voyage shows Lily places she’d only ever dreamed of and enables her to make friends with those above her social station, people who would ordinarily never give her the time of day. She even allows herself to hope that a man she couldn’t possibly have a future with outside the cocoon of the ship might return her feelings.

'But Lily soon realizes that she’s not the only one hiding secrets. Her newfound friends—the toxic wealthy couple Eliza and Max; Cambridge graduate Edward; Jewish refugee Maria; fascist George—are also running away from their pasts. As the glamour of the voyage fades, the stage is set for something sinister to occur. By the time the ship docks, two passengers are dead, war has been declared, and Lily’s life will be changed irrevocably.' (Publication summary)
1 4 y separately published work icon Miss Ex-Yugoslavia Sofija Stefanovic , New York (City) : Atria Books , 2018 12305194 2018 single work autobiography

'In the tradition of Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, a funny, dark, and tender coming-of-age memoir about life as a perpetual fish-out-of-water, from the Yugoslavian-born comedic storyteller, MothStorySLAM favorite, and host of the Women of Letters literary salon.

'Sofija Stefanovic makes the first of many awkward entrances in 1982, born in Yugoslavia just as her communist country begins to crumble. The circumstances of her birth (a blackout, gasoline shortages, bickering parents) don't exactly get her off to a running start. While around her ethnic tensions are being stoked by hotheaded totalitarian leaders with violent agendas, Sofija's early years are filled with rock music, inadvisable crushes, micro-miniskirts whose Serbian name means "to the pussy," and enough insecurity to sink a Croatian submarine.

'In 1988 her parents finally decide to flee to Australia, where Sofija ditches ESL class, experiments with bad hairstyles, and makes out with her bedroom mirror for practice. As conflicts escalate back home, her parents are glued to the nightly news, anxious for loved ones, homesick, clinging to their insular community. While her father toils at work and her eloquent mother is relegated to the bungled speech of a foreigner, Sofija is eager to find acceptance among her friends, going to hilarious lengths to hide her morbid, unassimilated family.

'But everything comes to a screeching halt with the sudden illness of her father, unseating concerns about assimilation and the situation back home, rupturing Sofija's universe as she prepares to embark out on her own for the first time.

'In Miss Ex-Yugoslavia, Sofija offers us a window inside a beleaguered culture that she both cherishes and resents, capturing the experience of not quite connecting with your old country, and yet never quite being embraced by your new one. Both refreshingly candid and wonderfully vulnerable, Miss Ex-Yugoslavia will stay with you for a long time.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.
2 17 y separately published work icon Foreign Soil Maxine Beneba Clarke , Sydney : Hachette Australia , 2014 6593323 2014 selected work short story

'In this collection of award-winning stories, Melbourne writer Maxine Beneba Clarke has given a voice to the disenfranchised, the lost, the downtrodden and the mistreated. It will challenge you, it will have you by the heartstrings. This is contemporary fiction at its finest.' (Publication summary)
2 3 y separately published work icon A Hundred Small Lessons : A Novel Ashley Hay , Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2017 10655636 2017 single work novel

'Luminous and deeply affecting, A Hundred Small Lessons is about the many small decisions - the invisible moments - that come to make a life. The intertwined lives of two women from different generations tell a rich and intimate story of how we feel what it is to be human, and how place can transform who we are. It takes account of what it means to be mother or daughter; father or son. It's a story of love, and of life...When Elsie Gormley falls and is forced to leave her Brisbane home of sixty-two years, Lucy Kiss and her family move in, with their new life - new house, new city, new baby. Lucy and her husband Ben are struggling to transform from adventurous lovers to new parents and seek to smooth the rough edges of their present with memories of their past as they try to discover their future selves...In her nearby nursing home, Elsie revisits the span of her life - the moments she can't bear to let go; the haunts to which she might yet return. Her memories of marriage, motherhood, love and death are intertwined with her old house, whose rooms seem to breathe Elsie's secrets into Lucy...Through one hot, wet Brisbane summer, seven lives - and two different slices of time - wind along with the flow of the river, as two families chart the ways in which we come, sudden and oblivious, into each other's stories, and the unexpected ripples that flow out from those chance encounters...' (Publication summary)
1 6 y separately published work icon Crimes of the Father Thomas Keneally , North Sydney : Vintage Australia , 2016 10186060 2016 single work novel

'A timely, courageous and powerful novel about faith, the church, conscience and celibacy.

'Tom Keneally, ex-seminarian, pulls no punches as he interrogates the terrible damage done to innocents as the Catholic Church has prevaricated around language and points of law, covering up for its own.

'Ex-communicated to Canada due to his radical preaching on the Vietnam War and other human rights causes, Father Frank Docherty is now a psychologist and monk. He returns to Australia to speak on abuse in the Church, and unwittingly is soon listening to stories from two different people – a young man, via his suicide note, and an ex-nun – who both claim to have been sexually abused by an eminent Sydney cardinal. This senior churchman is himself currently empannelled in a commission investigating sex abuse within the Church.

'As a man of character and conscience, Father Docherty finds he must confront each party involved in the abuse and cover-up to try to bring the matter to the attention of the Church itself, and to secular authorities.

'This riveting, profoundly thoughtful novel is both an exploration of faith as well as an examination of marriage, of conscience and celibacy, and of what has become one of the most controversial institutions, the Catholic Church.' (Publication summary)
4 13 y separately published work icon The Railwayman's Wife Ashley Hay , Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2013 Z1927871 2013 single work novel 'In a small town on the land's edge, in the strange space at a war's end, a widow, a poet and a doctor each try to find their own peace, and their own new story. In Thirroul, in 1948, people chase their dreams through the books in the railway's library. Anikka Lachlan searches for solace after her life is destroyed by a single random act. Roy McKinnon, who found poetry in the mess of war, has lost his words and his hope. Frank Draper is trapped by the guilt of those his treatment and care failed on their first day of freedom. All three struggle with the same question: how now to be alive.' (Publisher's blurb)
4 97 y separately published work icon The Swan Book Alexis Wright , Artarmon : Giramondo Publishing , 2013 Z1836223 2013 single work novel (taught in 14 units)

'The new novel by Alexis Wright, whose previous novel Carpentaria won the Miles Franklin Award and four other major prizes including the Australian Book Industry Awards Literary Fiction Book of the Year Award. The Swan Book is set in the future, with Aboriginals still living under the Intervention in the north, in an environment fundamentally altered by climate change. It follows the life of a mute teenager called Oblivia, the victim of gang-rape by petrol-sniffing youths, from the displaced community where she lives in a hulk, in a swamp filled with rusting boats, and thousands of black swans driven from other parts of the country, to her marriage to Warren Finch, the first Aboriginal president of Australia, and her elevation to the position of First Lady, confined to a tower in a flooded and lawless southern city. The Swan Book has all the qualities which made Wright’s previous novel, Carpentaria, a prize-winning best-seller. It offers an intimate awareness of the realities facing Aboriginal people; the wild energy and humour in her writing finds hope in the bleakest situations; and the remarkable combination of storytelling elements, drawn from myth and legend and fairy tale.' (Publisher's blurb)
25 5 y separately published work icon The Lake House Kate Morton , Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2015 8539123 2015 single work novel historical fiction

'An abandoned house…

'After a particularly troubling case, Sadie Sparrow is sent on an enforced break from her job with the Metropolitan Police and retreats to her beloved grandfather’s cottage in Cornwall. There she finds herself at a loose end, until one day she stumbles upon an abandoned house surrounded by overgrown gardens and dense woods, and learns the story of a baby boy who disappeared without a trace.

'A missing child…

'June 1933, and the Edevane family’s country house, Loeanneth, is polished and gleaming, ready for the much-anticipated Midsummer Eve party. For Eleanor, the annual party has always been one of her treasured traditions, but her middle daughter, Alice, sixteen years old and with literary ambitions, is especially excited. Not only has Alice worked out the perfect twist for her novel, she’s also fallen helplessly in love with someone she shouldn’t. But by the time midnight strikes and fireworks light up the night sky, the Edevane family will have suffered a loss so great they leave Loeanneth and never return.

'An unsolved mystery…

'Seventy years later, in the attic writing room of her elegant Hampstead home, the formidable Alice Edevane, leads a life as neatly plotted as the bestselling detective novels she writes. Until a young police detective starts asking questions about her family’s past and seeking to resurrect the complex tangle of secrets Alice has spent her life trying to escape…'

Source: Publisher's blurb.
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