Cirrus@Austlit

'Vernon and Penelope never want to see their son Caleb again. Not after he bashed his wife and ended up in gaol. A lifetime of careful parental love wiped out in a moment.

'But when Vernon, a retired teacher, hears that Caleb is being regularly visited and savagely beaten by a local criminal as the police stand by, he knows he has to act. What has his life as a father been if he turns his back on his son in his hour of desperate need? He realises with shame that he has grievously failed Caleb. No longer.

'To stop the beatings, Vernon plans to approach Ernie Cahill, father of the man bashing Caleb, and head of the local drug-dealing operation. The Cahills run the town and the cops, but Vernon is determined to fix things in a civilised way, father to father. If he shows respect, he reasons, it will be reciprocated. But how wrong he is.

'And what hell will he bring down on his family?

'Reading like a morality tale Western but in a starkly beautiful Australian setting, Snake Island is a propulsive literary thriller written with great clarity and power. It will take you to the edge and keep you there long after the final page is turned. '

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Based on the life of an incredible historical heroine, a harrowing journey in search of love, justice, and freedom, told by the daughter of best-selling author Thomas Keneally (Schindler's List)

'Tall and lanky, more suited to sailing and fishing than to keeping a house, Jenny Gwyn has proven herself a survivor. When she's caught stealing to support her impoverished family, the King's justice demands she be hung from the neck until dead. Instead, she and dozens of other prisoners are sent across the world to help settle England's newest colony in Australia.

'But the harsh landscape of Sydney Cove isn't welcoming to its new settlers, and Jenny is still a prisoner under the strict watch of Governor Edward Lockhart. After being contained on a filthy ship, selling her body for better rations, giving birth to two children, and fighting to better her position in the colony, Jenny refuses to succumb to the barren land unable to support the growing population. Determined to provide a better life for her children, she braves the sea, and a journey of over three thousand miles in a small rowboat, for a chance at a future worth fighting for.

'Based on the true story of Mary Bryant, an iconic figure in the foundation lore of Australia as Great Britain's penal colony, Fled is a sweeping, heart-wrenching account of one woman's life-long search for freedom.'  (Publication summary)

"I watched the glaze of headlights, the windscreens of oncoming cars: a series of trapezoids with the silhouette of a single male driver. One pulled up in front of me; I reached over and opened the door, slid in. The smell of an unfamiliar car. A middle-aged man looking at me. 'Hi', I said. 'How are you?"...

'There was no single moment when someone looked at Kate Holden and said, 'Why don't you have some?' No one made her try heroin. There was only the sense, with her friends setting out on this forbidden adventure, that she would lose something if she didn't. Just once: to know. So this book is the story of a journey. From a loving family home to the streets of St Kilda; from a shy, bookish life to the ambivalent glamour of an inner-city brothel, Kate Holden describes with breathtaking lyricism and poignancy her travels in an unknown world. Contains explicit sexual scenes.' (Source: Vision Australia Information and Library Service)

'Murray Whelan is in trouble. A disastrous election result is looming and his days as a political minder seem numbered. But when his boss Angelo Agnelli picks a fight with the trucking industry, and Murray finds himself on the receiving end of a fist at a city nightclub, his employment prospects seem the least of his problems.

'And that’s before he finds himself sampling Cheryl’s melons in the back of a truck at the fruit and vegetable market at five in the morning. With a runaway son on his hands, the police at his heels, adultery in the air and a gun buried in the backyard, Murray faces his toughest test yet.' (Publication summary)

'When Murray Whelan, lovelorn political minder and part-time fitness fanatic, is recruited to massage Australia’s bid for the Olympics he has no idea how tough the going will get.

'Not even the sight of the gorgeous Holly Deloite in her taut blue leotard at the City Club can stop him diving head first into trouble. And, when the death of the young Aboriginal athlete Darcy Anderson proves that murder is a contact sport, Murray is soon breaking all the rules.

'Mixing it with a savvy black activist, a body-building psychopath and the enigmatic Dr Phillipa Knox, Murray jumps the gun every time.' (Publication summary)

'The first Murray Whelan adventure

'The fiddle at the Pacific Pastoral meat-packing works was a nice little earner for all concerned until Herb Gardiner reported finding a body in number 3 chiller. An accident, of course, but just the excuse a devious political operator might grab to stir up trouble with the unions.

'Enter Murray Whelan, minder, fixer and general dogsbody for the Minister of Industry. Between playing of party factions and pursuing the kohl-eyed Ayisha, it’s all in a day’s work for Murray to hose down the situation at Pacific Pastoral.

'Then the lairy V8 turns up. And after that, it gets personal. Because don’t you just hate it when somebody tries to kill you and you don’t know who or why?' (Publication summary)

'On a sultry summer night Murray Whelan is in the Botanical Gardens tasting Salina Fleet's apricot lips. Meanwhile the body of an artist is being fished from the ornamental moat outside the Art Gallery. The papers called it suicide. The police say it's an accident.

'Political minder, brushed-off lover and art buff on the make, Murray goes looking for the big picture. He finds there's more than meets the eye among the self-made millionaires, ruthless culture vultures, and cool operators of Melbourne's art world. He learns that when you dabble with death there's nothing abstract about a loaded gun.

'Murray Whelan, the hero of Stiff, Shane Maloney's brilliant debut novel, is back at his richly futile best. A romantic comedy and drop-dead thriller, The Brush-Off mixes high art with low blows.' (Publication summary)

'In 1982, Sally Morgan travelled back to her grandmother's birthplace. What started as a tentative search for information about her family, turned into an overwhelming emotional and spiritual pilgrimage. My Place is a moving account of a search for truth into which a whole family is gradually drawn, finally freeing the tongues of the author's mother and grandmother, allowing them to tell their own stories.' Source: Publisher's blurb.