Cirrus@Austlit

''She glanced back at the sleeping boy on the back seat and flashing blue and red lights caught her eye in the rear vision mirror. A police car pulled up behind her. There was nowhere to go. What had she done?'

'Rose knows that she should be happy. She has a thoughtful son, a kind boss and a dream box full of savings for a rainy day. But sometimes the brick in her chest gets so heavy that it's all she can do to simply watch the minutes tick by on the oven clock.

'Things change when a stranger arrives. Rose can't believe that someone like Ellie would want to be her friend. Ellie always knows what to do. She is bright and shiny and seems so caring. With Ellie by her side, things feel possible again, and Rose starts to remember who she is. Soon, she can't imagine how it was without Ellie there.

'Sometimes, all you need is one friend to change your life. Because the best things in life are free. Aren't they?

'A novel about discovering that what you need is often right in front of you. And that friendship can hide many truths.' (Publication summary)

'People go to the isolated Karpathy farm looking for a new life - and are never seen again. A chilling thriller from the award-winning and bestselling author of Australian noir, Shelley Burr.

'Lane Holland's crime-solving career ended the day he went to prison. With his parole hearing approaching, he faces the grim reality that an ex-con can never work as a private eye. Yet one unsolved case continues to haunt him: the disappearance of Matilda Carver two decades ago.

'Never one to follow the rules, Lane finds a lead - a mysterious farm community led by the enigmatic Samuel Karpathy. His farm attracts lost souls. People who want a more meaningful life. People who are hiding from their pasts. People with nowhere else to go.

'But those who go to the farm seem to vanish without a trace.

'Is it a commune? Is it a cult? Is it something even more dangerous? Lane goes undercover at the farm to find its dark secret - but could he too find himself intoxicated by the prospect of a new life on the land?' (Publication summary)

'An unputdownable supernatural thriller about a mysterious global event, set in an Australian rural town.

'It began in every town and city at the same time, in every dark and twisted corner of our world. One third of the earth's citizens were asleep at the time. Their awakening was marked by horror and confusion. Just about everyone else had their routine interrupted as they witnessed the event with eyes wide open. They prayed it was a dream.

'In the small, sleepy town of Gattan, population 7448, it happened at eleven o'clock on a Saturday morning. At the local soccer field, only one boy, aged ten years and one week, remained standing as the brothers, sisters and parents of his teammates realised the horror they were witnessing. Their screams split the sky.

'One hundred and thirty million died that first day.

'Every day since, on the morning of a child's ninth birthday, it happens again. No one knows why. The ongoing horror becomes known as Orpheus Nine and bereft parents cruelly labelled Orpheans. Global leaders have no answers as riots and chaos take hold. Supply chains are broken, violence and conspiracy theories spread as scientists wrestle with the ongoing death toll and militant Orpheans try to take matters into their own hands.

'In Gattan, the chasm between life before and after grows wider between three old friends, now parents. They will wrestle with waves of grief at one child's loss, guilt at one child's survival and anger as another child edges closer to their birthday. In different ways these three friends will fight the unfathomable and attempt to defy this new reality. No matter the cost. But the truth is, the clock keeps ticking, the world order is crumbling and the gods are watching ...' (Publication summary)

'How did a young Parisienne mother, celebrated for her beauty and glamour, come to lead the largest spy network in France? A powerful, heartbreaking historical novel by the New York Times bestselling author

'Morocco, 1928. Eighteen-year-old Frenchwoman Marie-Madeleine is not the kind of woman who goes through life sitting down, something her new husband can attest. Her unconventionalities - rally car driving, flying planes and dabbling in intelligence work for the government - earn her a reputation, but she knows who she is at heart: an adventurer.

'Paris, 1938. As Europe teeters on the brink of war, a chance encounter with a mysterious man codenamed Navarre turns Marie-Madeleine's life upside down. Recruited to help build a resistance network known only as Alliance, she conceals her identity - and gender - as she navigates a perilous double life away from her children and the man she loves. Capture and death are only a heartbeat away.

'Bestselling Australian novelist Natasha Lester passionately brings to life the true story of one of history's unsung heroes: Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, the only woman to lead a resistance network in WWII France. Her story is one of epic love, tragic loss and magnificent leadership.' (Publication summary) 

'When you are raised to believe that the person you are is unacceptable, you hide. And you stay hidden. If you are X-Men and Dance Academy star Tim Pocock, you become an expert at hiding - until you can't anymore.

'Tim Pocock was a born performer. At ten, he took to the stage as a professional opera singer. At twenty-two, he launched his acting career in the blockbuster X-Men Origins: Wolverine and went on to star in the beloved series Dance Academy.

'But Tim's biggest role was one he never auditioned for - the role he played at home as a devout, straight son. Raised in a deeply conservative Catholic family and attending a school with links to Opus Dei, Tim knew that he would never be accepted for who he was. Being gay was out of the question. Tim was encouraged to become a priest and experienced gay conversion therapy to have his sexuality hypnotised out of him.

'This captivating memoir reveals shocking details of Tim's strict religious upbringing and the institutional harms he experienced. After his bid for freedom, Tim traversed the glitzy landscape of Los Angeles, navigated the pressures of the acting industry, and made chaotic forays into the gay dating scene - all while carrying immense trauma.

'With unflinching honesty, Tim reveals his journey toward healing, discovery and self-acceptance. In doing so, he offers hope for anyone who is still in hiding from the person they know they are and shows how we can set ourselves free.' (Publication summary)

'From Richell Prize-winning debut author Susie Greenhill comes a tender and profoundly moving exploration of life and loss.

'In the early morning, Elena woke as Orla pulled back the doona and climbed into their bed. She unfolded Elena's fingers and pressed a tiny model penguin into her hand. Still half asleep, Elena rolled over. Outside the window, black cockatoos were dropping wattle galls onto the street. The room was silent, the dawn light dull and grey. And Tom was gone . . .

'In the not-too-distant future on the island of lutruwita, where the seas glow blue with bioluminescence and ancient forests wither in the heat, a young family are caught in the eye of a storm.

'As an ecologist working on extinctions, Tom knows the world he loves is unravelling around him. He cares deeply for his wife Elena, a journalist, and their daughter Orla, but he is haunted by disappearing species and the news of bushfires, floods and famine. In his mind, the damage done to the Earth has tipped into the irreversible. Elena can only watch helplessly as Tom's grief consumes him. And then, one day, Tom vanishes.

'Alone, Elena asks herself, 'How can I be a mother to my child in this world?' In the remote south-west wilderness, she sets out to find answers and the hope she needs for herself and her daughter. But is there hope left to find?'  (Publication summary)

''That afternoon, when the police and then my mother finally arrived, they found me sitting beside Marlowe holding her hand and talking to her: about a boy I had a crush on, about the buttery yellow jumpsuit I had seen in a shop window that would look perfect on her; about those two cups of half-drunk coffee sitting on the table. Who was with you, Marlowe?

'In March of 1989, Emmerson Kerr is alone.

'One morning listening to her Walkman, a newsreader's words stop her dead. 'A warning to our listeners that this story is graphic in nature. The body of an 84-year-old woman has been found in the foyer of her apartment building on Sydney's lower North Shore ...

'Emmerson stood, held in place like an anchor, like a nail in wood, like the breath of a frightened woman alone in her home. She listened to the details and remembered back to that day, twelve years before, in her grandmother's Paddington studio. The 1977 murder of Marlowe Kerr - Sydney's art darling and socialite, a woman known for her lavish parties and her world-famous designs, but known to Emmerson as her colourful, loving grandmother - never solved.

'And now, years later, a terrifying string of crimes against older women will begin, will force ageing female residents to lock themselves inside their homes. They will be in a state of constant fear. And, as the killer's reign of terror escalates, and Emmerson starts to unearth her beloved grandmother's shady past, she becomes increasingly convinced that the same person who killed Marlowe is also responsible for the depravity that is now unfolding in the city she has always called home.

'Could Emmerson be the link to solving Marlowe's murder and help catch the killer before they kill again?' (Publication summary)

'By the bestselling authors of The Glass House, Anne Buist & Graeme Simsion, comes the second novel in the groundbreaking Menzies Mental Health series

'Trainee psychiatrist Doctor Hannah Wright has only just got her head above water in the acute psychiatric ward at Menzies Hospital when she's thrown into the deep end of the outpatient clinic. Keen to develop her skills in talking therapies, she finds herself up against a boss who's focused on medication and a senior colleague with a score to settle.

'Hannah's fellow first-years face problems of their own: on-and-off flame Alex is being bullied, Ndidi's marriage is in trouble, Jon feels isolated and Carey is concerned their autism will be a career barrier.

'While Hannah comes under pressure to seek therapy herself to confront a traumatic past, her patients' health issues range from OCD to ice addiction, childhood abuse to the mental impact of ageing, and from bad parenting to bad genes. They all come to the Oasis.' (Publication summary)

'A magical middle-grade adventure about two sisters who need to rely on their own wits and each other when they're pulled into a new world, from black&write! fellow and bestselling author, Lisa Fuller.

'Sisters Bella and Cienna are different in lots of ways. Bella is quiet and shy, and Cienna is always surrounded by friends. One thing they have in common is their love for the local swimming spot, Washpool. One weekend, while they are at Washpool with their family, the girls are transported to a different world.

'They then encounter enigmatic Esura, who encourages them to venture further into Muse, where the Summer Feast - a time when many peoples gather for a week of fun and games - is due to start.

'But when they find out Lady Dragon's egg is missing, Bella and Cienna must use their smarts to help with the search and bringing the egg back to safety before they figure out how to get back home.' (Publication summary)

'Cuddles is an inside dog, so when his family goes on a farm holiday he is horrified to find himself outside with the farm dogs - a charming story about being brave and trying new experiences by award-winning children's author Pip Harry with illustrations by Carolyn Davis

'Cuddles loves warm laps, snuggly couches and soft beds. He is most definitely an inside dog. So when his family decides to bring him along on a farm holiday, Cuddles is horrified to find himself outside with the farm dogs. Will this inside dog ever be ready for outside adventures?

'A charming book about stepping out of your comfort zone and trying new things from CBCA award-winning author Pip Harry, with illustrations by Carolyn Davis.' (Publication summary)

'There are secrets behind every closed door in the Warrah Place neighbourhood, and who killed Antonio Marietti is the biggest one of all . . .

'It's the height of summer in Australia, 1979, and on a quiet suburban cul-de-sac in Canberra a housewife is scrubbing the yellow and white chequered tiles of the bathroom floor. But all is not as it seems. For one thing, it's 3 am. For another, she is trying desperately to remove all traces of blood before they stain. Her husband seems remarkably calm, considering he has just murdered their neighbour.

'As the sun rises on Warrah Place, news of Antonio Marietti's death spreads like wildfire. Gossip is exchanged in whispers and suspicion mounts. Twelve-year-old Tammy launches her own investigation, determined to find out what happened, but she is not the only one whose well-meaning efforts uncover more mysteries than they solve.

'There are secrets behind every closed door in the neighbourhood, and the identity of the murderer is only one of them . . .' (Publication summary)

'A heartrending and beautiful memoir of sudden loss and a journey toward peace, from the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Horse

'Many cultural and religious traditions expect those who are grieving to step away from the world. In contemporary life, we are more often met with red tape and to-do lists. This is exactly what happened to Geraldine Brooks when her partner of more than three decades, Tony Horwitz - just sixty years old and, to her knowledge, vigorous and healthy - collapsed and died on a Washington, DC street.

'After spending their early years together in conflict zones as foreign correspondents, and living in Sydney, Geraldine and Tony settled down to raise two boys on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. The life they built was one of meaningful work, good humour, and tenderness, as they spent their days writing and their evenings cooking family dinners or watching the sun set with friends. But all of this came to an abrupt end when, on the US Memorial Day public holiday of 2019, Geraldine received the phone call we all dread. The demands were immediate and many. Without space to grieve, t he sudden loss became a yawning gulf.

'Three years later, she booked a flight to remote Flinders Island off the coast of Tasmania with the intention of finally giving herself the time to mourn. In a shack on the island's pristine, rugged coast she often went days without seeing another person. There, she pondered the various ways in which cultures grieve, and what rituals of her own might help to rebuild a life around the void of Tony's death.

'A spare and profoundly moving memoir that joins the classics of the genre, Memorial Days is a portrait of a larger-than-life man and a timeless love between souls that exquisitely captures the joy, agony and mystery of life.'  (Publication summary)

'A surprise inheritance. A hidden past.

'Brisbane, 2024 Barista and budding artist Mia Curtis is shocked to receive a package all the way from England informing her she's the heir to her late grandmother's cottage. Feeling lost in her own life, Mia travels across the world to claim her inheritance, where she begins to unravel the secrets passed down through the generations of women in her family.

'Sussex, 1821 Philadelphia Boadle wakes to find her husband, the tailor Jasper Boadle, dead. As the daughter of the local cunning woman, Philadelphia is soon accused of murder by witchcraft. Her future and that of her own daughter is at stake, unless she can convince the village she's done no wrong...'  (Publication summary)

'Marianne Moore said that the poet's job was to depict 'imaginary gardens with real toads in them'. In truth, gardens are always imaginary because they are always the garden that you are aiming for rather than the garden you have, but the toads are real and immediate.' So says Germaine Greer in this wonderful anthology.

'This collection of poems, culled from classical antiquity to the twenty-first century, includes perennial favourites such as Marvell's 'The Garden' and Frost's 'After Apple-picking' and Roethke's famous greenhouse lyrics, as well as surprises like Tennyson's anti-botanical 'Amphion' and Fleur Adcock's 'Emblem' on the mating of slugs, not to mention small masterpieces like Philip Larkin's 'Cut Grass' and Phoebe Hesketh's 'Death of a Gardener'.

'Poems for Gardeners can be read along with the seed catalogues in the dead of winter, or in the gaps between tasks on a busy day in spring, or between snoozes in the hammock in the deep midsummer.' (Publication summary) 

'A captivating and compulsive crime thriller about guns, drugs and a young woman dead on the money

'Riverina 1974:

'When nineteen-year-old farmgirl Adelaide Hoffman applies for a cadetship at the Gunnawah Gazette, she sees it as her ticket out of a life too small for her. Its owner, Valdene Bullark, sees something of the girl she once was in young Adelaide.

'Val puts Adelaide straight to work. What starts as a routine assignment covering an irrigation project soon puts Adelaide on the trail of a much bigger story. Water is money in farming communities, and when Adelaide starts asking questions, it's as if she's poked a stick in a bull ant's nest. Violence follows. Someone will do whatever it takes to stop Adelaide and Val finding out how far the river of corruption and crime runs.

'Shady deals. Vested interests. A labyrinth of lies. It seems everyone in Gunnawah has a secret to keep. But how many want to stop Adelaide dead?

'Set deep in the heart of rural Australia during the era of Gough Whitlam, pub brawls and flared jeans, Gunnawah is a compulsive crime thriller of corruption, guns and drugs from Australian Noir's most arresting new voice.' (Publication summary)

'Step into the magical world of Hedgewitch, where the land of Faerie lies just beyond our own . . . The third book in the enchanting Hedgewitch series, perfect for children age 9+ and readers of Nevermoor and Michelle Harrison.

'Cassie Morgan needs to earn her Sapling pin to get one step closer to passing her Witch's Licence. To do this, she's set a challenge of training a beginner witch by the Hedgewitch - but the newest member of her coven is not what she expected. Meanwhile, the wicked Erl King is luring witches up and down the country to his side, with promises of unimaginable power. Those who stand against him are running a deadly risk.

'When a letter arrives from Cassie's cousin Sebastian, desperate for help to solve an intriguing mystery, she travels to his home of Porthmorven with her friends, both new and old, to help work out what's going on.

'But Porthmorven is no ordinary place, it's a Faerie border town, like Hedgely, and it has its own protector: the elusive Seawitch. But she is nowhere to be found and Cassie is determined to help the people of Porthmorven however she can.

'Can Cassie use all of her training - along with help from her friends - to solve the secrets of the sea and foil the Erl King's plans once and for all?' (Publication summary)

(Publication summary)

'Yuwonderie's seven founding families have lorded it over their district for a century, growing ever more rich and powerful.

'But now—in startling circumstances—one of their own is found dead in a ditch and homicide detectives Ivan Lucic and Nell Buchanan are sent to investigate.

'Could the murder be connected to the execution of the victim's friend thirty years ago—another member of The Seven—or even the long-forgotten story of a servant girl on the brink of the Great War?

'What are the secrets The Seven are so desperate to keep hidden?'  (Publication summary)

'From one of the most exciting new voices in fantasy comes the satisfying conclusion to Davinia Evans's wickedly entertaining debut trilogy full of monsters, mayhem, dangerous society ladies, and a dragon who holds the fate of the most famous alchemist of all in her claws.

'Siyon Velo has given magic back to the Mundane. But with it, monsters of myth have awoken to cause chaos in Bezim and--of course--everyone's blaming him. Hunted high and low, Siyon struggles against the rising tide of mystery, magic and mayhem threatening the city that's turned its back on him.

'In the Flower District, Lady Sable has unleashed chaos. But in the Avenues, Anahid is desperate to keep her slippery secrets just a little longer, until Zagiri can join the froth and frippery of high society. With scandal stalking the sisters and revolution rumbling anew, the best--and the worst--they can do may not be enough to save their city...

'The Alchemist must rise, or Bezim will burn.' (Publication summary)