Cirrus@Austlit

'Port Brighton hates outsiders. The small coastal town has its own ways of dealing with the evil, the foolish, the misled, and it holds tightly to them. But the seams start to split after two deaths occur on the same tragic night: a baby abandoned at the foot of a lighthouse, and a drunken teenager drowned in the storming sea.

'Livvy is an insider. She keeps a watchful eye on what's happening in town while looking out for her troubled older brother. What has broken inside him - and why?

'Marie is an outsider. She's escaped Port Brighton and started a new life, but she can't forget the night at the lighthouse - it changed her family forever.

'As gossip fuels rumours and tensions erode trust, the bonds that keep Port Brighton together begin to fray, threatening to expose the truth about more than just the two deaths ...' (Publication summary)

'‘Just let him go.’

'Those are words Ky Tran will forever regret. The words she spoke when her parents called to ask if they should let her younger brother Denny out to celebrate his high school graduation with friends, in a neighbourhood growing more unpredictable by the day. That night, Denny – optimistic, guileless, valedictorian Denny – is brutally murdered inside a busy restaurant in the Sydney suburb of Cabramatta, a refugee enclave facing violent crime, a racist police force, and the worst heroin epidemic in Australian history.

'Returning home to Cabramatta for the funeral, Ky learns that the police are stumped by her brother’s case: several people were present at Denny’s murder, but each bystander claims to have seen nothing.

'Ky sets aside her grief and determines to track down the witnesses herself. Peeling back the layers of the place that shaped her, Ky confronts the complex traumas weighing on those present the night Denny died, and finds that the seeds of violence that led to his death were planted well before that fateful night: by colonialism, by the war in Vietnam, and by the choices they’ve all made to survive.' (Publication summary)

'Inti Flynn arrives in Scotland with her twin sister, Aggie, to lead a team tasked with reintroducing fourteen grey wolves into the remote Highlands. She hopes to heal not only the dying landscape, but a broken Aggie, too. However, Inti is not the woman she once was, and may be in need of rewilding herself. 

'Despite fierce opposition from the locals, Inti’s wolves surprise everyone by thriving, and she begins to let her guard down, even opening up to the possibility of love. But when a local farmer is found dead, Inti knows where the town will lay blame. Unable to accept her wolves could be responsible, she makes a reckless decision to protect them, testing every instinct she has. 

'But if her wolves didn’t make the kill, then who did? And what will she do when the man she’s been seeing becomes the main suspect?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'There's only been one time that Rose couldn't stop me from doing the wrong thing and that was a mistake that will haunt me for the rest of my life.

'Fern Castle works in her local library. She has dinner with her twin sister Rose three nights a week. And she avoids crowds, bright lights and loud noises as much as possible. Fern has a carefully structured life and disrupting her routine can be ... dangerous.

'When Rose discovers that she cannot fall pregnant, Fern sees her chance to pay her sister back for everything Rose has done for her. Fern can have a baby for Rose. She just needs to find a father. Simple.

'Fern's mission will shake the foundations of the life she has carefully built for herself and stir up dark secrets from the past, in this quirky, rich and shocking story of unexpected love.' (Publication summary)

'Fleeing their pandemic-stricken homelands, a shipload of migrant workers departs the UK, dreaming of a fresh start in prosperous Australia. For nine-year-old Cleary Sullivan, deaf for three years, the journey promises adventure and new friendships; for Glaswegian songstress Billie Galloway, it’s a chance to put a shameful mistake firmly behind her; while impoverished English schoolteacher Tom Garnett hopes to set his future on a brighter path. But when a crew member is found murdered and passengers start falling gravely ill, the Steadfast is plunged into chaos. Thrown together by chance, and each guarding their own secrets, Cleary, Billie and Tom join forces to survive the journey and its aftermath.

'The Trespassers is a beguiling novel that explores the consequences of greed, the experience of exile, and the unlikely ways strangers can become the people we hold dear.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.