Cirrus@Austlit

'Jamilah has always believed she knows where her home is: in a house above a paint shop on the outskirts of Beirut, with her large, chaotic, loving family. But she soon learns that as Palestinian refugees, her family's life in Lebanon is precarious.

'Songs for the Dead and the Living is a coming-of-age tale played out across generations and continents, from Palestine to Australia. Sara M Saleh offers a breathtaking portrait of the fragilities and flaws of family in the wake of war.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'When someone is taken away, what is left behind?

'All her life, Till has lived in the shadow of the abduction of a childhood friend and her tormented wondering about whether she could have stopped it.

'When Till, now twenty-three, senses danger approaching again, she flees her past and the hovering presence of her fearful parents. In Wirowie, a town on its knees, she stops and slowly begins creating a new life and home. But there is something menacing here too. Till must decide whether she can finally face down, even pursue, the darkness - or whether she'll flee once more and never stop running.

'Both a reckoning with fear and loss, and a recognition of the power of belonging, Days of Innocence and Wonder is a richly textured, deeply felt new novel from one of Australia's finest writers.' (Publication summary) 

'‘Before I go into my grave,’ she says out loud, ‘I will kill that man.’

'A brilliant new novel from the author of Real Differences. A family favour their son over their daughter. Shan attends university before making his fortune in Australia while Yannie must find menial employment and care for her ageing parents. After her mother’s death, Yannie travels to Sydney to become enmeshed in her psychopathic brother’s new life, which she seeks to undermine from within …

'This is a novel that rages against capitalism, hetero-supremacy, mothers, fathers, families – the whole damn thing. It’s about what happens when you want to make art but are born in the wrong time and place. 

'S. L. Lim brings to vivid life the frustrations of a talented daughter and vengeful sister in a nuanced and riveting novel that ends in the most unexpected way. It will not be easily forgotten.' (Publication summary)

'Kitty Hawke, the last inhabitant of a dying island sinking into the wind-lashed Chesapeake Bay, has resigned herself to annihilation...

'Until one night her granddaughter blows ashore in the midst of a storm, desperate, begging for sanctuary. For years, Kitty has kept herself to herself - with only the company of her wolfdog, Girl - unconcerned by the world outside, or perhaps avoiding its worst excesses. But blood cannot be turned away in times like these. And when trouble comes following her granddaughter, no one is more surprised than Kitty to find she will fight to save her as fiercely as her name suggests...'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Loretta’s mother was a trapeze artist in Europe, the star of the famed Rodzirkus circus, before she walked out on her drunken husband and his debts while on tour in Australia. But a life in 1960s suburban Adelaide was always going to be difficult, even if she does land herself the most handsome young barrister of the town, and Leda’s behaviour raises more than a few eyebrows.

'Leda’s father, handsome barrister Gilbert Lord, has no interest in his past, but hidden in a wardrobe are the journals of his ivory merchant great-great-grandfather who led an expedition to Australia’s desert interior to search for elephants.

'For Loretta, growing up in her mother’s flamboyant and often outrageous shadow, life is stifling and at times brutal. But the harder she tries to separate herself from her mother, the more she longs for her attention and love—and the more she finds that the past is inextricably woven into her own life and who she is.

'The Trapeze Act weaves stories of the circus and the doomed ivory expedition through a novel that is at once a heartbreaking tale of the search for acceptance and a celebration of the lustre and magic of life.' (Publication summary)

'From the award-winning author of House of Sticks comes a magnificent story of love, tragedy, and forgiveness lost.

'It is the winter of 1985, and 13-year-old Silver Landes is about to be pushed towards a decision that could split her world apart. Her mother, Ishtar, has fallen for the charismatic but unnerving Miller, and the three of them have moved from Brisbane to Hope Farm, a run-down hippie commune in rural Gippsland.

'Among the bedraggled residents of Hope, young Silver finds unexpected friendship and love. Has she found a home at last? Or will Ishtar's secrets force Silver into becoming an adult before she is ready, with devastating consequences?

'Hope Farm is a beautifully wrought, tender tale of what happens when love brings about unforeseen and unimaginable acts of sacrifice, and the enduring damage that can result from holding back the truth.' (Publication summary)