Cirrus@Austlit

'Some curses don’t know how to die. Over two centuries, the artists, Ahava, Alex and Angel inherit a family curse passed down aunt-to-niece through the generations. The curse goes all the way back to a village in Poland where a mad uncle sold his soul to a witch for a shot at eternity. Although the witch gave his female heirs a fifth word to transform the curse into a blessing, this has forced them into a strange ritual of desecrating their own art in order to keep it sacred, an act of self-vandalism that consumes their bodies and their minds. A ritual that cannibalises their friendships, their love affairs, their lives, the darkness always just a brush stroke away. Until one day, one year and in one city, the curse comes too close to home, and the final niece learns the true meaning of wearing your he/art on your sleeve.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Two eyes bore into him from across the room. They're not her eyes. They're the same colour and shape, but they're not her eyes.

''I see you.'

'Silas didn't have a happy childhood. Aunt Bunny made sure of that. But out of money and almost out of time, Silas and his girlfriend Rose are forced to return to his childhood home.

'Back to the darkness, back to the woods, where addiction and hedonism are disguising something much more sinister ...

'Plagued by strange, unnerving events, Silas is drawn back into the family by an ancient presence deep in the woods. It will not let him go, and neither will Bunny.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'In Casement Rise, a dusty town at the end of days, Jean is a young girl with an innocent but timeless voice that will call to all of us. The day Jean was born a mysterious force named Furnace awoke a few miles out of town that mysteriously calls people to it, never to be heard from again. Jean’s father has been called to it and so many others besides.

'The novel revolves around Jean, and her relationships both with her stern and overprotective grandmother, and the ancient evil that is Furnace. Jean’s grandmother has always kept Casement Rise safe from monsters, but in protecting Jean, she may have left it too late to teach her how to face the demons on her own, and now it’s time to grow up.

'With the lyrical cadence of The Last Unicorn and intense imagery of Wizard of Earthsea, The Stone Road is a powerful novel of hope and belonging.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Holly Anderson is a lonely girl, born with the power to materialize living beings from thin air.

'When she decides to kidnap a ‘real’ person to be her friend, schoolgirl Alex Miller becomes the target.

'But, when Alex goes missing, her close friend, James, is the only one who suspects what really happened.

'And, the further James pursues the truth, the deeper into Holly’s bizarre world he finds himself.

'Even with some of Holly’s odd creatures on their side, it is soon apparent that they won’t get out unscathed – if they get out at all.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'In 1982, two teenagers — serial killer survivor Emma Lewis and US Marshal candidate Travis Bell — are recruited by the FBI to interview convicted juvenile killers and provide insight and advice on cold cases. From the start, Emma and Travis develop a quick friendship, gaining information from juvenile murderers that even the FBI can’t crack. But when the team is called in to give advice on an active case — a serial killer who exclusively hunts teenagers — things begin to unravel. Working against the clock, they must turn to one of the country’s most notorious incarcerated murderers for help: teenage sociopath Simon Gutmunsson.

'Despite Travis’s objections, Emma becomes the conduit between Simon and the FBI team. But while Simon seems to be giving them the information they need to save lives, he’s an expert manipulator playing a very long game…and he has his sights set on Emma.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'In the freezing Antarctic waters south of Tasmania, a mountain was discovered in 1642 by the seafaring explorer Gerrit Jansz. Not just any mountain but one that Jansz estimated was an unbelievable height of twenty-five thousand meters.

'In 2016, at the foot of the unearthly mountain, a controversial and ambitious 'dream home', the Observatory, is painstakingly constructed by an eccentric billionaire - the only man to have ever reached the summit.

'Rita Gausse, estranged daughter of the architect who designed the Observatory is surprised, upon her father's death, to be invited to the isolated mansion to meet the famously reclusive owner, Walter Richman. But from the beginning, something doesn't feel right. Why is Richman so insistent that she come? What does he expect of her?

'When cataclysmic circumstances intervene to trap Rita and a handful of other guests in the Observatory, cut off from the outside world, she slowly being to learn the unsettling - and ultimately horrifying - answers.'

Source: Back cover.

'People come to The Angelsea , a rooming house near the beach, for many reasons. Some come to get some sleep, because here, you sleep like the dead. Dora arrives seeking solitude and escape from reality. Instead, she finds a place haunted by the drowned and desperate, who speak through the sleeping inhabitants. She fears sleep herself, terrified that the ghosts of her daughters will tell her "it's all your fault we're dead." At the same time, she'd give anything to hear them one more time.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.