AustLit

'When you are heading towards 40 and people start to notice you a little bit less, what do you do with your new powers of invisibility?

'Audrey Mendes is a clever lawyer but has never made partner. Her weeks are filled with long hours in the office, visits to her ageing parents, trivia nights at the local and evenings at home with her pet rabbit, Joni.

'When Audrey tries to buy wine at the pub she is ignored and walks out without paying. One thing leads to another, and soon she starts rebelling in small and creative ways against a world in which she is unseen - until a painful reminder from her childhood pushes her into a reckoning.

'All the while there's a potential romance and an eccentric new neighbour to deal with. And why does Audrey buy extravagant baby clothes when she doesn't have a child?

'Wry, humorous and provocative, this is an affectionate novel about sorting out the past, grabbing onto life and claiming your place in it.' (Publication summary)

'Look who’s back in hot water! The highly anticipated new novel in The Tea Ladies mystery series, a runaway bestseller of the year. Ideal for fans of Richard Osman and Bonnie Garmus.

'In ZigZag Lane, in the heart of Sydney’s rag-trade district, tea ladies Hazel, Betty and Irene find themselves in hot water. Having already solved a murder, kidnapping and arson case, and outwitting an arch criminal, they have proved themselves a useful resource and earned the respect of a local police officer. Now he needs their help to solve a plot that threatens security.
As if that’s not enough, Irene gets a coded message directing her to the spoils of a bank robbery, which sends the tea ladies on a treasure hunt with an unexpected outcome.

'There’s also trouble brewing within the walls of Empire Fashionwear, where an interloper threatens not just Hazel’s job but the very role of tea lady. It’s up to Hazel to convince her friends to abandon their trolleys and take action to save their livelihoods – before it’s too late.' (Publication summary)

'A charming, nostalgic, quirky, uplifting novel of people young and old finding their tribe, gaining courage to be themselves and perhaps falling in love, too.

'Librarian Phoebe Cotton lives with misophonia. The sound of other people crunching an apple, slurping their tea or snapping chewing gum fills her with a rage that she buries deep within.

'Mortified by her 'Not Quite Right' brain, she hides away inside 6 Salmon Street, the family home that her formidable grandmother Dorothy has abandoned for a more convivial life at the Western Retreat Retirement Village. But when Phoebe begins receiving mysterious postcards in the mail, she slowly, but surely, finds herself being pulled back out into the world and towards Monty, the sweet postal clerk.

'Across town, Suze, a university student with a high distinction in study avoidance, is clinging to the hope that the neglectful J might actually be her boyfriend. When J's attention turns to Ky and her (un)art ways, it sets Suze on a path that leads her to 6 Salmon Street and Phoebe Cotton.

'Together, Phoebe, Suze and Monty go on a mission to solve the mystery of the postcards but end up finding much, much more, including acceptance, strength and love . . . maybe even for her grandmother Dorothy.' (Publication summary)

'Son of the renowned Sydney obstetrician, Dr William McBride, who raised the alarm on the anti-nausea drug thalidomide in the 1960s and was later struck off the medical register for falsifying research results in a bid to challenge the safety of another drug. David chose to study Law, firstly at Sydney University and then at Oxford. There he met some British army officers and decided that soldiering was his calling, going on to train at Sandhurst. He commanded a platoon in Northern Ireland while bomb and sniper attacks on British soldiers were still happening.

'In civilian life he worked in security protecting diplomats, journalists and businesspeople in Rwanda in the immediate aftermath of the 1994 genocide and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

'After growing tired of the travel and the action, David returned to England, where he worked in reality TV. On moving back to Sydney, he briefly joined a major law firm and then joined the Australian Army as a lawyer, going on to serve two tours of duty in Afghanistan, on the frontline confirming or denying decisions made by soldiers under international laws. He was medically discharged with PTSD in 2017.

'In 2018, he was charged with offences relating to national security and is awaiting trial.

'David was reregistered to practise law in NSW in 2022 and spends a bit of time defending those facing charges. Crammed with colour, adventure, achievements and some diversions, too David McBride leads a big life.' (Publication summary)

'This is the part in the story where someone I love would only appear again in flashbacks.

'The daughter of Cambodian refugees, Ai grew up in the small Australian town of Whitlam populated by Asian immigrants who once fled war-torn countries to rebuild their shattered lives. It is now the late '90s and despite their parents' harrowing past, Ai and her tightknit group of school friends lead seemingly ordinary lives, far removed from the unimaginable horrors suffered by their parents.

'But that carefree innocence is shattered in their last year of school when an incident involving Ai and her friends spirals into senseless violence, leaving behind a trail of unresolved trauma. Years later, Ai is compelled to look back on the tragedy that shaped her adolescence, to examine the role she may have unwittingly played.' (Publication summary)

'Part biography, part forensic jigsaw puzzle, part cold-case detective investigation, The Eagle in the Mirror is the astonishing untold story of an Australian-born intelligence officer accused by some espionage experts of being the traitor of the century: Charles Howard 'Dick' Ellis.

'The longest serving spy for the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Ellis helped set up the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), now known as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as well as the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS). At one point in the 1940s he was considered one of the top three secret agents in MI6 and controlled its activities, as one journalist put it, ‘for half the world’.

'But in the 1980s journalist Chapman Pincher and retired MI5 intelligence officer Peter 'Spycatcher' Wright posthumously accused Ellis of having operated as a ‘triple agent’ for Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. In 1965, while under interrogation in London, Ellis had allegedly made a partial confession that he had worked for the Nazis. The scope of Ellis’s purported betrayal was considered even worse than notorious British traitor and double agent Kim Philby.

'However, Pincher’s and Wright’s accusations against Ellis have never been comprehensively proven. Was Ellis guilty or was an innocent man framed? By confessing did he take the fall for someone else? Or had the intelligence agencies of the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia been fatally compromised by a ‘super mole’?

'Internationally bestselling author Jesse Fink attempts to find out the truth once and for all. The Eagle in the Mirror is not just a long-overdue biography of the unheralded Dick Ellis; it’s a gripping real-life international whodunit.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'If we seal off the past, how will we ever know the truth?

'In 1942, in Nazi-occupied Poland, a Jewish child was smuggled out of the Warsaw ghetto in a backpack. That child was Karen Kirsten’s mother, but she knew nothing about this extraordinary event until one day a letter arrived from a stranger.

'After Karen eventually discovered the grandparents she loved dearly were in fact not her biological grandparents, she travelled the globe to uncover her family’s past and to find the answers to baffling questions: why did her adoptive grandmother treat Karen’s mother so unkindly? Why did she hide the truth that she was her mother’s aunt? And why, if she appeared to dislike Karen’s mother, did she risk her life to save her and bring her to Australia?

'Irena’s Gift weaves together a mystery, history and memoir to tell the story of a family torn apart by war. From the glittering concert halls of interbellum Warsaw to the vermin-infested prison where a Jewish woman negotiates with an SS officer to save her sister’s child, Irena’s Gift is about the lies we tell to survive and what happens when those lies unravel. It is about the extraordinary resilience of three generations of women, and the sacrifices made for love.' (Publication summary)

'There are few more moving experiences than for the silenced to be heard.

'Chrissie Foster is the mother who brought the rich and powerful Catholic Church to its knees over its global abuse of children, including two of her daughters, Emma and Katie. Like the Boston Globe's Spotlight team, she built an undeniable case in her first book Hell on the Way to Heaven, which helped inspire Australian governments to hold world-leading inquiries.

'This is what happened next.

'Grieving the death of Emma and the catastrophic accident that left Katie largely using a wheelchair and unable to care for herself, and bullied by the Catholic Church, Chrissie Foster somehow found the strength to win and bring about changes in child safety that she hopes will last forever. From regional Australia all the way to Rome, her tenacity and bravery to see justice delivered is unequalled. In this confronting account she explains the incredible battle she fought together with her husband, Anthony, and how she found the strength to continue even after his tragic and untimely death.

'Her ongoing activism inspires others to challenge once-powerful male-dominated institutions. In the face of horrifying adversity, Chrissie Foster has come through it to a place of peace.' (Publication summary) 

'A big-hearted and life-affirming novel that turns the normally taboo subject of death into a reason to celebrate life!

'The Collected Regrets of Clover is the burst of hopefulness we need right now. A sparkling debut novel from Australian Mikki Brammer, which reminds us all to live our best life with fewer regrets.

'In her work as a 'death doula', Clover Brooks ushers people peacefully through their last days, collecting their final words into three notebooks- ADVICE, CONFESSIONS and REGRETS.

'But Clover spends so much time with the dying that she's forgotten how to live . . .

'Can her clients' hard-won wisdom - and the inspiring love story of a spirited old woman named Claudia - show Clover the way to a happy ending?

'After all, what's the point of giving someone a beautiful death if you can't give yourself a beautiful life?' (Publication summary)

(Publication summary)

'A rock n roll memoir of life, death and growing up with the occasional scandal.

'For a man who has been firmly in the public eye for the past decade or more, Matt Preston has been very, very quiet about his past and private life. There are reasons for this.

'Now, in Big Mouth, Matt opens up about his early years for the first time – the good and the bad, the tragic and the ecstatic. Like the man himself, it’s a story that’s joyous, funny and larger than life. It’s also, perhaps unexpectedly, filled with pathos and emotional depth, set to a pulsating 1980s soundtrack.

'From his fractured childhood and the tragic death of his younger brother, to adoption, heroin, his disastrous time in the British Army and relocating to the other side of the world – where he would eventually find love and success – Matt writes frankly about it all.

'Naturally, food weaves its way through his story at every turn. His most memorable food experiences, from the exquisite and the excellent to the dreary and the dreadful, form the backdrop of a life well (and not so well) lived.

'This is a fresh, exciting, gloriously eccentric memoir from one of the food world’s most beloved bon vivants.' (Publication summary)

'The long-awaited memoir of the late Bryce Courtenay – Australia’s bestselling author – as told by his wife, Christine Courtenay.

'When Christine Courtenay began penning her own life story in lockdown last year, she found herself increasingly drawn into the story of her late husband and bestselling author Bryce Courtenay. The manuscript that evolved is the memoir his readers have longed for, and is the first biographical work of one of Australia's most beloved authors.

'Bryce Courtenay was a figure larger than life, and his extraordinary, adventurous, rags-to-riches life story reads like one of his epic fictions – and indeed characters, places, episodes and themes have made their way into his novels. He was born in South Africa, an illegitimate son to Maud Jessamine Greer, who gave him the name ‘Courtenay’, and spent his challenging childhood in a number of small African towns. He was later schooled at an exclusive boarding school in Johannesburg, and worked the dangerous mines of Rhodesia in the fifties to pay his way to journalism school in London, where he met his first wife Benita Solomon. Bryce followed Benita home to Sydney, where they married and raised three sons.

'He embarked on a career in advertising, first as a copywriter, that spanned 34 years, and was Creative Director at McCann Erikson, J.Walter Thompson and George Patterson before following his childhood dream to become a novelist. The Power of One was published in 1989, and quickly became an international bestseller. Bryce went on to write another twenty bestsellers, and can only be described as an Australian publishing phenomenon. Bryce and Benita parted ways in 1999. Bryce engaged Christine Gee as his publicist in 1997. She became his partner in 2005, and they married in 2011. Bryce passed away on 22 November 2012, ten days after the publication of his last book, Jack of Diamonds.

'Bryce Courtenay: Storyteller is a personal memoir and tribute, featuring untold stories, original insights, extracts from his personal letters and previously unpublished photographs – from the woman who knew and loved him dearly.' (Publication summary)

'It’s 2016. Lance Alcocke, sole heir to an iron ore fortune, forty-ish bachelor, has just lost control of his life’s work. His newly opened mine, Madeleine’s Monster, named after his pioneering, iron-fisted grandmother, was supposed to be a workers’ paradise in the Pilbara. But the Monster can’t cover its costs and Lance’s Korean financiers are trying to steal his company out from under him. They’ve appointed administrators to APC Minerals, and Lance’s 1200 workers have lost their jobs.

'Among those newly unemployed when the Monster goes under is young engineer Will Fulbright. Will’s downhill slide has been gathering pace for some time. His formerly lovedup girlfriend, Justine Jamison, director of the refugee advocacy group Free All Refugee Children! (FARC!) and lefty girl about town, doesn’t seem to like him much anymore. Will has no income, not many prospects, a slightly out of control drug problem, and finds himself back on his mother’s couch in Fairfield. Meanwhile, out on the Bronte Cutting, Will’s old employer, Lance Alcocke, and Will’s girlfriend Justine are on a personal collision course of their own.

'This is a novel of our times. It is about money, class, race, privilege, families, friends, lovers, duplicity and corruption . . . and whether it’s possible for anyone to get what they deserve any more.'  (Publication summary)

'The long-awaited memoir of one of AFL’s hardest players and most respected behind-the-scenes coaches.

'‘You’ve got to have that madness in your mind to win, win, win. You’ve got to have that somewhere, but it can’t consume you.’

'This story begins in infamy. Everyone’s first glimpse of the man is of ferocious blows struck in grand finals, his name splashed in headlines across the back pages of the tabloids. It’s the 1970s, it’s Richmond: kill or be killed.

'There was a time when almost every football watcher who heard Neil Balme’s name would react with disapproval. My God, what a bruiser . . . A dangerous fellow . . . And those who knew him would quickly deny these accusations. He’s not a brute, you know, he’s a thinker . . . A mild-mannered bloke, easygoing. The great paradox of Balme is the violence and the pacifism, the mayhem and the calm, the rough justice and the gentleness. He’s a cold-blooded thug; he’s a soft-hearted healer; he’s a villain and a hero.

'Balme is unique in having spent longer than anyone else in clubland. Richmond, Norwood, Melbourne, Collingwood, Geelong and Richmond again – over fifty years. He’s seen and created limitless change in those decades. So how did Neil Balme go from being the infamous on-field enforcer of the 1970s to the avuncular guru the football world knows and loves today?

'After eleven premierships, an aura surrounds the man. Get Balme to your club and premierships will follow. What has he to tell us of football, of the high times and the low, of the champs and the egos? Of Royce and GR, of Diamond Joe, of Eddie and Mick, of Bomber, of Dimma? And of life and the human heart?

'Balme’s tale is, unsurprisingly, a mix of hard truth and unerring compassion.' (Publication summary)

'A gothic thriller exploring rural Australia’s simultaneous celebration of harsh country and stoic people – a tension that forces its inhabitants to dangerous breaking points.

'On a remote property in western NSW, nine-year-old Parker fears that something is wrong with his brain. His desperate attempts to control this internal chaos spark a series of events that gallop from his control in deadly and devastating ways.

'Years later, Parker, now a father himself, returns to the bushland he grew up in for a camping trip with old friends. When this reunion descends into chaos amid revelations of unresolved fear, guilt and violence, Parker must finally address the consequences of his childhood actions.'  (Publication summary)

'The unforgettable memoir that redefines ‘she’ll be right’.

'What’s it like to grow up in an Aussie family that has a man of every flavour? A bank robber, an infamous sports umpire, several different breeds of drug addict (collect the whole set!), a roster of crafty swindlers, an attempted murderer and the local town drunk. And what if you had a secret so ghastly that you feared it made you more disgraceful than all of your roguish ancestors combined?

'Seven years ago, Ben was a millennial with a death wish. He was loveless, overweight, crashing in his parents’ rumpus room and blinking his life away in a haze of marijuana vape. Then one day Ben decided to change everything – starting with the Ben bit. Becoming Cadance was more than a gender transition: it was a transition in every way, fear to acceptance, from self-loathing to love, anger to kindness. She was determined to experience the all of it.

'Written with dazzling creativity and exuberance, The All of It is a wild coming-of-gender memoir like no other. Tender, tragic, hilarious and life-affirming, it will leave you understanding a little more about trans people, rural Australia, family, millennials and the beautiful contradictions of our kaleidoscopic world.' (Publication summary)