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The Hunted (Gabriel Bergmoser, HarperCollins) 

24 May 2020
On a lonely highway in outback Australia sits a solitary service station run by the equally solitary Frank, whose teenage granddaughter has been sent to stay with him for some...

Sticks and Stones (Katherine Firkin, Bantam) 

26 March 2020
Detective senior constable Emmett Corban works for Missing Persons, a department under threat of downsizing: most of the people they’re looking for don’t want to be found. When a man...

Rise & Shine (Patrick Allington, Scribe) 

26 March 2020
Patrick Allington’s second novel takes place in an allegorical dystopia following an ambiguous apocalypse.  The cities of Rise and Shine have emerged from these ashes thanks to the efforts of...

The Drop-Off (Fiona Harris & Mike McLeish, Echo) 

28 February 2020
The Drop-Off is a cheerful depiction of parenting culture, told through the alternating points-of-view of three parents and set in a middle-class primary school in the Eastern suburbs of Melbourne....

Fathoms: The world in the whale (Rebecca Giggs, Scribe) 

28 February 2020
Rebecca Giggs’ nonfiction debut is a lyrical, wide-ranging meditation on whales and their complex relationship with humanity. Meticulously researched and full of fascinating information, Fathoms is not just limited to...

Ghost Species (James Bradley, Hamish Hamilton) 

28 February 2020
James Bradley’s latest novel tells the story of Eve, a genetically engineered Neanderthal brought into life as part of a scheme for mitigating the environmental degradation of climate change. In...

Untethered (Hayley Katzen, Ventura) 

28 February 2020
In 1989 academic Hayley Katzen moved from apartheid South Africa to Australia. In Sydney she taught and worked in law and enjoyed the comparative safety and community of the city...

The Animals in That Country (Laura Jean McKay, Scribe)

3 February 2020
Laura Jean McKay’s debut novel concerns itself with the apocalypse, but an entirely different one to that fixated upon in cli-fi narratives. In McKay’s doomsday tale, humans contract a highly...

The Adversary (Ronnie Scott, Hamish Hamilton) 

3 February 2020
Ronnie Scott’s debut novel The Adversary is set during what appears to be an uneventful Melbourne summer but actually sees a lot happening to its protagonist. Languishing in emotional and...

Sheerwater (Leah Swann, HarperCollins) 

3 February 2020
Sheerwater begins when a plane falls out of the sky. The accident—a light aircraft crash-landing in a field off the Great Ocean Road—is witnessed by Ava, a young woman on...

Below Deck (Sophie Hardcastle, A&U) 

3 February 2020
In Below Deck, 21-year-old Oli gives up a high-flying internship to work on the ocean after meeting an enigmatic older couple and sailing with them to the Coral Sea. Four...

Come (Rita Therese, A&U) 

3 February 2020
Twenty-five-year-old sex worker Rita Therese’s debut memoir is dark, funny and extremely candid—but her unsanitised tales of the sex industry are not for the faint-hearted. Come invites the reader into...

The Salt Madonna (Catherine Noske, Picador) 

3 February 2020
Set on a remote fictional island off the coast of Western Australia, Catherine Noske’s debut novel grapples with questions of familial obligation, complicity, remorse and the fallibility of memory. Noske...

Small Mercies (Richard Anderson, Scribe) 

3 February 2020
Dimple and Ruthie Travers are farmers in a tough time. Drought has seen them reduce their cattle herd and hold off sowing crops. Money is tight, rain is always forecast...

Torched (Kimberley Starr, Pantera) 

3 February 2020
In Torched, the town of Brunton, Victoria is devastated by a bushfire with the force and malevolence of Black Saturday, and in turn Phoebe Wharton’s life is destroyed by the...

Almost a Mirror (Kirsten Krauth, Transit Lounge) 

3 February 2020
Kirsten Krauth’s Almost a Mirror is about the relationship between music and memory, and the unexpected directions that family and romantic life can take. Mona is in her late 30s...

Fourteen (Shannon Molloy, S&S) 

3 February 2020
Fourteen is the factual account of one year in the life of a gay high-schooler in the small central Queensland town of Yeppoon. Journalist Shannon Molloy uses clear, concise language...

The Brisbane Line (J P Powell, Xoum) 

3 February 2020
J P Powell’s debut novel—named for an alleged WWII-era government plan to abandon Northern Australia in the event of a Japanese invasion—is an exploration of tension and corruption amid the...

Desire Lines (Felicity Volk, Hachette) 

15 January 2020
Desire Lines is a heartrending love story between a man struggling to overcome the struggles of a deeply traumatic childhood and a woman who, frankly, deserves better. At a market...

Jane in Love (Rachel Givney, Michael Joseph) 

31 October 2019
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Jane Austen re-imaginings are an uneven offering. Some are brilliant; some less so. The fundamental challenges of this niche, however, remain constant: that...

Maggie’s Going Nowhere (Rose Hartley, Michael Joseph) 

31 October 2019
The eponymous character in Rose Hartley’s debut is introduced in the blurb as thoroughly relatable and a counterpart to Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag. While the comparison feels true on the surface—both...

Blueberries (Ellena Savage, Text) 

15 October 2019
Ellena Savage’s debut collection of essays, Blueberries, is a breathtaking interrogation of the self in the world; the self within structures of power and oppression. Each essay examines a memory,...