The Secret Garden Club (Wendy Lynn Newton, Macmillan)
Tuesday, 28 April 2026
Whimsical, witty and genuinely heartwarming, Wendy Lynn Newton’s The Secret Garden Club is a striking debut. When 52-year-old lapsed artist Hilary finds her husband of 30 years, newly retired engineer...
I’m Not Afraid of Spiders (Caitlin Henderson, illus Annie Henderson, CSIRO Publishing)
Tuesday, 28 April 2026
For many children, fear of spiders can get in the way of appreciating just how fascinating they really are. In I’m Not Afraid of Spiders, nature-loving sisters – award-winning wildlife...
Smoke, Rice, Water: Recipes and Stories from a Bengali Home (Kishwar Chowdhury, Hardie Grant)
Tuesday, 28 April 2026
Kishwar Chowdhury first captured national attention on MasterChef with her ambition to bring Bengali cuisine into the spotlight; Smoke, Rice, Water: Recipes and Stories from a Bengali Home is the...
A Flash in the Dust (Meg Caddy, UQP)
Tuesday, 21 April 2026
Set in Western Australia in 1899, Meg Caddy’s queer YA historical novel A Flash in the Dust follows Gilberta and Norah, who are imprisoned in Fremantle Asylum and escape into...
I Remember Everything (Fiona Wilkes, Fremantle)
Tuesday, 21 April 2026
Fiona Wilkes’s debut novel, I Remember Everything, memorialises the LGBTQIA+ communities lost to the AIDS crisis. In this fictionalised memoir, Billie recounts her formative years from 1979 to 1990, moving...
The Sisters of Serendib (Ayesha Inoon, HQ Fiction)
Tuesday, 21 April 2026
The Sisters of Serendib, the sophomore novel from Ayesha Inoon (Untethered), opens in 1990 with a flurry of events as Tamil Muslims board boats to escape the escalating violence of...
Detention (Ralph Jackman, A&U)
Tuesday, 14 April 2026
Detention is a powerful memoir about Australia’s youth detention system, told from the perspective of a rookie teacher and his fight for the rights of some of our country's most...
Song of the Shadow of a Seed (Luisa Mitchell, Fremantle)
Tuesday, 14 April 2026
For Whadjuk Nyungar writer Luisa Mitchell, seeds represent the longevity of the past and sustainability of the future. From seeds grow roots and trees, a living representation of connection to...
Cleopatra: The Girl Who Would Be King (Heroes in the Ancient World #1) (Jackie French, Angus & Robertson)
Tuesday, 14 April 2026
Bestselling author and historian Jackie French (Tigg and the Bandicoot Bushranger) tackles the question of what the Egyptian pharaoh Cleopatra was up to during her tween years in Cleopatra: The...
Over to You (Georgie Tunny, A&U)
Tuesday, 7 April 2026
In her emotionally turbulent debut, Over to You, Georgie Tunny captures the highs and lows of working in television news. The novel follows 3 friends – Carter, Naya and Greta...
Kid (Peter Carnavas, UQP)
Tuesday, 7 April 2026
Award-winning author Peter Carnavas is something of a master of timeless children’s novels full of heart and gentle lessons about life, family, grief and love. This most recent addition to...
How to Raise Rich Kids: Build Lasting Wealth for Your Children (Sarah Megginson, Pantera)
Tuesday, 7 April 2026
Sarah Megginson’s How to Raise Rich Kids is a practical and reassuring guide for parents who want to give their children a strong financial future, regardless of their current income....
A Single Witness (Christine Balint, Spinifex)
Tuesday, 31 March 2026
Christine Balint's gripping historical fiction, A Single Witness, is based on the true story of Anna Maria Bonon, a girl from a poor 1750s Italian rural village who works in a...
Every Wild Soul (Katherine Johnson, HarperCollins)
Tuesday, 31 March 2026
Eco-literature has been booming in recent years, thanks largely to writers including James Bradley, Richard Flanagan, Tim Winton, Charlotte Wood and Donna Cameron. Winner of the inaugural Australian Fiction Prize,...
Tearing Myself Together (Anna Whateley, A&U Children’s)
Tuesday, 24 March 2026
Anna Whateley’s raw, authentic representations of neurodivergent young women in Tearing Myself Together offer the kind of windows and mirrors that are still too rare in Australian young adult fiction....
The Enigmatic Echidna: Secrets of the World’s Most Curious Creature (Danielle Clode, Black Inc.)
Tuesday, 24 March 2026
In The Enigmatic Echidna: Secrets of the World’s Most Curious Creature, biologist and award-winning author Danielle Clode (Koala: A Life in Trees) draws readers into the fascinating world of one...
Silvia (Maya Caruso, Echo)
Tuesday, 24 March 2026
Midlife awakening lies at the heart of Maya Caruso’s impressive debut novel, Silvia. This character-driven novel follows 42-year-old Silvia, a divorced daughter of a widowed Italian matriarch, Silvia Senior, whose...
Once Upon Tomorrow (Karen Comer, Lothian)
Tuesday, 17 March 2026
Once Upon Tomorrow is a complex young adult verse novel by CBCA-winning author Karen Comer (Grace Notes). The novel weaves together 3 alternating perspectives: Miri, an ambitious Year 12 student...
The Ruiners (Ellena Savage, Summit)
Tuesday, 17 March 2026
Ellena Savage’s debut novel, The Ruiners, introduces a narrator suspended between self-awareness and self-sabotage: a 29-year-old waitress, working at casino-adjacent lobster shack Claws, whose life feels both theatrically doomed and...
Mantle (Romy Ash, Ultimo)
Tuesday, 17 March 2026
Romy Ash’s Mantle is a novel that settles slowly and irrevocably, like sediment. Set on a windswept Tasmanian coastline, it follows Ursula as she returns to care for her dying...
Bella Grows a Bicycle (Lellie Lopter, illus Chiara Franceschetti, Five Mile)
Tuesday, 10 March 2026
In Bella Grows a Bicycle, Lellie Lopter delivers a warm and imaginative picture book about creativity, sustainability and problem-solving. Bella dreams of owning a new bicycle, but after her dad...
The Northern Tomb (Isabelle Li, Puncher & Wattman)
Tuesday, 10 March 2026
Isabelle Li’s The Northern Tomb is a quietly powerful, deeply human novel that unfolds in 4 parts, blending personal stories with history in a way that feels both intimate and...
Phantom Days (Angela O’Keeffe, UQP)
Tuesday, 3 March 2026
“A book comes into the world knowing it is a saviour, of sorts.” So begins Phantom Days, the 3rd novel by award-winning author Angela O’Keeffe (The Sitter, Night Blue), a...
Cast Away (Francesca de Tores, Bloomsbury)
Tuesday, 3 March 2026
Award-winning author Francesca de Tores’s Cast Away is a fascinating and exquisitely detailed fictionalisation of sailor and navigator Alexander Selkirk’s 4 years marooned on a deserted island in the 1700s....
Dove (Georgia Harper, Penguin)
Tuesday, 24 February 2026
Georgia Harper’s Dove is a quiet, restrained novel with a philosophical tone and a steady undercurrent of tension. Set in a small Queensland town in 1993, the story centres on...
Crip Stories: An Anthology of Disabled Writers (ed BS Windon, Laura Pettenuzzo, Misbah Wolf & Katie Hansord, NewSouth)
Tuesday, 24 February 2026
Crip Stories: An Anthology of Disabled Writers, edited by BS Windon, Laura Pettenuzzo, Misbah Wolf and Katie Hansord, in partnership with Mascara Literary Review and with the support of Creative...
Spare Kisses (Pip Harry, illus Yiscah Marcatili, Lothian)
Tuesday, 17 February 2026
A young girl’s close and loving relationship with her grandmother is the subject of Pip Harry’s Spare Kisses. Told in gentle rhyme, the story follows Eve and her sprightly nan...
Myra in the Middle (Seetha Dodd, illus Peter Cheong, UQP)
Tuesday, 17 February 2026
Uplifting and true to life, Seetha Dodd’s Myra in the Middle is a junior novel that weaves together themes of family, identity and navigating change. Myra, a 7-year-old maths enthusiast...
Touching the Sky (Deborah Lawrie, ABC Books)
Tuesday, 17 February 2026
In Touching the Sky, aviation pioneer Deborah Lawrie recounts her remarkable life and career, from her landmark fight to become Australia’s first female commercial pilot to decades spent in the...
Redbelly Crossing (Candice Fox, Penguin)
Tuesday, 17 February 2026
Candice Fox (Crimson Lake) opens Redbelly Crossing with immediate authority: a rural pub, a blood-smeared doorknob and the uneasy sense that something deeply wrong has slipped quietly into an ordinary...
