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Super Sweet! (Kenneth & Queenie #1) (Raymond McGrath, Affirm)
Released May 2025
The first book in Raymond McGrath’s whimsical new junior graphic novel series, Kenneth & Queenie: Super Sweet! lives up to its name and includes three stories in one volume. Kenneth,... Read more
Letters to Our Robot Son (Cadance Bell, Ultimo)
Released May 2025
Letters to Our Robot Son is the fiction debut of memoirist Cadance Bell (The All of It: A Bogan Rhapsody), a mercurial science fiction novel about a robot who awakens... Read more
The Girl and the Ghost (Jacqueline Harvey, Penguin)
Released May 2025
Jacqueline Harvey, author of the best-selling Alice-Miranda and Kensy and Max books, returns with The Girl and the Ghost, the first instalment in a new fantasy-mystery middle-grade series. When 12-year-old... Read more
The Bearcat (Georgia Rose Phillips, Picador)
Released May 2025
Based on true events, The Bearcat is an ambitious, mesmeric and deeply affecting debut novel that imagines the inner life of Anne Hamilton-Byrne, a rare female cult leader who founded... Read more
Viet Kieu: Recipes Remembered from Vietnam (Thi Le, Murdoch)
Released May 2025
‘Viet Kieu’ is a Vietnamese term used for people of Vietnamese heritage who were raised and are living in the diaspora. In Viet Kieu: Recipes remembered from Vietnam, Thi Le,... Read more
Painting Portraits of Everyone I’ve Ever Dated (Joseph Earp, Pantera)
Released May 2025
Painting Portraits of Everyone I’ve Ever Dated is both surprisingly tender and hilariously acerbic, with Joseph Earp’s writing effortlessly drawing the reader in. The novel follows Ellie Robertson, an artist... Read more
Little World (Josephine Rowe, Black Inc.)
Released May 2025
Josephine Rowe’s Little World is a compact, lyrical read that feels both mythic and frighteningly current. When the perfectly preserved body of a child is brought to Western Australia, it... Read more
I Am Not an Owl (Rhonda Ooi, illus Mel Corrigan, Woodslane)
Released May 2025
A small child who does not want to have a nap is a challenge. In this charming picture book for children aged 4 and up, Alexander turns the tables on... Read more
The Surface Trials (HM Waugh, A&U Children’s)
Released May 2025
Starquest Academy is an elite school for exceptional students from around the galaxy. Notoriously difficult to enter, Starquest requires prospects to undergo a three-day televised challenge on an unknown planet.... Read more
Nightingale (Laura Elvery, UQP)
Released May 2025
Grounded in history and buoyed by Laura Elvery’s elegant, moving prose, Nightingale is a fictional reimagining of the near-mythic figure of Florence Nightingale, told in three parts. The first and... Read more
Wandering Wild (Lynette Noni, Penguin)
Released May 2025
Wandering Wild, the latest novel from Lynette Noni (The Prison Healer), is the perfect cosy romance read. The dual-perspective narrative follows Zander, a Hollywood ‘bad boy’ desperate to rebuild his... Read more
The Opposite of Lonely (Hilde Hinton, Hachette)
Released May 2025
For the past few years, Rose has felt disassociated from her own life, struggling to come to terms with the passing of her cherished father and the collapse of her... Read more
He Would Never (Holly Wainwright, Macmillan)
Released May 2025
Holly Wainwright’s fifth novel, He Would Never, is pacy, compelling and character-driven, and will hook readers from the startling first sentence. The story follows five families on their annual summer... Read more
The Remarkable Truths of Alfie Bains (Sarah Clutton, A&U)
Released May 2025
Sarah Clutton’s The Remarkable Truths of Alfie Bains is a richly woven novel that explores family dynamics, small-town life and long-buried secrets. The story follows Penny, a widowed farmer whose... Read more
Too Many Dogs (Maura Finn, illus Lucinda Gifford, Affirm)
Released May 2025
Too Many Dogs is a charming and light-hearted picture book from the creative pairing behind Too Many Cats that explores what it means to be top dog. In their new collaboration,... Read more
This Dream Will Devour Us (Emma Clancey, A&U Children’s)
Released May 2025
What if humanity developed a drug that could manipulate the elements – essentially perform magic? In This Dream Will Devour Us, debut author Emma Clancey builds a world where the... Read more
Diggers, Dozers, and Dumpers (Ole Könnecke, Gecko)
Released May 2025
Picture books about machinery are always a hit, but they don’t always deliver an engaging narrative – this one does, seamlessly blending fiction with nonfiction. Diggers, Dozers, and Dumpers, written... Read more
The Book of Guilt (Catherine Chidgey, Penguin)
Released May 2025
Welcome to an alternative version of the UK in the 1970s. In Catherine Chidgey’s The Book of Guilt, Hitler is assassinated in 1943. After a purge of senior Nazis and... Read more
Find Me at the Jaffa Gate: An Encyclopaedia of a Palestinian Family (Micaela Sahhar, NewSouth)
Released May 2025
Several generations into the Palestinian diaspora in Australia, Micaela Sahhar explores the complexities of being disconnected from her ancestral land in Find Me at the Jaffa Gate: An Encyclopaedia of... Read more
I Want Everything (Dominic Amerena, S&S)
Released May 2025
An unnamed aspiring writer leaves a Melbourne hospital and, seeking distraction, swims laps at his local pool. There, he recognises an elderly woman as Brenda Shales, one of Australia’s best... Read more
