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As the River Runs (Stephen Scourfield, UWA Publishing)

Released February 2013

In today’s Kimberley region, water is a natural resource, a social necessity, a political advantage and a means for personal ambition. Michael Mooney is a government minister who intends to... Read more

Cat & Fiddle (Lesley Jørgensen, Scribe)

Released February 2013

Cat and Fiddle, winner of the 2011 CAL Scribe Fiction Prize for an unpublished manuscript, follows the scandals and fortunes of two connected families in rural Wiltshire. The Anglo-Bangladeshi Choudhurys... Read more

Chasing the Light (Jesse Blackadder, HarperCollins)

Released February 2013

It’s the early 1930s. Whaling is booming in Antarctic waters while the fight for dominance over the land continues. The race to become the first woman to reach Antarctica is... Read more

Fractured (Dawn Barker, Hachette)

Released March 2013

Tony and Anna Patton seem to be the perfect couple: good-looking, hard-working, happily married and new parents to gorgeous baby Jack. Six weeks after Jack is born, however, something goes... Read more

Good News, Bad News (Maggie Groff, Pan Macmillan)

Released March 2013

Set in idyllic Byron Bay, Good News, Bad News follows freelance investigative journo Scout Davis, first introduced in Mad Men, Bad Girls and the Guerilla Knitters Institute, as she uncovers... Read more

The Midnight Dress (Karen Foxlee, UQP)

Released February 2013

This suspense novel took me by surprise—not just the ending but how enjoyable it was! This is the second novel from Karen Foxlee, who won several awards for her debut... Read more

Mullumbimby (Melissa Lucashenko, UQP)

Released March 2013

When Jo Breen buys a property in the Byron Bay hinterland her motives are clear—to be closer to her ancestral land and to distance herself from city life. She has... Read more

The Rosie Project (Graeme Simsion, Text)

Released February 2013

This funny, feel-good take on Asperger’s Syndrome has been getting huge international and local buzz. It’s the story of Don Tillman, a 40-year-old professor of genetics at a Melbourne university... Read more

Birth with Confidence (Rhea Dempsey, Boathouse Press)

Released February 2013

Rhea Dempsey is a childbirth educator and one of Australia’s foremost thinkers on the topic of childbirth. In Birth with Confidence, Dempsey looks at what she calls the ‘labour-bypass era’,... Read more

Ghost Wife: A Memoir of Love and Defiance (Michelle Dicinoski, Black Inc.)

Released March 2013

In this moving memoir Australian writer Michelle Dicinoski charts her decision to marry her girlfriend Heather, and the complications that arise due to the fact that their union isn’t recognised... Read more

Love with a Chance of Drowning (Torre DeRoche, Viking)

Released March 2013

An urban 20-something Aussie girl gets on the booze in a San Francisco bar, chats up a soulful, handsome stranger, has more drinks and finds herself in his bed next... Read more

Things I Didn’t Expect (When I Was Expecting) (Monica Dux, MUP)

Released March 2013

Things I Didn’t Expect combines Monica Dux’s own bravely honest, warts-and-all pregnancy and birth stories with anecdotes, statistics and expert opinion on issues surrounding childbearing. It is sometimes very funny... Read more

Alex as Well (Alyssa Brugman, Text)

Released February 2013

Alex has spent her whole life seeing someone else—the other Alex—looking back at her from the mirror. But now things have changed. A new school, new clothes—a new Alex. However,... Read more

All This Could End (Steph Bowe, Text)

Released March 2013

I am in awe of Steph Bowe. Her second novel, All This Could End, is so confident and perceptive that it is difficult to believe its author is only 18... Read more

Definitely No Ducks (Meg McKinlay, illus by Leila Rudge, Walker Books)

Released March 2013

Mrs Melvino’s class is doing Antarctica for their special end-of-term assembly. As well as talking about it, they have built a spectacular papier mâché display. Unfortunately, the whole performance is... Read more

How to Keep a Boy from Kissing You (Tara Eglington, HarperCollins)

Released February 2013

Despite claiming to be an expert on matters of the heart, Aurora has never actually been kissed. She is determined her first kiss won’t be with any old guy (or... Read more

Life in Outer Space (Melissa Keil, Hardie Grant Egmont)

Released February 2013

Sam Kinnison isn’t having the ideal high school experience. While he has good friends and gets good marks, he is also on the receiving end of many a practical joke.... Read more

New Guinea Moon (Kate Constable, A&U)

Released March 2013

Kate Constable’s latest novel has much in common with her CBCA award-winner Crow Country, but unfortunately fails to meet the same high standard. Set in 1974, the novel follows 16-year-old... Read more

When We Wake (Karen Healey, A&U)

Released February 2013

Award-winning New Zealand writer Karen Healey’s third YA novel, When We Wake, is a taut drama set in an unnervingly realistic future world of rising oceans, growing populations, and dwindling... Read more

Bay of Fires (Poppy Gee, Hachette)

Released February 2013

Murdered girls washed up on picture-postcard Tassie beaches. You could joke about not telling Tourism Tasmania, but sadly this novel takes some of its inspiration from real events, specifically, the... Read more