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Be Careful What You Wish For (Gemma Crisp, A&U)
Released January 2013
Brought to you by the editor of Cleo, Be Careful What You Wish For is standard chick-lit with pretty much everything you’d expect between a magazine’s glossy pages reassembled in... Read more
Elsewhere in Success (Iris Lavell, Fremantle Press)
Released February 2012
This debut novel is set in a suburb called Success; here the protagonists Harry and Louisa are floundering. This middle-aged couple are—both separately and together—coming to terms with the failures... Read more
Inheritance (Balli Kaur Jaswal, Sleepers)
Released February 2013
Told through the eyes of a Punjabi Sikh family and set in Singapore between the 1970s and the 1990s, this bold debut tells the intersecting stories of a family and... Read more
Rough Diamond (Kathryn Ledson, Michael Joseph)
Released February 2013
We first meet the hero of Rough Diamond on a dark and wet Melbourne evening. Erica Jewell literally falls over Jack Jones as he lies dying from gunshot wounds in... Read more
Strikeforce Lightning (Mark Aitken, A&U)
Released January 2013
Strikeforce Lightning is exactly what you’d expect from the title—a military/espionage thriller in the vein of fellow Australians James Phelan and David Rollins. The setting (Jordan and surrounds) and plot... Read more
High Sobriety: My Year without Booze (Jill Stark, Scribe)
Released February 2013
‘I was the binge-drinking health reporter. During the week, I wrote about Australia’s booze-soaked culture. At the weekends, I wrote myself off.’ A senior journalist with the Sunday Age, Scottish-born... Read more
A Lasting Record (Stephen Downes, HarperCollins)
Released February 2013
Alongside Rubinstein and Horowitz, William Kapell was widely considered one of the three greatest pianists of his time. Kapell died in 1953 at the age of 31 in a plane... Read more
Steve Biddulph’s Raising Girls (Steve Biddulph, Finch Publishing)
Released January 2013
Best known for his book Raising Boys, psychologist Steve Biddulph has written a companion piece, motivated in part by his belief that since the mid-2000s there has been a marked... Read more
Eerie series: Game Over and Hunter and Collector (S Carey, Puffin)
Released February 2013
Game Over and Hunter and Collector are the first two titles in a new thriller series for children aged seven and up. In Game Over, a new boy at school... Read more
Freia Lockhart’s Summer of Awful (Aimee Said, Walker Books)
Released February 2013
Freia Lockhart’s Summer of Awful is the follow-up to Aimee Said’s delightful teen novel Finding Freia Lockhart, though it can be read as a standalone title. Things are looking good... Read more
A Ring through Time (Felicity Pulman, HarperCollins)
Released February 2013
Allie feels like an outsider at her new school on Norfolk Island. There’s only one person she looks forward to seeing—the carefree, popular and handsome Noah. But things don’t get... Read more
The Romance Diaries (Jenna Austen, HarperCollins)
Released January 2013
The Romance Diaries is a fun, fast-paced and modern read for lovers of the Clueless style of Jane Austen updates. In this first book in a new series written pseudonymously... Read more
The Holiday Murders (Robert Gott, Scribe)
Released February 2013
The Holiday Murders is a new crime novel from Robert Gott, author of the ‘William Power’ crime novels as well as many children’s books. I hope it will be the first... Read more
Ruby Learns to Swim (Phillip Gwynne, illus by Tamsin Ainslie, A&U)
Released December 2012
Join Ruby (and her rubber duck) as she learns to swim. Ruby uses goggles, floaties and flippers, learning to float, kick, breathe, and finally, to swim! Phillip Gwynne is best... Read more
Blackwattle Lake (Pamela Cook, Hachette)
Released December 2012
When Eve Nicholls inherits her mother’s property after storming out many years earlier, she is not prepared for the flood of memories and how her past catches up with her... Read more
Sisters of Mercy (Caroline Overington, Bantam)
Released November 2012
Australian novelist and journalist Caroline Overington writes the kind of fiction that combines domestic drama with topical social issues. Her latest offering, Sisters of Mercy, is another taut tale of... Read more
Quintana of Charyn (Melina Marchetta, Viking)
Released October 2012
Quintana of Charyn is the third and final book in the Lumatere Chronicles, following on from the very successful Finnikin of the Rock and Froi of the Exiles. Set in... Read more
Tom and Tilly (Jedda Robaard, Walker Books)
Released January 2013
Tom and Tilly is a testament to the power of imagination. A boy and his teddy bear go on a grand adventure, sailing past a busy city guarded by fierce... Read more
Finding Mr Darcy (Amanda Hooton, Macmillan)
Released December 2012
Jane Austen seems to have had a real renaissance lately; we have seen zombies and sea monsters invade her books, and had the books pulled apart to create guides to... Read more
Cuckoo! (Fiona Roberton, Viking)
Released December 2012
Cuckoo is a little bird who doesn’t quite fit in or, more particularly, no matter how many ways he tries saying ‘cuckoo’, he cannot find anyone to understand him. So... Read more
