AustLit

'Artist Emma (aka Cloudy) and musician River have a relationship built on openness, freedom and fluidity, but the challenges of loving more than one person are put to the test when they move in together. When Emma is commissioned to exhibit at the gallery of her other lover, Zara, she chooses to focus the show on her relationship with River, exploring the timeless bond they share, the messy situations they find themselves in, the joy and the pain of their boundary pushing relationship. As Emma’s opening night approaches, River is offered a gig that could put him on the map, but at the cost of missing Emma’s show. Cloudy River asks whether you can truly be there for each other in an open relationship whilst pursuing the individual freedoms the relationship is founded on.'

Source: SBS on Demand.

Note: SBS on Demand does not use the term, but other sources identify Emma/Cloudy as pansexual.

'Twenty-one-year-old Olivia hears the world in colour, but her life is mottled grey. Estranged from her parents, and living with her grandfather who is drowning in sadness, Oli faces the reality of life beyond university alone. When she wakes on a boat with no recollection of how she got there, she accepts the help of two strangers who change the course of her future forever. With Mac and Maggie, Oli learns to navigate a life upon open ocean and the world flowers into colours she's never seen before.

'Four years later, Oli, fluent in the language of the sea, is the only woman among men on a yacht delivery from Noumea to Auckland. In the darkness below deck, she learns that at sea, no one can hear you scream.

'Moving to London, Oli's life at sea is buried. When she meets Hugo, the wind changes, and her memories are dust blown into shapes. Reminding her of everything. Below Deck is about the moments that haunt us, the moments that fan out like ripples through the deep. So that everything else becomes everything after.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'If you love stories by John Green, Rainbow Rowell or Melina Marchetta you will love this story.

'Nineteen minutes and eleven seconds separated us at birth. On the official documentation, he is older . . . Although it really has nothing to do with age. What it really means is that I am, and have always been, second.

'Ben and Grace Walker are twins. Growing up in a sleepy coastal town it was inevitable they'd surf. Always close, they hung out more than most brothers and sisters, surfing together for hours as the sun melted into the sea. At seventeen, Ben is a rising surf star, the golden son and the boy all the girls fall in love with. Beside him, Grace feels like she is a mere reflection of his light. In their last year of school, the world beckons, full of possibility. For Grace, finishing exams and kissing Harley Matthews is just the beginning.

'Then, one day, the unthinkable. The sun sets at noon and suddenly everything that was safe and predictable is lost. And everything unravels.

'Breathing Under Water is a lyrical and emotionally powerful novel about life, death and learning to breathe in between.' (Publication summary)

'From a talented emerging Australian writer, a brave, honest, unforgettable memoir about mental illness that breaks the silence and shatters the taboos to give hope to all those struggling to find their way through.

''When I was eleven years old Mum told me, "One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name." Even before I heard these words I was always a child who crammed intense joy into tiny pockets of time.'

'One day Sophie Hardcastle realised the joy she'd always known had disappeared. She was constantly tired, with no energy, no motivation and no sense of enjoyment for surfing, friends, conversations, movies, parties, family - for anything. Her hours became empty. And then, the month before she turned seventeen, that emptiness filled with an intense, unbearable sadness that made her scream and tear at her skin. Misdiagnosed with chronic fatigue, then major depression, then temporal lobe epilepsy, she was finally told - three years, two suicide attempts and five hospital admissions later - that she had Bipolar 1 Disorder.

'In this honest and beautifully told memoir, Sophie lays bare her story of mental illness - of a teenage girl using drugs, alcohol and sex in an attempt to fix herself; of her family's anguish and her loss of self. It is a brave and hopeful story of adaptation, learning to accept and of ultimately realising that no matter how deep you have sunk, the surface is always within reach.

'Running Like China shatters the silence and smashes the taboos around mental illness. It is an unforgettable story. ' (Publication summary)