'George hasn’t heard from his ex, Paloma, since she returned to her family home on Songbird Island in the Whitsundays. Now she’s asking for his help to uncover the mystery of who is stealing the family’s wealth, but what they discover is much worse than a case of fraud.

'With luscious prose and a sumptuous setting, Lana Guineay’s debut novella is a brilliant reworking of the classic crime novel.' (Publication summary)

'5 things you need to know about this book

1. It is written in lists

2. Set in Western Sydney

3. Features a dysfunctional narrator

4. Who is fixated on stories of missing children

5. Though she's not entirely sure why

As her world falls apart, will she be able to put the pieces together?' (Publication summary)

'In a tiny book-lined office backing onto a supermarket in a small town in northern New South Wales, a woman named Acker sits smoking a cigarette and listening to the music of Philip Glass. Others come to her with their stories of violence and pain and through her writing she attempts to salvage what they have lost. A Second Life immerses the reader in a world that is both familiar and forbidding. It unfolds with horror and beauty to reveal a complicated and unforgettable portrait of a woman who moves through this world carrying secret histories, different ways of seeing, and many stories. 

'With a narrative voice that is at once eerily beautiful and slightly wild, and a premise that is surreal and ambitious, A Second Life stood out to me immediately. It's an exploration of the self and life and death, all of which comprise the psychological fabric of the main character, who occupies many selves and sometimes none at all.' (Publication summary)

'Sparked by the description of a 'Malay trollope' in W. Somerset Maugham's story, The Four Dutchmen, Mirandi Riwoe's novella, The Fish Girl tells of an Indonesian girl whose life is changed irrevocably when she moves from a small fishing village to work in the house of a Dutch merchant. There she finds both hardship and tenderness as her traditional past and colonial present collide.

'Told with an exquisitely restrained voice and coloured with lush description, this moving book will stay with you long after the last page.' (Publication summary)

'Populate and Perish is the story of Nick, a young man in Melbourne, and his sister Amira who travel to Lebanon after the death of their mother looking for their estranged father – neither is prepared for what they find.'

Source: Seizure (http://seizureonline.com/and-the-winners-are/). (Sighted: 03/03/2016)

'The birch is a quiet tree. It listens.

'Eight-year-old James and his family live in a beautiful house perched on the edge of a forest, within the curve of a giant glass dome. They circle each other like fish in a fishbowl. Aquila - James's philandering father and renowned artist - prepares to unveil his latest and most shocking work to the world. Suzanne, James's mother, medicates herself against a rising tide of loneliness and memory. James seeks refuge from the adult world in his drawings and dreams.

'But when James's sister, Charity, returns home, she brings with her a visitor who will shake their fragile order to its foundations.

'Atmospheric and poetic, The Bonobo's Dream is speculative fiction at its finest, probing the limits of what it means to be human in a world spun from myths and castles in the air.' (Publication summary)

'Determined to discover the truth about the disappearance of her partner, Nick, Ana sets out to re-trace the route he took as a photojournalist on the other side of the world - a journey that saw him presumed dead, on a ship wrecked off the coast of Italy. But Ana doesn't believe Nick is dead. In his photos, in the messages her memories of him seem to carry, and in her growing suspicion about his own need to disappear, she is increasingly sure he is alive somewhere. As she tracks his journey, she begins to witness the world that Nick saw through his camera - a world in which disappearance is not unexpected. ' (Publication summary)

'Lives turned upside down by a bureaucratic error in this Kafkaesque work of neo-absurdism. 'Original, intelligent and compelling - a rare combination. Formaldehyde pulls off a complex narrative with frequent time and point-of-view shifts without ever losing the reader. For a vella that borders on the Kafkaesque, it has a good deal of heart. The interconnecting stories are handled adroitly - the clever structure never gets in the way of the writing, which is sharply observed, assured and witty. Smart but never showy. The most original vel I've read for some time.' - Graeme Simsion 'Immerse yourself in Jane Rawson's Formaldehyde if you like the seriously weird or the creepily wonderful. This story has small but persistent claws; under cover of its smooth, conversational narration you will be clasped and dragged into some tough, strange places. Let it take you there. Let it blow your tiny mind.' - Margo Lanagan 'Skipping across different times and genres, Formaldehyde is a wonderfully strange and inventive story of love, loss and severed limbs.' - Ryan O'Neill' (Publication summary)

'A sharp-edged semi-futuristic riff about a rebellious teenager’s last week at an industrial orphanage.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'From Rio to Oostend to Amsterdam and beyond, a troupe of acrobats travel the world, performing miracles in the air, enthralling audiences. In between gigs, they drink, play and taunt each other. They get bored. They get up to no good. Then they jump on a plane to do it all again somewhere else.

'Sideshow is an hilarious and rollicking take on the thrill and drudgery of a life on the road and on what it takes to perform day after day after day …'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'When Luke is implicated in the tragic death of a child, he struggles to assert his innocence to those around him. While the accident invokes haunting memories of Luke's late brother, who died when they were children, he strives to maintain a grip on reality as his relationships begin to unravel.

'Set in contemporary suburbia, The Neighbour is an astute psychological drama that offers a powerful and literary meditation on the nature of guilt and responsibility.' (Publication summary)

'This book tells the story of Kim, a 16 year old psychic hired by the Vietnamese government to reunite the remains of the dead with their descendants. This is a delicate meditation on the nature of ghosts, belief and how the future is shaped by the past.' (Publisher's summary)

'With the death of her mother, eleven-year-old Abigail must learn to fend for herself against the cruel stewardship of her father. At war with the local

Aboriginals and intent on staking his claim on the land at any cost, what occurs between the two is a stunning powerplay that exposes the limits of the human imagination.

'Inhabiting the speculative peripheries of the historical record, Blood and Bone is an uncompromising exploration of Australia’s dark history and its legacy.' (Publication summary)

'When Jessica, a recently divorced mental-health carer, meets her new patient, Eloise, their lives quickly become entangled. The boundaries of their roles begin to dissolve and questions from the past are uncovered, revealing the fractured histories that brought them together.'

Source: Seizure (http://seizureonline.com/shop/midnight-blue-and-endlessly-tall/). (Sighted: 12/6/2013)