AustLit

'Sam and Tara. Best friends in a future when artificial intelligence organises our lives, and micropets are the latest craze. Best friends when rationing means cold showers and no internet. Best friends when genetic matching makes asking a girl on a date a minefield of epic proportions.

'But will they still be best friends in a future when plague wipes out most of humanity? Or a future when the Inquisitor asks Sam to choose one betrayal over another?' (From the publisher's website.)

'The shadow girl never imagined she'd live on the streets. After her parents disappear, life with her aunt and uncle takes a sinister turn. Terrified that the authorities will believe her uncle over her, she flees.

'She tricks her way into a new school and pretends to have a loving family. No one knows she sleeps in rail yards, sand dunes and abandoned houses. At school she meets the author she will call on years later. Together they piece together the story of how she survived, who helped her, and the friend she wishes she could have saved.' (From the publisher's website.)

'La Serenissima - a beautiful but deadly city where corrupt aristocrats rule and everything, including love, has a price.

'Tallow is anything but a simple candlemaker and when she has everything taken away from her - friends, family, hope - all she can do to survive is rely on the Maleovellis. Casting aside the safety of her disguise, she becomes cold-hearted Tarlo, female courtesan and the toast of those who, if they knew her secret, would destroy her.

'But the intrigues of the Serenissian nobility are nothing against the larger forces moving within the world.

'And Tallow's enemies have a hidden asset: the one thing they know she cannot possibly resist.' (From the publisher's website.)

'Amanda Clarke is dead.

'Her body was found floating facedown by the riverbank, and no one knows what happened. As rumours fly and fear grows, it seems that everyone suspects Lyndon, one of Amanda's friends. He's known for his temper, his cruelty and his criminal family - and now the police want to talk to him.

'It's the end of summer, 1973, the heat is enough to melt asphalt and a sleepy riverside suburb is losing some of its innocence. Fifteen-year-old Winter went to the same school and hung out in the same places as Amanda. As she finds herself alone in trying to defend Lyndon, Winter learns that you can never really know someone - and the answers she has been looking for are closer than she has ever wanted to believe.' (From the publisher's website.)

'Etienne, son of a lord in the kingdom of Armorique, goes to train as a knight with Geraint of Lucanne. Geraint is brave and kind, a good teacher and master - but he has a secret that he has kept from his family. He is bisclavret, a born werewolf. When Geraint is betrayed, Etienne must ally with the local wise-woman and her daughter, themselves bisclavret, to save his lord. But time is running out. If Geraint's enemies have their way, Geraint will soon be trapped in his wolf form.

'And Etienne has his own secret. The decisions he makes will change his life forever . ..

'Inspired by a medieval romance, this engaging novel forces us to question everything we thought we knew about werewolves.' (From the publisher's website.)

'Missie Missinger is busy growing up in a small town. When tragedy hits the community, they call it an accident. But as more accidents unfold, the frightened locals look for an answer - and find an easy target.

'Missie holds the clues to what happened. If she puts the puzzle together and confronts the truth she will be in danger. If she doesn't, an innocent youth could be blamed for another's death.' (From the publisher's website.)

'Darcy Walker is a normal 16-year-old boy but he can handle that. He can even cope with parents, deal with parties, and soldier through the occasional fight. He’s certainly got his infatuation with the beautiful Audrey under control, is clearly the best at spending quality chess-time with his nerdy best friend, Noah, and doesn’t blink an eye at the misadventures that can occur when kayaking on a school excursion. He’s a teenage boy – he can handle anything. That is, if only he’d learn to keep his mouth closed first.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'When grief strikes, you need an ally. For Mimi, that ally is Ableth, the wildly disobedient blue slave. He comes, he goes, he says and does whatever he likes, but he's always there when Mimi needs him most, offering his own brand of crooked wisdom.

'Ableth says, 'You need to learn to look under the surface of things. Look at water. It's just a great expanse of blue with little wavelets and riffs of foam. But underneath the surface are whole worlds of wonder. There are treasures and wrecks and bones . . .'

'But it's hard to look beneath the surface when your Mum is shipwrecked by despair, and you're the only one left to keep things afloat. There's a bric-a-brac shop to run, your first Christmas without a dad, and quite possibly a fugitive taking refuge in your back shed.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Twelve-and-a-half-year-old Henry Hoey Hobson is drowning in the dangerous waters of Year Seven. He arrives at his sixth school in as many years, Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, to discover that he is the only boy in the grade. The tiny school in inner-city Brisbane has lost most of its older boys to bigger Catholic colleges, leaving only a trio of male misfits a year below him, and in his year, an intimidating all-female line-up.

'Fatherless, friendless and non-Catholic, Henry earns a reputation as a vampire on his first day, when ill-fitting braces make his mouth bleed. His mum, Lydia, is no help - she's running around town, in bright red platform heels and a skirt that's too short and too tight, chasing a pot of gold at the end of a real estate rainbow. Due to a recent growth spurt, Henry towers over his tiny, doll-like mum and swings between feeling protective and angry that she has abandoned him to his fate as a Perpetual Sucker.

'To make matters worse, a pack of weirdos moves in next door. Manny, Vee, Caleb and Anders are creatures of the night. With their pale skin, black clothing and eerie coffin, they freak out the local kids. When they befriend Henry, they drive a stake through the heart of any chance he might have had of fitting in.

'Henry's only chance to redeem himself is the school swimming carnival. But first he must deal with the withdrawn and tortured Anders' attempts to overcome his own dark past and earn a place in the light, at Henry's side.

'Finally, Henry and his motley cheer squad must choose how they want to live their lives. Is living life at the margins enough for any of them?' (From the publisher's website.)

'Once, in a street not very far from yours, there lived a girl called Anonymity Jones.

'Anonymity's life is falling apart. Her father has left to have a mid-life crisis, her mother's new boyfriend is a definite worry, her Europe-bound sister has changed her name (just to make a point) and all her girl friends are now girlfriends, with boyfriends.

'And then there's the art teacher.

'Anonymity is losing control, and it's decision time. Does she hang on, get out, or get even?' (From the publisher's website.)

'On the edge of a mystical border called the Limen, close to a beautiful canal-laced city, a humble candlemaker rescues a child whom he raises as his apprentice.

'Years pass and the child's unusual talents are revealed, the gentle art of candlemaking slowly transforming into something far more sinister.

'Lingering in the shadows, enemies watch and wait - a vengeful aristocrat, an exotic queen and the lethal creatures known only as the Morte Whisperers.

'They hunger after the child's ancient magic and will do anything to control it - betray, lie, manipulate. Even murder.

'A story of intrigue, deadly magic and a love so deep it transcends life itself. (From the publisher's website.)

'Pyro Watson loves pirates, treasure and all things to do with maps and tales of long ago. When his mother goes away to nurse Nan, Pyro is left stranded in a caravan at the beach with his Aunt Mor. So Pyro calls in his alter ego, Simeon the Pirate Fighter, to pass the long evenings and longer days.

'Then Pyro meets local boy Min and his four-legged mate, Becks. Life becomes interesting - even downright dangerous - when the town bullies claim the beach as their own. Can Pyro and Min draw on Simeon’s daring to defend themselves?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'It is 1821 and the child is a loner who spends her time hiding in the Vienna Woods until she spies an old man - a music maker. And so begins an odd friendship which develops through their mutual love of music. The man is composing a new work. It will break new ground. He fears it will be ridiculed and is aware that he is thought mad. He confides in the child who sits for hours watching and listening as he revises and plays. She has a feeling for the music that he cannot fathom. And not only for the music, but for what he is. She knows his pain, his anger, his fear and also his gentleness. Together they give each other the courage to face their critics and dare to be different.

'A tale written about an old man who couldn't hear, for a child people considered strange. Yet the song will live forever in the heart and mind of every child where there's nurtured love of music.' (Publisher's blurb)