AustLit

'Penny Drummond aspires to be a journalist. A good one. A Pulitzer prize-winning journalist. In the meantime, she's honing her journalistic skills on the East Glendale Secondary College Gazette. When she discovers a boy at her school is posting anonymous messages on loveshy.com, Penny believes she has found just the story that will help make her name. Her mission: find him, fix him, feature-article him. Next stop: Pulitzer Prize.

'But what will become of her "journey of the soul" article if the love-shy boy is not who she expects? And what happens when Penny finds that her soul might be in need of a little attention as well?

'Love-Shy is a lively, entertaining and warm-hearted romantic comedy filled with serious secrets, ambitious plans, awkward moments and unexpected friendships - funny and engaging to the very last page.' (From the publisher's website.)

'The pink jumper was practically glowing in my grey bedroom. It was like a tiny bit of Dorothy's Oz in boring old black-and-white Kansas. Pink was for girls.

'Ava Simpson is trying on a whole new image. Stripping the black dye from her hair, she heads off to the Billy Hughes School for Academic Excellence, leaving her uber-cool girlfriend, Chloe, behind.

'Ava is quickly taken under the wing of perky, popular Alexis who insists that: a) she's a perfect match for handsome Ethan; and b) she absolutely must audition for the school musical.

'But while she's busy trying to fit in - with Chloe, with Alexis and her Pastel friends, even with the misfits in the stage crew - Ava fails to notice that her shiny reinvented life is far more fragile than she imagined.' (From the publisher's website.)

'Late on a hot summer night in the tail end of 1965, Charlie Bucktin, a precocious and bookish boy of thirteen, is startled by an urgent knock on the window of his sleep-out. His visitor is Jasper Jones, an outcast in the regional mining town of Corrigan. Rebellious, mixed-race and solitary, Jasper is a distant figure of danger and intrigue for Charlie. So when Jasper begs for his help, Charlie eagerly steals into the night by his side, terribly afraid but desperate to impress.

'Jasper takes him through town and to his secret glade in the bush, and it's here that Charlie bears witness to Jasper's horrible discovery. With his secret like a brick in his belly, Charlie is pushed and pulled by a town closing in on itself in fear and suspicion as he locks horns with his tempestuous mother; falls nervously in love and battles to keep a lid on his zealous best friend, Jeffrey Lu.

'And in vainly attempting to restore the parts that have been shaken loose, Charlie learns to discern the truth from the myth, and why white lies creep like a curse. In the simmering summer where everything changes, Charlie learns why the truth of things is so hard to know, and even harder to hold in his heart.' (Publisher's blurb)

'Adam discovers a body buried in a silage pit. Is it one of the teenage girls who went missing from Falcon Ridge six years ago?

'And where is the author of the diary Adam finds in the old farmhouse? Some locals are willing to do anything to get their hands on the missing pages. Will Adam be able to piece together the mystery in time to save himself?

'Murderer's Thumb is a novel about what happens when outsiders uncover secrets that have been hidden for too long.' (Publisher's blurb)