AustLit

'A gripping new Australian crime novel from the international bestseller, perfect for fans of Jane Harper, Chris Hammer, Garry Disher and Peter Papathanasio.

'A REMOTE HOTEL. FIVE GUESTS. ONE MURDER.

'A rising star of Australian crime fiction ' SUNDAY TIMES 'S. R. White is the real deal.' CHRIS HAMMER, author of SCRUBLANDS

'During a broiling heatwave, the inner circle of a high-profile charity attend a critical meeting at White Ash Ridge, a small hotel nestled in the Australian wilderness.
As the temperature rises, a body is found lying in the thick bush, bludgeoned to death. 

'One of the four remaining guests is a murderer - but who, and why, is a mystery.

'Detective Dana Russo knows the national spotlight will be sharply focused on the case.

'The charity was formed when the founders' teenage son was killed after intervening in a vicious assault - sparking public outrage and a damning verdict on the police investigation.

'But under huge pressure and with few clues - plus suspects who instinctively distrust the police - how can Dana unravel the truth?' (Publication summary)

'A faded photograph. An abandoned house. A wartime secret... From the author of The Midnight House, a mesmerising story of love, war, and a mystery that ensnares three generations, sweeping the reader from London to Tasmania and to Ireland. Perfect for fans of Kate Morton, Lucinda Riley and Natasha Lester.

'1939: On the eve of war, young English heiress Grace Grey travels from London to the wilderness of Tasmania. Coaxed out of her shell by the attentions of her Irish neighbour, Daniel - Grace finally learns to live. But when Australian forces are called to the frontline, and Daniel with them, he leaves behind a devastating secret which will forever bind them together.

'1975: Artist Willow Hawkins, and her new husband, Ben, can't believe their luck when an anonymous benefactor leaves them a house on the remote Tasmanian coast. Confused and delighted, they set out to unmask Towerhurst's previous owner - unwittingly altering the course of their lives.

'2004: Libby Andrews has always been sheltered from the truth behind her father Ben's death. When she travels to London and discovers a faded photograph a long-buried memory is unlocked, and she begins to follow an investigation that Ben could never complete. But will she realise that some secrets are best left buried . . .?' (Publication summary)

'A book of treasures. A wealth of secrets.

'The Keepsake is a thrilling dual-time novel, with a fascinating, complex woman at its heart, wealth of twists, turns and secrets, and an absolute book club treat, perfect for fans of Lucinda Riley, Rachel Rhys and Hannah Richell 

Saturday: Pot-au-feu for luncheon. Father willed away inheritance. Betrayed by Edward.

'1832. The morning after her father's funeral, Prudence Merryfield wakes to the liberating thought that this is the first day of her new life. At thirty-five and unmarried, she is now mistress of her own fate. But a cruel revelation at the reading of her father's will forces Prudence to realise that taking only the most drastic action will set her free.

'Present day. Eliza is gifted a family heirloom by her aunt - a Georgian pocket book, belonging to her ancestor, Prudence Merryfield, whose existence reverberates through the lives of generations of Eliza's family, the Ambroses. Intrigued by what she reads inside, Eliza is drawn more and more into the infamous 'Merryfield Mystery'. What happened to Prudence who so bravely dared to defy convention two hundred years ago - then disappeared?' (Publication summary)

'One outback town. Two puzzling murders. Fifty suspects.

'In Unamurra, a drought-scarred, one-pub town deep in the outback, two men are savagely murdered a month apart - their bodies elaborately arranged like angels.

'With no witnesses, no obvious motives and no apparent connections between the killings, how can lone police officer Detective Dana Russo - flown in from hundreds of kilometres away - possibly solve such a baffling, brutal case?

'Met with silence and suspicion from locals who live by their own set of rules, Dana must take over a stalled investigation with only a week to make progress.

'But with a murderer hiding in plain sight, and the parched days rapidly passing, Dana is determined to uncover the shocking secrets of this forgotten town - a place where anyone could be a killer.'  (Publication summary)

'It's 1962 and physics student Grace Pulansky believes she has met the man of her dreams, Robert Jones, while serving up slices of pecan pie at the local diner. But then the FBI shows up, with their fedoras and off-the-rack business suits, and accuses him of being a bomb-planting mass-murderer.

'Finding herself on the run with Jones across America's Southwest, the discoveries awaiting Gracie will undermine everything she knows about the universe. Her story will reveal how scores of lives - an identity-swapping rock star, a mourning lover in ancient China, Nazi hunters in pursuit of a terrible secret, a crazed artist in pre-revolutionary France, an astronaut struggling with a turbulent interplanetary future, and many more - are interconnected across space and time by love, grief, and quantum entanglement.

'Spanning continents, centuries, and dimensions, this exquisitely crafted and madly inventive novel - a triple-disk, concept-album of a book - is a profound yet propulsive enquiry into the nature of reality - the perfect immersive read for fans of David Mitchell, Emily St. John Mandel, Neil Gaiman and Margaret Atwood.' (Publication summary)

'David Chance, the unknowing offspring of a long-forgotten experiment that produced genetically engineered child geniuses, learns terrible secrets about his own conception and discovers the horrifying course that human history is taking.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'HE IS FELIMID MAC FAL, once a bard of Ireland. Now he uses his wits and his magic in the service of his lover, the most notorious pirate on the seas of ancient Britain.

'SHE IS GUDRUN BLACKHAIR, the lusty, legendary pirate chieftain who commands the sorcerous ship "Ormungandr" and numbers the shape-shifting Children of Lir among her crew.

'Together they've sailed through adventure after adventure, and never known defeat. But Gudrun's many enemies are gathering, and Odin himself will lead them into battle against her. How can a poet and a pirate hope to defeat a god?'

Source: Blurb.

'I am called Felimid mac Fal. I am a bard of the old blood, a lesser degree of Druid. Where I come from, bards have been knows to sing armies to defeat or victory and kings off their throne or on to them. Descended from the faery folk, the Tuatha de Dannann, my line's been poets and harpers in Erin since the world was new, and magic's in our heart-marrow.

'She is called Gudrun Blackhair...as well as names a good deal less polite. She is the most dangerous pirate on the open seas, master of the enchanted ship Ormungandr, and the woman of my heart. If you wish to know more than that, ask the ballad singers and gossip mongers at any tavern. Half of what you hear will be fact, half will be lies, and even I can no longer separate the two. Yet this story, perhaps the strangest of them all, of shapeshiters and sorceresses and the sea-dwelling Children of Lir, is naught but the gods' own truth...on my honor as a bard.'

Source: Blurb.