AustLit

'On Talisman Day in the Province of Arylia, all children receive powerful objects that change their lives forever. All children except for the Wintrish servant girl Penn, that is.

'Bound to the spoiled Princess Seraphine since birth, Penn has never known her true family. While she longs to return to her own Province of Midwinter and find them, she knows that all her future holds is a lifetime of loneliness.

'But a long-forgotten evil is stirring, and destinies are about to change …

'When the Princess is kidnapped, Penn is forced to run for her life to clear her own name. With the help of some unexpected friends and a dragon with a fear of unicorns, she faces deadly peril and formidable foes. But can one ordinary Wintrish girl save the day?

'Because without a Talisman, there’s no changing your fate – is there?'  (Publication summary)

'Sabrina Falks is the golden girl; a beautiful, successful actress who is engaged to the too-good-to-be-true Edward. Her life is glamorous and seemingly perfect - apart from her recurring desire to run away. Her younger sister Mimi is funny and bright but also hopelessly lost, with no career prospects, no money, no love life and a string of disastrous mistakes in her past, all of which seem to be curiously linked.

'Returning from overseas, Mimi is forced into a reluctant reconciliation with her estranged sister when Sabrina hires Mimi to be her bridesmaid. The sisters then join forces to do battle with intrusive paparazzi, out-of-control dress designers and, occasionally, with each other ...

'Bittersweet is a meditation on marriage, celebrity culture and the bittersweet bonds of family, revealing that sometimes life has a way of escaping from even the best-laid plans ...' (Publisher's blurb)

'Now living in Melbourne, Isabelle and Dr Jack are expecting their first child. And, naturally, Isabelle is the very model of a calm Earth Mother-to-be. . .

'Or she would be if she wasn't consumed with anxiety about finding her pelvic floor, giving birth to a human-eel hybrid or the horrifying prospect of having a child named Leroy Marvin. Even worse, as Isabelle's tummy grows, so too does the distance between her and her adored Dr Jack who, it seems, has quite different priorities. . .

'But with support from a host of new mothers including her friend Fran and her sister Audrey, as well as her fellow gallerina Doug, just maybe Isabelle can make it through pregnancy and childbirth with her dignity, her relationship and some more private bits intact.

'Then again, maybe not.' (Publisher's blurb)

'Who says a modern girl can’t believe in fairytales?

'Scatty, funny and smart, Lucy is a hopeless romantic. With an unshakeable faith in happy endings, she drives her friends Meg and Chloe crazy as she tries time and again to make her best friend Tom fall in love with her.

'Then Lucy meets the man of her dreams – or so it seems – and must finally decide whether true love is fact, fiction, or something in between.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.