AustLit

'A novel about the relationship between life and art, and between language and the inner world - how difficult it is to speak truly, to know and be known by another, and how much power and friction lies in the unsaid, especially between a mother and daughter.

'A young woman has arranged a holiday with her mother in Japan. They travel by train, visit galleries and churches chosen for their art and architecture, eat together in small cafes and restaurants and walk along the canals at night, on guard against the autumn rain and the prospect of snow. All the while, they talk, or seem to talk: about the weather, horoscopes, clothes and objects; about the mother's family in Hong Kong, and the daughter's own formative experiences. But uncertainties abound. How much is spoken between them, how much is thought but unspoken?

'Cold Enough for Snow is a reckoning and an elegy: with extraordinary skill, Au creates an enveloping atmosphere that expresses both the tenderness between mother and daughter, and the distance between them.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'"I remember when we lay together for the first time and I closed my eyes and felt the crackle of her dark hair between my fingers. She was all warmth and sparking light. When I was with her, my skin sighed that the centre of the world was precisely here."

'Anna is afraid she must be unlovable - until she meets Flynn. Together, the girls swim, eat banana cake, laugh and love. Some days Flynn is unreachable; other days she's at Anna's door - but when Anna discovers Flynn's secret, she wonders if she knows her at all.

'A beautifully crafted novel by award-winning author Joanne Horniman that explores the tension between the tender moments that pull people together and the secrets that push them apart.' (From the publisher's website.)

'Grace counts. The letters in her name, Grace Lisa Vandenberg (19). The steps she takes every morning to the local cafe (920); the number of poppy seeds on her slice of orange cake, which dictates the number of bites she'll take to finish it. Grace counts everything, because numbers hold the world together, and Grace needs to keep an eye on how they're doing. Seamus Joseph O'Reilly (also a 19, with the sexiest hands Grace has ever seen) thinks Grace might be better off without the counting. If she could hold down a job, say. Or leave her flat without enumerating the contents of her cupboards or make a sandwich containing an unknown number of sprouts.

Grace's problem is that Seamus doesn't count. Her other problem is ... he does.' (Publisher's blurb)

'Julia is a photographer, Chantal edits a fashion magazine, Helen is a feminist academic and Philippa is a writer. These four friends haunt the cafés of inner-city Sydney, eyeing the passing talent and swapping outlandish tales. Sexy, intelligent, predatory, they are women of their time—but can we believe their wild and wicked descriptions of their erotic exploits?' (Publication summary)