'From award-winning, young adult author Amra Pajalic comes a friends to lovers, YA stand-alone romance novella

'Noah and Zephyra have been best friends since they started high school. Zephyra thinks of Noah as a brother. Noah thinks Zephyra is the one.

'Zephyra’s only interest in romance is between the covers of her favourite romance novels. Noah believes now that they’re sixteen it’s just a matter of time until their friendship becomes a relationship.

'When they are completing a one week bike marathon their friendship hits some unexpected speed bumps. Will their friendship turn into something more or will they crash?

'If you love slow burn romance with forced proximity, and a zero to hero makeover, you'll love The Climb, a young adult contemporary romance.'(Publication summary)

'From award-winning young adult author Amra Pajalic comes a #ownvoices coming of age YA novel for fans of Melina Marchetta and John Green.

'Alma’s perfect family is fractured when her father finds out he has a long-lost daughter from his first marriage. When his overtures are rebuffed, it’s up to Alma to bring her new-found sister, Sabiha, into the family fold.

'Now Alma is caught between family loyalties: her feuding parents, the brother she grew up with and the sister she just met, the new friends she made who are conflicted in their loyalties between her and Sabiha. Can Alma maintain the role of the perfect daughter and find a way to navigate the competing loyalties in her life?

'Alma’s Loyalty is the second in the Sassy Saints Series for fans of fake friendships, secret boyfriends, long-lost relatives, and fierce and funny girls.' (Publication summary)

'Sabiha and her mother Bahra are more than mother and daughter, they’re best friends. It’s been them against the world, with Sabiha being her mother’s carer and confidante during her periodic bipolar breakdowns.

'When their extended family comes to Australia, Bahra becomes a Born-Again-Muslim to impress them, and expects Sabiha to step in line as the perfect daughter. Can Sabiha play the part of the good daughter so that her mentally ill mother is accepted back into the Bosnian community?

'Sabiha’s Dilemma is the first in the Sassy Saints Series for fans of fake friendships, love triangles, loners and outcasts who are searching for belonging, and fierce and funny girls.' (Publication summary)

'Seka and her brother forage for books in a bombed-out school in Srebrenica during the Balkan war.' 

'Award-winning author Amra Pajalic showcases her gritty, poignant and sometimes bruising voice in this eclectic short story book of previously published and prize-winning stories. Featuring powerful and moving stories of family dissolution, deprivation of war, tenderness of family and the heart-rending experiences of mental illness. Thriller stories with a twist of vindictiveness and retribution, and love stories that make the heart sing, this collection will delight and entertain. ' (Publication summary)    

'Flock: First Nations Stories Then and Now, edited by Ellen van Neerven, is a collection of previously published short stories showcasing the talents of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers spanning the past 25 years. In the introduction van Neerven notes that the title Flock is carefully chosen, in part, as an acknowledgement to an Aboriginal literary giant, Kerry Reed Gilbert, who nurtured writers through the First Nations Australian Writers Network, which she co-founded and chaired.  ‘We all have our own pair of beautiful wings,’ writes van Neerven, ‘but we fly together in formation. Together we are stronger. We flock together.’ This is what the collection exemplifies, the unification of Indigenous stories, of reclaiming identity, stories and culture.'  (Introduction)

'When she is four years old Amra Pajalić realises that her mother is different. Fatima is loving but sometimes hears strange voices that tell her to do bizarre things. She is frequently sent to hospital and Amra and her brother are passed around to family friends and foster homes, and for a time live with their grandparents in Bosnia.

At sixteen Amra ends up in the school counsellor's office for wagging school. She finally learns the name for the malady that has dogged her mother and affected her own life: bipolar disorder. Amra becomes her mother's confidante and learns the extraordinary story of her life: when she was fifteen years old Fatima visited family friends only to find herself in an arranged marriage. At sixteen she was a migrant, a mother, and mental patient.

Surprisingly funny, Things Nobody Knows But Me is a tender portrait of family and migration, beautifully told. It captures a wonderful sense of bicultural place and life as it weaves between St Albans in suburban Australia and Bosanska Gradiška in Bosnia. Ultimately it is the heartrending story of a mother and daughter bond fractured and forged by illness and experience. Fatima emerges as a remarkable but wounded woman who learns that her daughter really loves her.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Amir has been best friends with Dragan since they were in kinder and the boys are looking forward to starting high school together next year. Even though Amir's parents are Bosnian Muslim and Dragan is of Serbian Orthodox background, the boys think of themselves as Australian and their cultural differences have never mattered . . . until the Balkan war breaks out. Suddenly their families tell them that they are not supposed to be friends because Bosnians and Serbs are fighting overseas. Can they find a way to keep their friendship in the face of their families' opposition?' (Publication summary)

'Muslim people in Australia come from over seventy countries and represent a wide variety of cultural backgrounds and experiences. Yet we are constantly bombarded by media stories feeding one negative stereotype. What is it really like to grow up Muslim in Australia? In this book, famous and not-so-famous Muslim-Australians tell their stories in their own voices.

'The migrant, the convert, the participant in an arranged marriage - these are all familiar images associated with Muslim people. But delve deeper and there are many other stories: the young female boxer entering the ring for her first professional bout; a ten year old boy who renounces religion; a young woman struggling to reconcile her sexual identity with her faith. These honest and heartfelt stories will resonate with all readers, providing different snapshots of Muslim life in Australia, dispelling myths and stereotypes, and above all celebrating diversity, achievement, courage and determination.' (Publisher's blurb)