Appreciation by Liam Pieper

$34.99 AUD

Category: Queer

A wild romp through Australian celebrity culture that's as bold and scathing as it is hilarious. Everything in this world has a price. A great work of art is no exception. And what fortune was ever built without a little subterfuge? Oli Darling is a queer artist from the country - it says so right at A wild romp through Australian celebrity culture that's as bold and scathing as it is hilarious. Everything in this world has a price. A great work of art is no exception. And what fortune was ever built without a little subterfuge? Oli Darling is a queer artist from the country - it says so right at the top of every press release. His art has brought him fame, money, fashionable substance abuse issues and only a little imposter syndrome. But then he goes on live TV and says the one thing that can get a rich white guy cancelled. With his reputation in tatters, nobody is buying Oli's schtick or his art. That's a problem for all the people who've invested millions in him. Powerful, dangerous people. To save his own skin, Oli will need to restore his public image. Together with a ghostwriter, he must do the most undignified thing imaginable- he will have to write a memoir. So begins a journey through the underbelly of modern celebrity that sees Oli confront the consequences of his own ruthless mythmaking - lies he's told others, lies he's told himself. Perhaps he was right to feel like an imposter. And maybe the only way out is to take a good hard look at himself. Outrageous satire of the highest order, Appreciation sets its sights on the question of authenticity in a time where image trumps talent, narcissism rules, and no canvas is so tarnished it can't be painted over. ...Show more

The Collected Regrets of Clover by Mikki Brammer

$32.99 AUD

Category: Contemporary

A sparkling debut novel from Australian Mikki Brammer, which reminds us all to live our best life with fewer regrets. In her work as a 'death doula', Clover Brooks ushers people peacefully through their last days, collecting their final words into three notebooks - ADVICE, CONFESSIONS and REGRETS. But A sparkling debut novel from Australian Mikki Brammer, which reminds us all to live our best life with fewer regrets. In her work as a 'death doula', Clover Brooks ushers people peacefully through their last days, collecting their final words into three notebooks - ADVICE, CONFESSIONS and REGRETS. But Clover spends so much time with the dying that she's forgotten how to live . . . Can her clients' hard-won wisdom - and the inspiring love story of a spirited old woman named Claudia - show Clover the way to a happy ending? After all, what's the point of giving someone a beautiful death if you can't give yourself a beautiful life? ...Show more

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch

$32.99 AUD

Category: Contemporary | Reading Level: near fine

WINNER OF THE 2023 BOOKER PRIZE. On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her doorstep. Two officers from Ireland's newly formed secret police want to speak with her husband, Larry, a trade unionist for the Teachers' Union of WINNER OF THE 2023 BOOKER PRIZE. On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her doorstep. Two officers from Ireland's newly formed secret police want to speak with her husband, Larry, a trade unionist for the Teachers' Union of Ireland. Things are falling apart. Ireland is in the grip of a government that is taking a turn towards tyranny. And as the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, Eilish finds herself caught within the nightmare logic of a collapsing society assailed by unpredictable forces beyond her control and forced to do whatever it takes to keep her family together. Exhilarating, terrifying, propulsive and confrontational, Prophet Song is a work of breathtaking originality and devastating insight, a novel that can be read as a parable of the present, the future and the past. ...Show more

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

$32.99 AUD

Category: Contemporary

Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing. But it's the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute take a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one - Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, No Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing. But it's the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute take a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one - Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel-prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with - of all things - her mind. True chemistry results. But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later, Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America's most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth's unusual approach to cooking ('combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride') proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn't just teaching women to cook. She's daring them to change the status quo. Meet the unconventional, uncompromising Elizabeth Zott. ...Show more

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

$23.99 AUD

$24.99 (4% off)

Category: Contemporary | Reading Level: near fine

'We were bowled over by this first novel, which creates an amazingly intimate, compassionate, gripping portrait of addiction, courage and love.' - The judges of the Booker Prize 2020. 'Douglas Stuart has written a first novel of rare and lasting beauty.' Observer It is 1981. Glasgow is dying and good fa 'We were bowled over by this first novel, which creates an amazingly intimate, compassionate, gripping portrait of addiction, courage and love.' - The judges of the Booker Prize 2020. 'Douglas Stuart has written a first novel of rare and lasting beauty.' Observer It is 1981. Glasgow is dying and good families must grift to survive. Agnes Bain has always expected more from life. She dreams of greater things: a house with its own front door and a life bought and paid for outright (like her perfect, but false, teeth). But Agnes is abandoned by her philandering husband, and soon she and her three children find themselves trapped in a decimated mining town. As she descends deeper into drink, the children try their best to save her, yet one by one they must abandon her to save themselves. It is her son Shuggie who holds out hope the longest. Shuggie is different. Fastidious and fussy, he shares his mother's sense of snobbish propriety. The miners' children pick on him and adults condemn him as no' right. But Shuggie believes that if he tries his hardest, he can be normal like the other boys and help his mother escape this hopeless place. Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain lays bare the ruthlessness of poverty, the limits of love, and the hollowness of pride. A counterpart to the privileged Thatcher-era London of Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty, it also recalls the work of Édouard Louis, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara, a blistering debut by a brilliant writer with a powerful and important story to tell. ...Show more

The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart by Holly Ringland

$21.99 AUD

Category: Contemporary

An enchanting and captivating novel, about how our untold stories haunt us - and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive. After her family suffers a tragedy, nine-year-old Alice Hart is forced to leave her idyllic seaside home. She is taken in by her grandmother, June, a flower farmer who rais An enchanting and captivating novel, about how our untold stories haunt us - and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive. After her family suffers a tragedy, nine-year-old Alice Hart is forced to leave her idyllic seaside home. She is taken in by her grandmother, June, a flower farmer who raises Alice on the language of Australian native flowers, a way to say the things that are too hard to speak. Under the watchful eye of June and the women who run the farm, Alice settles, but grows up increasingly frustrated by how little she knows of her family's story. In her early twenties, Alice's life is thrown into upheaval again when she suffers devastating betrayal and loss. Desperate to outrun grief, Alice flees to the dramatically beautiful central Australian desert. In this otherworldly landscape Alice thinks she has found solace, until she meets a charismatic and ultimately dangerous man. Spanning two decades, set between sugar cane fields by the sea, a native Australian flower farm, and a celestial crater in the central desert, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart follows Alice's unforgettable journey, as she learns that the most powerful story she will ever possess is her own. ...Show more

We Were Not Men by Campbell Mattinson

$32.99 AUD

Category: Contemporary | Reading Level: very good

A novel that punches you in the heart: the powerful, unbearably moving and ultimately uplifting story of twin brothers, Jon and Eden, as they grow up and begin to understand what it is to be men, and what it takes to knit a fractured family back together. 'We were sons, we were brothers. I didn't know h A novel that punches you in the heart: the powerful, unbearably moving and ultimately uplifting story of twin brothers, Jon and Eden, as they grow up and begin to understand what it is to be men, and what it takes to knit a fractured family back together. 'We were sons, we were brothers. I didn't know how to be either.' This is a story about love. About the love that nine-year-old twins Jon and Eden Hardacre have for their mum, for the creek that they swim in, for each other - this is the love that they trust, that's clear and pure as sunlight, as honey, as water. But in the wake of a terrible accident, the boys have to grow up fast. They compete with each other to make the Olympic Games swimming squad, fall in love with the same girl, and begin to realise how complicated love can be and how it doesn't always show itself in the ways that we expect. Heart-hammeringly original, intense and deeply moving, We Were Not Men is a powerhouse of a novel about all the various faces that love shows us and how sometimes, distracted by life, ambition or attraction, we take it for granted until it's too late - or almost too late. An unforgettable novel that pulses with grief, revelation, hope and love.   ...Show more

Under a Venice Moon by Margaret Cameron

$32.99 AUD

Category: Contemporary

Life isn't a sort of practice run, something you can afford to play around with. They don't offer second and third chances to get it right. Use it better. Live it fuller. A week in Venice ignites Margaret Cameron's interest in the private city behind the tourist facade and the obscure tales from its hi Life isn't a sort of practice run, something you can afford to play around with. They don't offer second and third chances to get it right. Use it better. Live it fuller. A week in Venice ignites Margaret Cameron's interest in the private city behind the tourist facade and the obscure tales from its history. Tantalised by stories of this lesser-known Venice she returns the following August for a month-long stay, determined to uncover the Venice of the Venetians. Stepping out from her comfort zone, Margaret finds that friendships - unexpected and spontaneous - blossom within palazzi walls and she makes a discovery: life can lead you along rewarding paths, if you let it. As each day passes, her time in Venice becomes more than just an interlude; soon, the city feels like home. Could she leave her satisfying life in Perth and start anew in Venice? The question becomes urgent when romance waits where she least expected to find it . . . ...Show more

Second Chance Lane by Nicola Marsh

$29.99 AUD

Category: Contemporary | Series: The\Brockenridge Ser.

From USA Today bestselling Australian author Nicola Marsh comes a compelling story of love, redemption and community. When the past crashes into the future, there's more than hearts on the line.Natasha Trigg leads a simple life in small-town Brockenridge. She works at the roadhouse, has good friends, an From USA Today bestselling Australian author Nicola Marsh comes a compelling story of love, redemption and community. When the past crashes into the future, there's more than hearts on the line.Natasha Trigg leads a simple life in small-town Brockenridge. She works at the roadhouse, has good friends, and at the centre of her world is her daughter, Isla. She knows dumping musician Kody Lansdowne thirteen years ago by misleading him about her pregnancy was best in the long run. She drove him away so he could achieve his dreams but has always felt guilty. When a matchmaking Isla invites a surprise new neighbour to dinner, Tash and Kody come face to face once again...Now a bona fide rockstar, Kody's in hiding to sort through the mess his life has become after a concert resulted in devastation. The last thing he needs is discovering he has a child. Especially as it means the one woman he's never been able to forget is now permanently part of his life. Pity he's so furious with her...For Jane Jefferson, who has deliberately fooled townsfolk into believing her reputation is worse than it is for years, a second chance is something she thought she'd never get. Reconnecting with friendships she thought lost forces her to face the question: do past mistakes define you forever?While navigating the troubled waters of forgiveness, friendship and love, will these three Brockenridge residents discover everyone deserves a second chance?PRAISE FOR NICOLA MARSH:'A satisfying read with plenty of drama and a big dollop of romance.' - The Weekly Times'Her style is compassionate, witty and engaging with a diverse character set and a palpable love of the region she has set the story. ' - Mic Loves Books ...Show more

The Exhibitionist by Charlotte Mendelson

$22.99 AUD

$32.99 (30% off)

Category: Contemporary

'It takes the most ferocious intelligence, skill, and a deep reservoir of sadness to write a novel as funny as this. I adored it' - Meg Mason, author of Sorrow & Bliss 'A devastating treat of a novel: funny, furious, dark and delicious' - Sarah Waters, author of Fingersmith The longer the marriage 'It takes the most ferocious intelligence, skill, and a deep reservoir of sadness to write a novel as funny as this. I adored it' - Meg Mason, author of Sorrow & Bliss 'A devastating treat of a novel: funny, furious, dark and delicious' - Sarah Waters, author of Fingersmith The longer the marriage, the harder truth becomes . . . Meet the Hanrahan family, gathering for a momentous weekend as famous artist and notorious egoist Ray Hanrahan prepares for a new exhibition of his art - the first in many decades - and one he is sure will burnish his reputation for good. His three children will be there: beautiful Leah, always her father's biggest champion; sensitive Patrick, who has finally decided to strike out on his own; and insecure Jess, the youngest, who has her own momentous decision to make . . . And what of Lucia, Ray's steadfast and selfless wife? She is an artist, too, but has always had to put her roles as wife and mother first. What will happen if she decides to change? For Lucia is hiding secrets of her own, and as the weekend unfolds and the exhibition approaches, she must finally make a choice. The Exhibitionist is the extraordinary fifth novel from Charlotte Mendelson, a dazzling exploration of art, sacrifice, toxic family politics, queer desire, and personal freedom. 'Delicious, heartbreaking . . . Fabulously written and utterly compelling' - Marian Keyes, author of Grown-Ups ...Show more

Tomorrows Promise

$19.99 AUD

Category: Contemporary

As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh

$19.99 AUD

Category: Contemporary

An epic, emotional, breathtaking story of love and loss set amid the Syrian revolution. Burning with the fires of hope and possibility, AS LONG AS THE LEMON TREES GROW will sweep you up and never let you go.Salama Kassab was a pharmacy student when the cries for freedom broke out in Syria. She still had An epic, emotional, breathtaking story of love and loss set amid the Syrian revolution. Burning with the fires of hope and possibility, AS LONG AS THE LEMON TREES GROW will sweep you up and never let you go.Salama Kassab was a pharmacy student when the cries for freedom broke out in Syria. She still had her parents and her big brother; she still had her home. She was even supposed to be meeting a boy to talk about marriage. Now Salama volunteers at a hospital in Homs, helping the wounded who flood through the doors. She knows that she should be thinking about leaving, but who will help the people of her beloved country if she doesn't? With her heart so conflicted, her mind has conjured a vision to spur her to action. His name is Khawf, and he haunts her nights with hallucinations of everything she has lost.But even with Khawf pressing her to leave, when she crosses paths with Kenan, the boy she was supposed to meet on that fateful day, she starts to doubt her resolve in leaving home at all. Soon, Salama must learn to see the events around her for what they truly are not a war, but a revolution and decide how she, too, will cry for Syria's freedom._______________'This is an important book. Everyone should read it' - Elizabeth Laird, award-winning author of Welcome to Nowhere'Wrenching and lyrical' - Samira Ahmed, New York Times bestselling author of Internment'Hauntingly beautiful ... a must read' - Huda Fahmy, author of Huda F Are You ...Show more