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Hydra (Adriane Howell, Transit Lounge)
Released August 2022
Adriane Howell’s debut novel Hydra is unsettling and dreamlike. In its folds, the strange and unflinching Anja becomes the reader’s friend—because we’re privy to her thoughts, because she tolerates our... Read more
Willa and Woof (Jacqueline Harvey, Puffin)
Released July 2022
Jacqueline Harvey’s new series Willa and Woof follows a smart eight-year-old girl, Willa, and her ‘best four-legged friend’, Woof. In this first instalment, following in the tradition of other spirited... Read more
Rita’s Revenge (Lian Tanner, A&U)
Released July 2022
Rita’s Revenge is the companion book to Lian Tanner’s debut crime book A Clue for Clara (2020), and is set in the same small town of Little Dismal. Rita the... Read more
Women I Know (Katerina Gibson, Scribner)
Released July 2022
A solitary camper at a beach observes the families playing in the surf; a lonely woman laments her fractured relationship with her reclusive teenage son; a young marine biologist privately... Read more
August & Jones (Pip Harry, Lothian)
Released July 2022
Meet Jones and August: Jones’s family have had to sell their farm and relocate to Sydney because of the drought, while August’s quirky personality means he feels isolated both at... Read more
The All of It: A bogan rhapsody (Cadance Bell, Viking)
Released July 2022
Our lives are multiple, our stories of ourselves never-ending, and yet when it comes to being a transgender person, there is this idea that we have one sole identity: trans.... Read more
The Registrar (Neela Janakiramanan, A&U)
Released July 2022
Emma Swann has worked her whole life to get here—and it’s even worse than she imagined. The young doctor has recently been accepted onto the highly competitive orthopaedic surgery program... Read more
Of Marsupials and Men (Alistair Paton, Black Inc.)
Released July 2022
If members of the Acclimatisation Society of Victoria had had their way, monkeys and boa constrictors would have been let loose in the foliage of 19th-century Melbourne. That idea was... Read more
The Vexatious Haunting of Lily Griffin (Paula Hayes, illus by Katy Jiang, Fremantle Press)
Released July 2022
Eleven-year-old Lily Griffin is precocious but lonely—bullied by her brother and benignly neglected by the rest of her unusual family. Lily’s life changes dramatically when she discovers a girl trapped... Read more
Jack’s Jumper (Sara Acton, Walker)
Released July 2022
Jack’s jumper is far too big for him (it once belonged to his beloved big brother Paul, who has grown up and is rarely home anymore) but that’s half the... Read more
The Chronic Pain Couple (Karra Eloff, Exisle)
Released July 2022
Karra Eloff met her forever partner while she was struck with chronic pain. Since that time Eloff, a health professional, founded the Chronic Pain Couple, an organisation that delivers practical... Read more
Blue Hour (Sarah Schmidt, Hachette)
Released July 2022
Sarah Schmidt’s second novel, following her award-winning debut See What I Have Done, is an intensely absorbing emotional journey through motherhood and trauma set against the turbulent 20th century. In... Read more
The Angry Women’s Choir (Meg Bignell, Michael Joseph)
Released July 2022
When going through tough times in life you often turn to any solace you can find, sometimes discovering it in the unlikeliest of places. For Freycinet Barnes that solace just... Read more
Holy Woman (Louise Omer, Scribe)
Released July 2022
For Louise Omer, leaving a problematic marriage became leaving a faith. For her, the two went hand-in-hand, one a symbol of the other: the wife is subject to the husband,... Read more
Tarni’s Chance (Paul Collins, illus by Jules Ober, Ford St)
Released July 2022
In Tarni’s Chance, the world of Paul Collins and Jules Ober’s young protagonist is grey with sadness as her parents argue, and her inner mood is reflected in the monochromatic... Read more
The Snow Laundry (Mette Jakobsen, HarperCollins)
Released July 2022
Ally, her boyfriend Bon, and hundreds of other homeless young people live together in a former hotel converted into a state-run laundry and kitchen. The new home is courtesy of... Read more
Old Fellow (Christopher Cheng, illus by Liz Anelli, Walker)
Released June 2022
Old Fellow, written by Christopher Cheng and illustrated by Liz Anelli, is a warm, simple and engaging story of an old man and his old dog. Which one of the... Read more
My Spare Heart (Jared Thomas, A&U)
Released June 2022
There’s a lot to unpack in this YA novel, which covers issues including alcoholism, climate change, divorce and racism. At the centre of it all is 17-year-old Phoebe. She is... Read more
Forty Nights (Pirooz Jafari, Ultimo)
Released July 2022
Forty Nights is the literary debut of photographer turned lawyer and writer Pirooz Jafari. The novel weaves together three separate timelines, moving between 1360s Sweden, 1980s Iran and present-day Australia—with... Read more
Swimming Home (Judy Cotton, Black Inc.)
Released June 2022
Judy Cotton is an internationally celebrated visual artist who has work in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Australia. Her father, Sir Robert... Read more
