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High Sobriety: My Year without Booze (Jill Stark, Scribe)

Released February 2013

‘I was the binge-drinking health reporter. During the week, I wrote about Australia’s booze-soaked culture. At the weekends, I wrote myself off.’ A senior journalist with the Sunday Age, Scottish-born... Read more

A Lasting Record (Stephen Downes, HarperCollins)

Released February 2013

Alongside Rubinstein and Horowitz, William Kapell was widely considered one of the three greatest pianists of his time. Kapell died in 1953 at the age of 31 in a plane... Read more

Steve Biddulph’s Raising Girls (Steve Biddulph, Finch Publishing)

Released January 2013

Best known for his book Raising Boys, psychologist Steve Biddulph has written a companion piece, motivated in part by his belief that since the mid-2000s there has been a marked... Read more

Eerie series: Game Over and Hunter and Collector (S Carey, Puffin)

Released February 2013

Game Over and Hunter and Collector are the first two titles in a new thriller series for children aged seven and up. In Game Over, a new boy at school... Read more

Freia Lockhart’s Summer of Awful (Aimee Said, Walker Books)

Released February 2013

Freia Lockhart’s Summer of Awful is the follow-up to Aimee Said’s delightful teen novel Finding Freia Lockhart, though it can be read as a standalone title. Things are looking good... Read more

A Ring through Time (Felicity Pulman, HarperCollins)

Released February 2013

Allie feels like an outsider at her new school on Norfolk Island. There’s only one person she looks forward to seeing—the carefree, popular and handsome Noah. But things don’t get... Read more

The Romance Diaries (Jenna Austen, HarperCollins)

Released January 2013

The Romance Diaries is a fun, fast-paced and modern read for lovers of the Clueless style of Jane Austen updates. In this first book in a new series written pseudonymously... Read more

The Holiday Murders (Robert Gott, Scribe)

Released February 2013

The Holiday Murders is a new crime novel from Robert Gott, author of the ‘William Power’ crime novels as well as many children’s books. I hope it will be the first... Read more

Ruby Learns to Swim (Phillip Gwynne, illus by Tamsin Ainslie, A&U)

Released December 2012

Join Ruby (and her rubber duck) as she learns to swim. Ruby uses goggles, floaties and flippers, learning to float, kick, breathe, and finally, to swim! Phillip Gwynne is best... Read more

Blackwattle Lake (Pamela Cook, Hachette)

Released December 2012

When Eve Nicholls inherits her mother’s property after storming out many years earlier, she is not prepared for the flood of memories and how her past catches up with her... Read more

Sisters of Mercy (Caroline Overington, Bantam)

Released November 2012

Australian novelist and journalist Caroline Overington writes the kind of fiction that combines domestic drama with topical social issues. Her latest offering, Sisters of Mercy, is another taut tale of... Read more

Quintana of Charyn (Melina Marchetta, Viking)

Released October 2012

Quintana of Charyn is the third and final book in the Lumatere Chronicles, following on from the very successful Finnikin of the Rock and Froi of the Exiles. Set in... Read more

Tom and Tilly (Jedda Robaard, Walker Books)

Released January 2013

Tom and Tilly is a testament to the power of imagination. A boy and his teddy bear go on a grand adventure, sailing past a busy city guarded by fierce... Read more

Finding Mr Darcy (Amanda Hooton, Macmillan)

Released December 2012

Jane Austen seems to have had a real renaissance lately; we have seen zombies and sea monsters invade her books, and had the books pulled apart to create guides to... Read more

Cuckoo! (Fiona Roberton, Viking)

Released December 2012

Cuckoo is a little bird who doesn’t quite fit in or, more particularly, no matter how many ways he tries saying ‘cuckoo’, he cannot find anyone to understand him. So... Read more

The Dog on the Tuckerbox (Corinne Fenton, illus by Peter Gouldthorpe, Walker Books)

Released January 2013

The Dog on the Tuckerbox brings to life one of Australia’s most iconic stories about the mateship and hardship experienced by early Europeans in Australia. We follow the story of... Read more

Granny Grommet and Me (Dianne Wolfer, illus by Karen Blair, Walker Books

Released January 2013

When you think of the word ‘grommet’ (a young and/or inexperienced surfer), a sprightly grandma doesn’t exactly come to mind, and yet on the cover of this picture book, there’s... Read more

A Very Unusual Pursuit: City of Orphans book one (Catherine Jinks, A&U)

Released January 2013

Prolific author Catherine Jinks is back with a brand new series, ‘City of Orphans’. The first book, A Very Unusual Pursuit, is set in Victorian London and stars 10-year-old Birdie,... Read more

Catch the Zolt: The Debt Instalment One (Phillip Gwynne, A&U)

Released January 2013

It’s a warm, cloudless day on the Gold Coast when elite runner Dom Silvagni turns 15. On his routine morning run, an altercation with a white van changes things forever.... Read more

Escape from Cockatoo Island: My Australian Story (Yvette Poshoglian, Scholastic)

Released February 2013

Escape from Cockatoo Island is the latest offering in the ‘My Australian Story’ series. Olivia doesn’t think that she’s a bad girl. But she’s starting to wonder if maybe she’s... Read more