The Strawberry Thief by Joanne Harris

$22.99 AUD

Category: Novels

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'So wise, so atmospheric, so beautifully written' Marian Keyes A death. A confession. And a little magic... Vianne Rocher has settled down. Lansquenet-sous-Tannes, the place that once rejected her, has finally become her home. With Rosette, her 'special' child, she runs he r chocolate shop in the square, talks to her friends on the river, is part of the community. Even Reynaud, the priest, has become a friend. But when old Narcisse, the florist, dies, leaving a parcel of land to Rosette and a written confession to Reynaud, the life of the sleepy village is once more thrown into disarray. The arrival of Narcisse's relatives, the departure of an old friend and the opening of a mysterious new shop in the place of the florist's across the square - one that mirrors the chocolaterie, and has a strange appeal of its own - all seem to herald some kind of change: a confrontation, a turbulence - even, perhaps, a murder...   'A writer whose wit and sharp observation enhances her engaging story-telling' Salley Vickers 'The most magical, stunningly beautiful novel . . . I sobbed at the end because I couldn't bear to leave. Joanne is truly one of the world's finest storytellers' Joanna Cannon 'A place of magic and mysteries, and Harris excels in this delicate balance of realism and enchantment . . . It will intrigue and charm readers every bit as much as Chocolat' Monica Ali ...Show more

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

$22.99 AUD

Category: Novels

"A gorgeous, aching love letter to stories, storytellers and the doors they lead us through...absolutely enchanting."--Christina Henry, bestselling author of Alice and Lost BoysLOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER In the early 1900s, a young woman embarks on a fantastical journey of self-discovery after finding a mysterious book in this captivating and lyrical debut.In a sprawling mansion filled with peculiar treasures, January Scaller is a curiosity herself. As the ward of the wealthy Mr. Locke, she feels little different from the artifacts that decorate the halls: carefully maintained, largely ignored, and utterly out of place. Then she finds a strange book. A book that carries the scent of other worlds, and tells a tale of secret doors, of love, adventure and danger. Each page turn reveals impossible truths about the world and January discovers a story increasingly entwined with her own.Lush and richly imagined, a tale of impossible journeys, unforgettable love, and the enduring power of stories awaits in Alix E. Harrow's spellbinding debut--step inside and discover its magic. ...Show more

Swan Song of A J Wentworth

$19.99 AUD

Category: Novels

The Stone Angel by Katherine Scholes

$24.99 AUD

Category: Novels

Stella Boyd is a successful journalist who reports from some of the world's most dangerous places. She's young and independent, and has her life under control. Then an urgent fax arrives and six words bring her world crashing down: Your father is missing at sea. Within days, Stella is back in the small Tasmanian fishing village where she grew up. She hasn't been to Halfmoon Bay for fifteen years and she doesn't want to face the memories that await her. But as Stella takes part in the search for her father, she finds herself taken back to 1975. The summer she met Zeph, a young man sailing the world alone. The extraordinary summer that ended in tragedy ... ...Show more

The Talented Mr Varg (#2 Ulf Varg) by Alexander McCall Smith

$29.99 AUD

Category: Novels | Series: Detective Varg Ser.

In the second installment in the bestselling Detective Varg Novels, Ulf and his team investigate a notorious lothario - a wolf of a man whose bad reputation may, much to his chagrin, be all bark and no bite. The Department of Sensitive Crimes, renowned for taking on the most obscure and irrelevant case s, led by Ulf Varg, their best detective, is always prepared to take on an investigation, no matter how complex. So when Ulf is approached by the girlfriend of Trig Oloffson, who claims her beau (the infamous bad boy of Swedish letters) is being blackmailed, Ulf is determined to help. The case requires all of Ulf's concentration, but he finds himself distracted by his brother's questionable politics and meteoric rise within the Moderate Extremist Party and by his own constant attraction to his married co-worker Anna. When Ulf is then tasked with looking into a group of dealers exporting wolves that seem decidedly domestic, it will require all of his team's investigative instincts and dogged persistence to put these matters to bed. ...Show more

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

$19.99 AUD

Category: Fiction

A New York Times Notable Book and Times Critics' Top Books of 2018. From one of our boldest, most celebrated new literary voices, a novel about a young woman's efforts to duck the ills of the world by embarking on an extended hibernation with the help of one of the worst psychiatrists in the annals of literature and the battery of medicines she prescribes.Our narrator should be happy, shouldn't she? She's young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn't just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It's the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong? My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers. Named a Best Book of the Year by: The Washington Post, Time, NPR, Amazon, Vice, Bustle, The New York Times, The Guardian, Kirkus Reviews, Entertainment Weekly, The AV Club, & Audible ...Show more

The Dickens Boy (PB) by Thomas Keneally

$32.99 AUD

Category: Fiction

In the late 1800s, rather than run the risk of his under-achieving sons tarnishing his reputation at home, Charles Dickens sent two of them to Australia. The tenth child of Charles Dickens, Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens, known as Plorn, had consistently proved unable ‘to apply himself ’ to school or life . So aged sixteen, he is sent, as his brother Alfred was before him, to Australia. Plorn arrives in Melbourne in late 1868 carrying a terrible secret. He has never read a word of his father’s work. He is sent out to a 2000-square-mile station in remotest New South Wales to learn to become a man, and a gentleman stockman, from the most diverse and toughest of companions. In the outback he becomes enmeshed with Paakantji, colonists, colonial-born, ex-convicts, ex-soldiers, and very few women. Plorn, unexpectedly, encounters the same veneration of his father and familiarity with Dickens’ work in Australia as was rampant in England. Against this backdrop, and featuring cricket tournaments, horse-racing, bushrangers, sheep droving, shifty stock and station agents, frontier wars and first encounters with Australian women, Plorn meets extraordinary people and enjoys wonderful adventures as he works to prove himself. This is Tom Keneally in his most familiar terrain. Taking historical figures and events and reimagining them with verve, compassion and humour. It is a triumph. ...Show more

Nineteen Eighty-Four (Penguin Essentials) by George Orwell

$19.99 AUD

Category: Fiction

Renowned urban artist Shepard Fairey's new look for Orwell's classic dystopian taleOne of Britain's most popular novels, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is set in a society terrorised by a totalitarian ideology propagated by The Party. Winston Smith works for the Ministry of Truth in London, chief city of Airstrip One. Big Brother stares out from every poster, the Thought Police uncover every act of betrayal. When Winston finds love with Julia, he discovers that life does not have to be dull and deadening, and awakens to new possibilities. Despite the police helicopters that hover and circle overhead, Winston and Julia begin to question the Party; they are drawn towards conspiracy. Yet Big Brother will not tolerate dissent - even in the mind. For those with original thoughts they invented Room 101. . . Nineteen Eighty-Fouris George Orwell's terrifying vision of a totalitarian future in which everything and everyone is slave to a tyrannical regime. The novel also coined many new words and phrases which regular appear in popular culture, such as 'Big Brother', 'thoughtcrime', 'doublethink' and 'Newspeak'.%%%One of Britain's most popular novels, George Orwell's dystopian tale Nineteen Eighty-Four is set in a society terrorised by a totalitarian ideology propagated by The Party. 'It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.'Winston Smith works for the Ministry of Truth in London, chief city of Airstrip One. Big Brother stares out from every poster, the Thought Police uncover every act of betrayal. When Winston finds love with Julia, he discovers that life does not have to be dull and deadening, and awakens to new possibilities. Despite the police helicopters that hover and circle overhead, Winston and Julia begin to question the Party; they are drawn towards conspiracy. Yet Big Brother will not tolerate dissent - even in the mind. For those with original thoughts they invented Room 101. . . Nineteen Eighty-Fouris George Orwell's terrifying vision of a totalitarian future in which everything and everyone is slave to a tyrannical regime. The novel also coined many new words and phrases which regular appear in popular culture, such as 'Big Brother', 'thoughtcrime', 'doublethink' and 'Newspeak'.'More relevant to today that almost any other book that you can think of' Jo Brand'Right up there among my favourite books...I read it again and again' Margaret AtwoodGeorge Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) was an accomplished social, political and literary commentator and essayist known for his non-fiction works The Road to Wigan Pierand Homage to Catalonia. His most famous novels, Animal Farmand 1984 have influenced a generation of twentieth century political satirists and dystopian novelists. This edition of Orwell's seminal novel is introduced by Professor Peter Davidson. ...Show more

The Bell in the Lake by Lars Mytting

$32.99 AUD

Category: Fiction

'Norway, 1880. In the secluded village of Butangen at the end of the valley, headstrong Astrid dreams of a life beyond marriage, hard work and children. And then Pastor Kai Schweigaard comes into her life, taking over the 700-year-old stave church with its carvings of pagan deities. The two church bells were forged by her forefather in the sixteenth century, in memory of conjoined sisters Halfrid and Gunhild Hekne, and are said to have supernatural powers. But now the pastor wants to tear it down, to replace it with a modern, larger church. Though Astrid is drawn to him, this may be a provocation too far. Talented architecture student Gerhard Schönauer arrives from Dresden to oversee the removal of the church and its reconstruction in the German city. Everything about elegant Schönauer is so different, so cosmopolitan. Astrid must make a choice: for her homeland and the pastor, or for a daunting and uncertain future in Germany. Then the bells begin to toll... ...Show more

Less: A Novel by Andrew Sean Greer

$19.99 AUD

Category: Fiction

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION 2018 'You will sob little tears of joy' Nell Zink 'I recommend it with my whole heart' Ann Patchett 'I adore this book' Armistead Maupin 'Charming, languid and incredibly funny, I absolutely adored Arthur' Jenny Colgan 'Marvellously, endearingly, unexpectedly fu nny' Gary Shteyngart 'Bedazzling, bewitching and be-wonderful' New York Times Book Review 'A fast and rocketing read . . . a wonderful, wonderful book!' Karen Joy Fowler 'Hilarious, and wise, and abundantly funny' Adam Haslett WHO SAYS YOU CAN'T RUN AWAY FROM YOUR PROBLEMS? Arthur Less is a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the post: it is from an ex-boyfriend of nine years who is engaged to someone else. Arthur can't say yes - it would be too awkward; he can't say no - it would look like defeat. So, he begins to accept the invitations on his desk to half-baked literary events around the world. From France to India, Germany to Japan, Arthur almost falls in love, almost falls to his death, and puts miles between him and the plight he refuses to face. Less is a novel about mishaps, misunderstandings and the depths of the human heart. ...Show more

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie

$19.99 AUD

Category: Fiction

The suspenseful and heartbreaking story of an immigrant family driven to pit love against loyalty, with devastating consequences   Isma is free. After years of watching out for her younger siblings in the wake of their mother's death, she's accepted an invitation from a mentor in America that allows her to resume a dream long deferred. But she can't stop worrying about Aneeka, her beautiful, headstrong sister back in London, or their brother, Parvaiz, who's disappeared in pursuit of his own dream, to prove himself to the dark legacy of the jihadist father he never knew. When he resurfaces half a globe away, Isma's worst fears are confirmed.   Then Eamonn enters the sisters' lives. Son of a powerful political figure, he has his own birthright to live up to--or defy. Is he to be a chance at love? The means of Parvaiz's salvation? Suddenly, two families' fates are inextricably, devastatingly entwined, in this searing novel that asks: What sacrifices will we make in the name of love? ...Show more

Anybody Out There by Marian Keyes

$19.99 AUD

Category: Fiction

Winner of the 2007 Popular Fiction Prize, Anybody Out Thereby Marian Keyes is a novel of love, loss and jealousy that is as sharply funny as it is deeply moving. It is the fourth of Marian Keyes's internationally best-selling Walsh sisters novels which also include Watermelon, Rachel's Holiday, Angelsan d now The Mystery of Mercy Close. 'I had to go back to New York and try to find him. There was a chance he mightn't be there but I had to give it a go because there was one thing I was certain of- he wasn't here.'Anna Walsh is officially a wreck. She's covered in bandages and she's lying in her parents' Good Front Room dreaming of leaving Dublin and getting back to New York. To her friends. To The Most Fabulous Job in the World (TM). And most of all back to Aiden. But her family have other ideas. And Aiden, for some reason, seems unwilling to get in touch. What happened to send Anna so far from all that she loves? And is Aiden really the only one who can put it all right? 'A rare blend of genres, a richly enjoyable satire and an inspirational tale of one woman's triumph over despair' Daily Telegraph'Keyes writes brilliantly, as always, about love, grief, jealousy and friendship' Daily Mail'High quality entertainment' Marie Clairewww.mariankeyes.com Marian Keyes's international bestselling novels include This Charming Manand Last Chance Saloon. Two collections of her journalism, Under the Duvet and Further Under the Duvet, are also available from Penguin. ...Show more