In 1806 William Thornhill, an illiterate English bargeman and a man of quick temper but deep compassion, steals a load of wood and, as a part of his lenient sentence, is deported, along with his beloved wife, Sal, to the New South Wales colony in what would become Australia. The Secret River is the tale of William and Sal's deep love for their small, exotic corner of the new world, and William's gradual realization that if he wants to make a home...

In order to marry Ellen Holland, a suitor must identify every species of the five hundred trees on her family's property in Australia, a test set by her possessive father. To Ellen's alarm--she is attracted to a young man- -an aging suitor has nearly succeeded. By the author of Homesickness.

"Twenty years ago, two children were kidnapped and left for dead. Raised by a master criminal, they grew up to become cops. Very unusual cops ... Homicide detective Frank Bennett has an intriguing new partner. Dark, beautiful, coldly efficient, Eden Archer is one of the most enigmatic colleagues Frank has ever worked with--that includes her brother Eric, who's also on the Sydney Metro police force. All of them are tested to the core when a local man...

The O'Hara family has lived on Lake Road for generations--since 1825, in fact. Their fates have been as varied as the lake's depths, but 1975 was a pivotal time in the life of the family. It was the year that Lily O'Hara was born and her mother, Moya, and brother, Brannen, disappeared. It was assumed that the two had drowned, but the bodies were never recovered. Her father, Cillian, could offer no explanation for the disappearance of his wife and...

"Gritty and darkly hilarious novel quaking with life-winner of Australia's Miles Franklin Award-that follows a queer, First Nations Australian woman as she returns home to face her family and protect the land of their ancestors. Wise-cracking Kerry Salter has spent her adulthood avoiding two things: her hometown and prison. A tough, generous, reckless woman accused of having too much lip, Kerry uses anger to fight the avalanche of bullshit the world...

"Shaun Prescott's The Town is a novel of a rural Australian community besieged by modern day anxieties and threatened by a supernatural force seeking to consume the dying town. This is Australia, an unnamed, dead-end town in the heart of the outback -- a desolate place of gas stations, fast-food franchises, and labyrinthine streets: flat and nearly abandoned. When a young writer arrives to research just such depressing middles-of-nowhere as they are...

"A meth-addicted biker shoots a woman during a police siege. An elderly couple commit suicide on the terrace of their favorite cafe̹. An unidentified white male is stabbed to death in the street. For Sydney homicide detective Harry Belltree, not long out of the military and a grueling tour of Afghanistan, these three deaths appear to be just another day at the office. Until, that is, he identifies the stabbing victim as his own brother-in-law Greg,...

"Shortlisted for the 2013 Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Fiction Often compared to Karin Slaughter and Patricia Cornwell, prize-winning author Katherine Howell thrills readers in this gripping novel featuring a determined homicide detective and a team of emergency medics. When frantic man refuses to leave the car that witnesses say he deliberately crashed, paramedics Jane and Alex think it's a desperate cry for help. But his paranoid claims that someone...

In this evocative novel, Joanne Horniman meditates on the forces between sisters, between parent and child, between lovers. She captures and releases the richness of each successive moment in layers of circling stories and vivid images, on themes of love, guilt, secrets and growing up.