Jodi Picoult
Sage Singer is a baker. She works through the night, preparing the day’s breads and pastries, trying to escape a reality of loneliness, bad memories, and the shadow of her mother’s death. When Josef Weber, an elderly man in Sage’s grief support group, begins stopping by the bakery, they strike up an unlikely friendship. Despite their differences, they see in each other the hidden scars that others can’t, and they become companions.

Everything changes on the day that Josef confesses a long-buried and shameful secret—one that nobody else in town would ever suspect—and asks Sage for an extraordinary favor. If she says yes, she faces not only moral repercussions, but potentially legal ones as well. With her own identity suddenly challenged, and the integrity of the closest friend she’s ever had clouded, Sage begins to question the assumptions and expectations she’s made about her life and her family. When does a moral choice become a moral imperative? And where does one draw the line between punishment and justice, forgiveness and mercy?

Sarah Bailey
Rose was lit by the sun, her beautiful face giving nothing away. Even back then, she was a mystery that I wanted to solve. The lead homicide investigator in a rural town, Detective Sergeant Gemma Woodstock is deeply unnerved when a high school classmate is found strangled, her body floating in a lake. And not just any classmate, but Rosalind Ryan, whose beauty and inscrutability exerted a magnetic pull on Smithson High School, first during Rosalind’s student years and then again when she returned to teach drama.

As much as Rosalind’s life was a mystery to Gemma when they were students together, her death presents even more of a puzzle. What made Rosalind quit her teaching job in Sydney and return to her hometown? Why did she live in a small, run-down apartment when her father was one of the town’s richest men? And despite her many admirers, did anyone in the town truly know her?

Rosalind’s enigmas frustrate and obsess Gemma, who has her own dangerous secrets—an affair with her colleague and past tragedies that may not stay in the past.

Ken Follett
In the Sahara Desert, two elite intelligence agents are on the trail of a powerful group of drug-smuggling terrorists, risking their lives—and, when they fall desperately in love, their careers—at every turn. Nearby, a beautiful young widow fights against human traffickers while traveling illegally to Europe with the help of a mysterious man who may not be who he says he is. In China, a senior government official with vast ambitions for himself and his country battles against the older Communist hawks in the government, who may be pushing China—and its close military ally, North Korea—to a place of no return.

And in the United States, Pauline Green, the country’s first woman president, navigates terrorist attacks, illegal arms trading, and the smear campaigns of her blustering political opponent with careful and deft diplomacy. She will do everything in her power to avoid starting an unnecessary war. But when one act of aggression leads to another, the most powerful countries in the world are caught in a complex web of alliances they can’t escape. And once all the sinister pieces are in place, can anyone—even those with the best of intentions and most elite skills—stop the inevitable?

Nicole Alexander
Past and present interweave in the continuing legacy of the Gordon family. It’s the early 19th Century and Hamish Gordon has a massive rural holding built on stock theft and is determined to ensure that his son and heir, Angus, will inherit an enlarged property. Embarking on a final stage of land acquisition, a ruthless plan to buy out his neighbours, Hamish’s actions nearly destroy Wangallon and have serious repercussions for generations to come. Luke, Hamish’s eldest surviving son from his first marriage is a wild man, at odds with civilized society. Deeply affected by the untimely deaths of his siblings and mother some 30 years earlier, he feels deserted.

His unrequited love for his young stepmother leads him to choose a life as Wangallon’s Boss drover, an existence which keeps him away from the property most of the year. When Luke learns that his father has engineered events to keep him on the property he must choose between a chance at a new life and the protection of the only home he has ever known. In 1989 two years after the death of family patriarch Angus Gordon, Sarah Gordon now runs Wangallon with the assistance of her fiancé, Anthony. Their relationship begins to deteriorate when a power struggle develops between them. Sarah’s problems escalate with the arrival of her Scottish half-brother, Jim Macken who is intent on receiving the inheritance bequeathed to him by Angus Gordon. Unable to buy Jim out and with the possibility of losing one third of Wangallon, Sarah finds herself fighting the law, her half-brother and Anthony.

Charlotte Grieve
THE INSIDE STORY OF THE DR MUNJED AL MUDERIS DEFAMATION TRIAL – a brilliantly told testament to the power of investigative journalism to hold institutions and individuals accountable. It all started when a daughter asked her father ‘Are there any risks?’.

Investigative journalist Charlotte Grieve had a very personal reason to be interested in celebrated orthopaedic surgeon Dr Munjed Al Muderis. Her father had lost his leg almost sixty years before a chance meeting with Dr Al Muderis, who raised concerns about her father’s ongoing mobility. The famous doctor told him that osseointegration surgery would keep him out of a wheelchair. Her mother suggested a second opinion. The collision of the personal and professional would spark an investigation that led to a $20 million defamation trial.

Charlotte uncovered serious concerns about the doctor’s surgical practice and evidence that he routinely failed to adequately inform patients of the risks involved in his signature procedure. Doctors have a duty of care, but they also legally have a duty to warn. It means that they must warn patients of any risks. When that is not done, vulnerable people have to live with the consequences.

Konrad Marshall
Understanding the mindset of someone who voluntarily runs regularly is what journalist and sports writer, Konrad Marshall, has explored in Run For Your Life , both by taking up running himself – committing to run every single day for a whole year, no excuses – and talking to and running with some of Australia’s most interesting runners – whether professional or casual runners – from Gout Gout to Grace Tame to Olympians and doctors. With his nose for a story, Konrad gathers the lessons learned as he runs with others on sporting fields, in marathons, on beaches and country trails, and discovers what tested their resolve, the relationships that developed, and the importance running is to their lives.

He includes chapters with Grace Tame, Trent Dalton, Gout Gout, Jelena Dokic, Jessica Hull, Andy Griffiths, Emma Carney, Libby Birch, Jack Riewoldt, Peter Bol, Steve Moneghetti, Nedd Brockmann, Hugh Van Cuylenburg among others.

Konrad shares the collective wisdom of the people who run, in a deeply reported first-person account of a year in constant motion.

Vikki Petraitis
In 1986 on Phillip Island, a young woman called Beth Barnard was savagely murdered and her boyfriend’s wife, Vivienne Cameron, went missing. The police immediately jumped to what they thought was the obvious in a jealous rage, Vivienne had killed Beth and then herself. Vivienne’s body was never found.

But Vikki Petraitis wasn’t convinced. The official line didn’t explain all the evidence, and it certainly didn’t seem like the behaviour of a mother with two small boys. Fascinated by both the case and the bias it revealed in investigators, Petraitis wrote her first true-crime book about the murder, with Paul Daley, and decades later made a podcast on the case. Both brought new evidence and testimony to light, and asked questions that were not asked at the time.

Julian Stockwin
Captain Sir Thomas Kydd is one of the lucky officers not to be put on half pay. Instead, in the realisation of his life’s ambition, he is offered an admiral’s flag, but the station is West Africa and with it comes anti-slavery operations set in fever-ridden swamps. Despite the obvious dangers and hardships, Kydd readies for sea with his beloved Thunderer as his flagship. But before he can set sail comes the electrifying news – the tyrant has escaped from Elba and is marching on Paris, the citizens flocking to join him.

Napoleon’s invasion fleet is still in being and if the French navy declares for him they can sail from the ports now free of blockade and make the invasion of England a reality. What’s more, the entire Channel Fleet has been stood down, its ships in various stages of repair.

There’s one man in active service who happens to be on the spot – Admiral Sir Thomas Kydd. With frantic haste he’s appointed temporary commander-in-chief to sail with all the men-o’-war that can be scraped together to stand athwart the French.

Julian Stockwin
Off the coast of Brazil, HMS Java, a proud British 38-gun frigate, is captured in battle by the American USS Constitution – signaling across the world’s oceans a challenge to Britain’s naval premiership that cannot be ignored. Back in England Captain Sir Thomas Kydd is enjoying a moment of normal life with his wife and his newborn son. With his Thunderer in dock receiving some well-earned repairs he is, momentarily, without a command. It’s a position the Admiralty does not leave him in for long, and he is soon given a engage the young republic in a fair fight, frigate against frigate, and restore the Navy’s reputation. And they have just the ship and crew for him . . . Tyger.

But on reaching the US east coast, Kydd and his trusted Tygers realise that the hardest part of their mission will be drawing out one of the Yankee men-o’-war to engage in battle – especially once the Americans get wind of his purpose. It’s a tall order, requiring every ounce of the crew’s guile and persistence – and when fortune turns against them, Kydd finds not only his career, but his life, hanging in the balance.