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Jang Jin-Sung –

In this rare insider’s view into contemporary North Korea, a high-ranking counterintelligence agent describes his life as a former poet laureate to Kim Jong-il and his breathtaking escape to freedom.

“The General will now enter the room.”

Everyone turns to stone. Not moving my head, I direct my eyes to a point halfway up the archway where Kim Jong-il’s face will soon appear.

As North Korea’s State Poet Laureate, Jang Jin-sung led a charmed life. With food provisions (even as the country suffered through its great famine), a travel pass, access to strictly censored information, and audiences with Kim Jong-il himself, his life in Pyongyang seemed safe and secure. But this privileged existence was about to be shattered. When a strictly forbidden magazine he lent to a friend goes missing, Jang Jin-sung must flee for his life.

Never before has a member of the elite described the inner workings of this totalitarian state and its propaganda machine. An astonishing expose told through the heart-stopping story of Jang Jin-sung’s escape to South Korea, Dear Leader is a rare and unprecedented insight into the world’s most secretive and repressive regime.

Ramita Navai –

Drawn from conversations whispered across tables in the cafes that line Vali Asr, Tehran’s pulsing central thoroughfare, Ramita Navai gives voice to the unforgettable lives of ordinary people forced to live extraordinary lives in modern Tehran: the porn star, the ageing socialite, the assassin and enemy of the state who ends up working for the Republic, the religious militiaman who undergoes a sex change, the dutiful housewife who files for divorce, and the old-time thug running a gambling den.

Rich, absorbing and exotic, this is an insider’s glimpse into the local personalities, the unremarkable busy bodies and hysterical intrigues buzzing about the city like you’ve never seen before. This is a place where Mullahs visit prostitutes, cosmetic surgeons restore girls’ virginity and homemade porn is bought and sold in the bazaars. Here, survival depends on an intricate network of lies and falsehoods.

Far removed from the picture of Tehran we glimpse in news stories, we are shown another city—a hidden city—but a far more honest one.

Emma Ayres –

Memoir, intercontinental cycling adventure, music guide, CADENCE is the debut book by ABC Classic FM’s Emma Ayres.

In her provocative, intelligent, surprising and funny memoir Cadence, Emma cycles her way from England to Hong Kong with a violin she calls Aurelia strapped to her back. But it is also a journey through the keys, and the music that inspired, shaped and provided refuge for Emma throughout her travels with music.

Camilla Lackberg –

Mats Sverin was Fjallbacka’s financial director on a regeneration project worth millions. When he is found murdered, Detective Patrik Hedstrom must find answers.

It seems Mats was a man who everybody liked yet nobody really knew – a man with something to hide…

Is it just a coincidence that his high school sweetheart, Nathalie, has returned to the area? What does she know about who Mats really was? However, Nathalie has her own secret. Something has made her and her five-year-old son flee to their remote family home on the ‘Ghost Isle’. And that is where she’ll stay and shield her son from the evils of the world. But, as the murder investigation draws a blank, the police have to dig deeper – and before long, everyone’s lives will be dragged into the light …

Sarah Hilary-

Some secrets keep you safe, others will destroy you…

Detective Inspector Marnie Rome. Dependable; fierce; brilliant at her job; a rising star in the ranks. Everyone knows how Marnie fought to come back from the murder of her parents, but very few know what is going on below the surface. Because Marnie has secrets she won’t share with anyone.

But then so does everyone. Certainly those in the women’s shelter Marnie and Detective Sergeant Noah Jake visit on that fateful day. The day when they arrive to interview a resident, only to find one of the women’s husbands, who shouldn’t have been there, lying stabbed on the floor.

As Marnie and Noah investigate the crime further, events begin to spiral and the violence escalates. Everyone is keeping secrets, some for survival and some, they suspect, to disguise who they really are under their skin.

Now, if Marnie is going to find the truth she will have to face her own demons head on. Because the time has come for secrets to be revealed…

Bret Johnston

A gripping novel with the pace of a thriller but the nuanced characterization and deep empathy of some of the literary canon’s most beloved novels, Remember Me Like This introduces Bret Anthony Johnston as one of the most gifted storytellers writing today. With his sophisticated and emotionally taut plot and his shimmering prose, Johnston reveals that only in caring for one another can we save ourselves.

Four years have passed since Justin Campbell’s disappearance, a tragedy that rocked the small town of Southport, Texas. Did he run away? Was he kidnapped? Did he drown in the bay? As the Campbell’s search for answers, they struggle to hold what’s left of their family together.

Then, one afternoon, the impossible happens. The police call to report that Justin has been found only miles away, in the neighboring town, and, most important, he appears to be fine. Though the reunion is a miracle, Justin’s homecoming exposes the deep rifts that have diminished his family, the wounds they all carry that may never fully heal. Trying to return to normal, his parents do their best to ease Justin back into his old life. But as thick summer heat takes hold, violent storms churn in the Gulf and in the Campbells’ hearts. When a reversal of fortune lays bare the family’s greatest fears—and offers perhaps the only hope for recovery—each of them must fight to keep the ties that bind them from permanently tearing apart.

Deborah O’Brien

A compelling novel of starting over from the author of Mr Chen’s Emporium. Eighteen months ago Angie Wallace thought her world had ended. Now she’s fighting off suitors – and facing a crisis she never saw coming.

‘Unrequited love hurt like hell – whether you were fifteen or fifty-something.’

Following the death of her beloved husband Phil, Angie has made a new life for herself in the enchanting gold rush town of Millbrooke. The proud proprietor of the Old Manse B&B and a fierce protector of local history, her transition from ‘blow-in’ to bona-fide Millbrooker is complete.

She’s even fallen for the erudite but scruffy Richard Scott, owner of Millerbrooke House. But just as the relationship between Angie and Richard seems to be blossoming, a woman from his past arrives back in town – and turns their world upside down. Because Diana Goodmann isn’t all she seems, and when Angie vows to unearth the truth about her rival she finds herself a long way from home – and in very grave danger.

Camilla Lackberg

No. 1 international bestseller and Swedish crime sensation Camilla Lackberg’s new psychological thriller featuring Detective Patrick Hedstrom and Erica Falck – irresistible for fans of Stieg Larsson and Jo Nesbo.

YOU CANNOT CHANGE THE PAST Easter 1974. A family vanishes from their home on an idyllic island off the Swedish coast. They have left everything behind – including their one-year-old daughter, Ebba. Now, years later, Ebba has returned to the island. She and her husband have suffered the loss of their only child and are looking to make a fresh start. But within days, their house is the target of an arson attack.

YOU CANNOT ESCAPE THE FUTURE . Detective Patrik Hedstrom takes on the investigation, aided by his wife, crime writer Erica Falck, who has always been fascinated by the mystery of Ebba’s abandonment and the family’s tragic history. When dried blood is found under the floorboards of the old house, it seems that the cold case involving the missing family is about to be brought back to life. And soon, Patrik and Erica are consumed by the hunt for a killer who will stop at nothing to keep the past buried…

John A. Scott

This long-awaited novel, his first in over a decade, is set in an imagined, though frighteningly familiar, Australia. It is the early 1940s and Melbourne is a fractious city. A corrupt right-wing government has recently seized a balance of power and the country is at war against a southward-moving Japanese army.

N is both a brilliant political thriller and the telling of two different, but equally affecting, love stories. The alternating narratives – of modern artists, implicated public servants and defective soldiers – spread and intersect like secret underground tunnels, carefully mapped by Scott. Navigating these, it’s impossible to ignore Scott’s contemporary subtext. In this, N compares to the work of Alexis Wright, for its play with genre and strange, folkloric landscapes, and also to Peter Carey, with its mischievous narrative underpinning. Scott writes from a multitude of characters’ perspectives and in changing narrative styles, adopting the techniques of documentary realism through to prose poetry. The novel is richer, and clearer, for these shifts.

N is particularly animated by its surreal moments; for one example, the hallucinations of war artist, Vic Turner, are visceral and unsettling in their force. Though, equally elegant are Scott’s descriptions of the every day – the changing weather, a child playing with his toy soldiers as his mother watches on.

Nora Roberts –

A novel of a woman who needs nothing, a man who sees everything, and the web of deceit, greed, and danger that brings them together—and could tear them apart.

When professional house-sitter Lila Emerson witnesses a murder/suicide from her current apartment-sitting job, life as she knows it takes a dramatic turn. Suddenly, the woman with no permanent ties finds herself almost wishing for one.

Artist Ashton Archer knows his brother isn’t capable of violence—against himself or others. He recruits Lila, the only eyewitness, to help him uncover what happened. Ash longs to paint her as intensely as he hungers to touch her. But their investigation draws them into a rarified circle where priceless antiques are bought, sold, gambled away, and stolen, where what you possess is who you are, and where what you desire becomes a deadly obsession.