Archive | New Releases

Fury in death

J.D. Robb
NYSPD homicide detective Eve Dallas never knows what to expect when she gets word of a body. It could be an elderly man who made the mistake of climbing a ladder in slippery footwear. And the next call could be a wealthy biotech executive beaten to death in his home office—but what was Larry Chu’s mistake? The victim’s corpse is so mangled and damaged it’s hard to believe a lone, unarmed assailant could have managed it. The killer was clearly unnaturally strong—and smart enough to find a way into Chu’s highly secure building. Most of all, whoever did this was very, very angry.

The excessive violence leads Dallas to conclude that this was a deeply personal act, born of a rage that she can’t excuse but can understand thanks to her own traumatic past. And though the motive seems rooted in heated emotion rather than cold hard cash, she can’t ignore the suspicious bank account in the Cayman Islands, or the shadowy, profit-hungry company Chu worked for. The mystery only grows when it turns out Chu isn’t the only victim—and Dallas will need to tear through one layer of secrecy after another to reveal what lies behind this explosion of fury…

The extraordinary Florence Stoker

Karen Brooks
From a bestselling, award-winning author comes a compellingly realised story of an enigmatic figure, the beautiful 19th century muse and brilliant social powerhouse, Florence Stoker, whose life, in spite of her many gifts, was overshadowed by one of the most abiding and terrifying of contemporary culture’s monsters, the vampire Dracula – her own husband’s creation. Or was he?

Dublin, 1878.
When the witty and beautiful Florence Balcombe marries up-and-coming theatre impresario and putative novelist Bram Stoker, and her dazzling literary salons make her the darling of the literary, theatre and art worlds in London, no-one is surprised. So what if she came from humble beginnings and her prior engagement to Oscar Wilde was inexplicably broken off, she was always exceptional. Besides, none of that matters now she moves in exalted circles and Bram is managing the Lyceum for Henry Irving, the leading actor of his generation.

The orchard at Rosevale

Nicola Marsh
Elora Curtis is an advertising genius. Her innovative campaigns propel her clients to new heights, and she assumes that marketing Kinstead Avocados, a struggling farm in regional Victoria, will be no exception. Until she encounters Cruz Wardlow, the grumpy owner, and makes the biggest mistake of her career … Renowned chef Cruz is stuck running the farm for one year – the final demand of his late estranged father. The last thing he needs is a brash city girl like Elora telling him how to run his business. Especially when the two have already met in circumstances he’d rather forget.

For Ferne, Cruz’s mother, she can’t wait to escape Rosevale Grove. She’s been tethered to the small country town long enough and is ready to explore the world. But a mishap renders her immobile for a month and she’s forced to confront her future when Taj, a blast from her past, makes her re-evaluate her quest for freedom. Three hearts yearning to start over, but will they find that what they’ve been looking for has been right in front of them the whole time?

The world beneath her feet

Holly Ringland
In her late thirties, Maggie Byrd lives a charmed life in London. She works with fossils and gems at the Natural History Museum, and shares a home with the two people she loves her best friend, Harriet, and her partner, Joe. However, beneath this carefully constructed facade lies a past Maggie buried deep inside herself and resolved never to the story of a guilt-ridden, heartbroken girl who left Australia in her early twenties and swore never to return. But when she learns that she’s inherited her beloved uncle’s rewilded land in a lush valley of southeast Queensland, Maggie’s London life begins to fracture.

Bordering a town famous for its rare opalised fossil discoveries, the land lies near a volcanic lake rumoured to be cursed, and a sacred, ephemeral tea tree swamp. It is land rich with living culture, and home to an abundance of native flora and fauna. And it’s long been sought after by developers, willing to pay any price. In the nineties, this wild, vivid place also shaped Maggie when she was an angry, lost teenager. It was her home and sanctuary, where she experienced the intoxicating powers and limitations of friendship, first love, desire and loyalty – until she betrayed everyone she loved there and fled.

When the same land that Maggie turned her back on comes into her care, she is forced to face what we all cannot bury, abandon, or forget.

I am, I am, I am

Maggie O’Farrell
We are never closer to life than when we brush up against the possibility of death. I Am, I Am, I Am is Maggie O’Farrell’s astonishing memoir of the near-death experiences that have punctuated and defined her life. The childhood illness that left her bedridden for a year, which she was not expected to survive. A teenage yearning to escape that nearly ended in disaster. An encounter with a disturbed man on a remote path. And, most terrifying of all, an ongoing, daily struggle to protect her daughter–for whom this book was written–from a condition that leaves her unimaginably vulnerable to life’s myriad dangers.

Seventeen discrete encounters with Maggie at different ages, in different locations, reveal a whole life in a series of tense, visceral snapshots. In taut prose that vibrates with electricity and restrained emotion, O’Farrell captures the perils running just beneath the surface, and illuminates the preciousness, beauty, and mysteries of life itself.

Blackbirding

Ryan Butta
As Australia becomes more willing to confront the violence and trauma of its colonial past, one chapter has remained largely hidden: the Australian slave trade known as blackbirding. Between 1860 and 1906, more than 60,000 Pacific Islanders were brought to Australia to work the Queensland sugarcane fields. Men, women and children were taken from their homelands through coercion, deception or outright abduction. Forced into contracts they could not read, unpaid until the end of their service and denied basic rights, they endured brutal working conditions that led to the deaths of nearly 15,000 people.

In this immersive and meticulously researched work of narrative nonfiction, Ryan Butta confronts one of the least acknowledged episodes in Australian history. Exposing a deliberate ‘engineered forgetting’ that has kept these stories out of the national memory, this book brings the hidden history of blackbirding into the light and reckons with the enduring legacy of Australia’s forgotten slave trade.

Never just a wife

T.J. McKenzie
This is the story of Bev – a woman who stepped beyond expectation and built a life where there was none laid out for her. Set against the vast and unforgiving Australian landscape, this is a journey across stock routes, stations, and small country towns, where survival depended not on titles, but on grit, instinct, and relentless determination. From her early years in a rural town to life alongside a drover, Bev’s world was one of constant movement. She raised children in wagons and buses, cooked for shearers, travelled long distances before she was ever formally licensed, and kept a family together in a life that refused to stand still. Through drought, hardship, and the quiet, uncelebrated work of holding everything together, she carved out a life that few would have chosen – and fewer still could have endured.

Told through a lens of memory, experience, and reflection, this story draws on real people and places, reshaped into a narrative that captures the truth of a life lived on the margins of expectation. It is not a story of grand gestures, but of the everyday strength required to keep going, to adapt, and to endure. At its heart, Never Just a Wife is about the unseen work behind a way of life – the sacrifices made without recognition, the resilience forged through necessity, and the quiet decisions that shape a family across years of movement and uncertainty.

The big steal

Paul Barry
Entrepreneur Sanjeev Gupta was going to rescue the Australian, UK, European and US steel industries—and save the planet with green steel. He did none of these things, but he did get very rich. This is the extraordinary story, told for the first time. Sanjeev Gupta is a fast-talking billionaire with all the trappings of success. He boasts world-class charm, a huge appetite for risk, and a remarkable ability to inspire belief. The media love him and christen him the ‘Saviour of Steel’.

When he jets into Whyalla in South Australia to buy its bankrupt steelworks in 2017, he is given a royal reception. He calls the town his ‘spiritual home’ and promises to invest billions of dollars in a mega Green Steel plant that will decarbonise the industry and help save the planet. Whyalla will lead the world. Eight years later, his dreams are in ruins, his promises unfulfilled. He has thousands of creditors and billions of dollars in unpaid debts. His global empire is collapsing. By the end, he has corporate cops from several countries chasing him for suspected fraud, fraudulent trading and money laundering. These alleged offences centre on Gupta’s dealings with a British shadow bank run by a former Bundaberg sugar cane farmer, Lex Greensill, who has hired Britain’s ex-PM David Cameron and lent a whopping US$5 billion to the Gupta Family Group.

This is the incredible story of the meteoric rise and fall of an entrepreneur which will leave you how on earth do people like Gupta get away with it? ‘Remarkable – a true story of shameless greed and governmental incompetence, told at a cracking pace and ending (inevitably) with a crash landing.’ GEOFFREY WATSON SC

Fifty ships that changed the course of history

Ian Graham
The book presents the ships chronologically, beginning with Pharaoh Khufu’s Solar Barge from about 2566 BCE. The chapter includes a photograph of the reconstructed ship, discovered in 1954 near the Great Pyramid. Religious beliefs held that in the afterlife the pharaoh would need a ship to sail the cosmic waters of the sky with the sun god, Ra. The book closes with another sun-seeking ship four thousand years later. The epitome of an ocean cruise ship, the MS Allure of the Seas is the biggest passenger ship ever built.

An Oasis-class cruise ship, it is a destination in itself, complete with a Central Park-like oasis, 18 decks, 5,492 passengers, and a crew of 2,384. Between these landmark vessels is a variety of ships used for all of mankind’s needs, from hunters searching for food, traders with goods to barter and warriors bent on conquest, to explorers longing to see what lay beyond the horizon. Over time, the first small primitive watercraft evolved into bigger seagoing vessels, shaping our history, culture, and civilization along the way. Some of the fifty ships The concise text is highlighted by elegant reproductions, photographs, and sidebars, paintings, ship plans, quotes and photographs.

The body-A guide for occupants

Bill Bryson
Summary of the Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson. So often, we take our bodies for granted. We’re rarely curious about how they work and what we can do to make them work better. In The Body, Bill Bryson takes you on a tour inside your body so you can gain a better understanding of how it functions and its amazing ability to heal itself. At the times you doubt yourself, or think of yourself as less than wonderful, this summary of The Body will remind you of the miracle you truly are.


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