Archive | New Releases

Kelly Rimmer
Berlin, Germany, 1930—When the Nazis rise to power, Sofie von Meyer Rhodes and her academic husband benefit from the military ambitions of Germany’s newly elected chancellor when Jürgen is offered a high-level position in their burgeoning rocket program. Although they fiercely oppose Hitler’s radical views, and joining his ranks is unthinkable, it soon becomes clear that if Jürgen does not accept the job, their income will be taken away. Then their children. And then their lives.

Huntsville, Alabama, 1950—Twenty years later, Jürgen is one of many German scientists pardoned and granted a position in America’s space program. For Sofie, this is a chance to leave the horrors of her past behind. But when rumors about the Rhodes family’s affiliation with the Nazi party spread among her new American neighbors, idle gossip turns to bitter rage, and the act of violence that results tears apart a family and leaves the community wondering—is it an act of vengeance or justice?

Dervia McTieman
First Rule: Make them like you.

Second Rule: Make them need you.

Third Rule: Make them pay.

They think I’m a young, idealistic law student, that I’m passionate about reforming a corrupt and brutal system. They think I’m working hard to impress them.

They think I’m here to save an innocent man on death row. They’re wrong. I’m going to bury him.

Karly Lane
A pitch-perfect new rural romance from the bestselling author of Once Burnt, Twice Shy. When a drought dries up the contents of a water hole on her uncle’s property, investigative journalist Phillipa Davenport is astonished at what she finds. On a deadline and with a severe case of writers’ block, Pip doesn’t have time to investigate this story – she just wants to write her book. However, the universe and her neighbour seem to have other ideas. And then there’s the mysterious detective assigned to the case, who Pip is beginning to find very distracting.

When the only person of interest is a ninety-eight-year-old war veteran, who’s unable to communicate and who appears to have been found unjustly guilty in the court of public opinion, Pip feels drawn to the case despite the fact she simply doesn’t have time to take it on. But how often does an old cold case murder land on your doorstep?

With more questions arising as each layer of the past is peeled back, Pip soon realises she’s opened a can of worms, and secrets thought long-buried suddenly emerge bringing some hard truths for the little town to face.

Averil Kenny
A runaway bride escapes to tropical North Queensland, where she finds a mysterious lake with secrets of its own… You cannot force me to marry him. For once, please let me choose…
It’s 1958 and Vivienne George is due to marry Howard Woollcott III in the finest society wedding of the year. But when she realises she can’t marry a man she doesn’t love, she flees, with the help of her Uncle Felix, to a small town in tropical North Queensland.

Hidden away in a secluded lodge, Vivienne spends her days swimming in the beautiful lake nearby and getting to know kind Owen Monash, her only neighbour for miles. It may seem like the perfect place to escape her troubles, but there’s something about this mysterious lodge and the lake outside which put Vivienne on edge.

When she meets Josie Monash, Owen’s sister, she learns of Celeste Starr, a beautiful movie star who tragically died in the lake and spawned a curse that has plagued the girls of the town ever since. When Josie decides to stage a play about Celeste, with Vivienne in the lead role, it sets off a chain of dark events … Is there any truth in the legend of the girls of Lake Evelyn? And how will Vivienne find the life she’s always wanted when her past comes back to haunt her?

Kim Hughes
Left reeling from the disappearance of his daughter and ex-wife, Staff Sergeant Dom Riley is a haunted man. After spending months investigating, he has exhausted nearly all leads in his hunt for answers.

As Riley decides to make one final push for the truth, it emerges that multiple bombs are on board a civilian cruise ship and he is sent in to neutralise the threat. The mission is perilous before it’s even begun, requiring a low-altitude parachute jump, a manoeuvre he has only completed in training – but it’s not the journey, nor the bombs themselves, that pose the real threat. In fact, in travelling halfway across the Atlantic, Riley will ultimately learn that the danger is much closer to home . . .

Bonnie Gamus
Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel-prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with–of all things–her mind. True chemistry results.

But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride”) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.

Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist.

Shankari Chandran
Cinnamon Gardens Nursing Home is nestled in the quiet suburb of Westgrove, Sydney – populated with residents with colourful histories, each with their own secrets, triumphs and failings. This is their safe place, an oasis of familiar delights – a beautiful garden, a busy kitchen and a bountiful recreation schedule.

But this ordinary neighbourhood is not without its prejudices. The serenity of Cinnamon Gardens is threatened by malignant forces more interested in what makes this refuge different rather than embracing the calm companionship that makes this place home to so many. As those who challenge the residents’ existence make their stand against the nursing home with devastating consequences, our characters are forced to reckon with a country divided.

Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens is about family and memory, community and race, but is ultimately a love letter to story-telling and how our stories shape who we are.

Caroline Beechman
From the picturesque streets of pre-war Vienna to Britain’s atmospheric cities in the grip of war, Esther’s Children is the perfect read for fans of Kate Quinn’s The Alice Network, and Kelly Rimmer’s The Warsaw Orphan. Inspired by the extraordinary life of Esther Simpson, Esther’s Children is a powerful novel of love and courage.

Austria, 1936: Esther ‘Tess’ Simpson works for a British organisation that rescues academics from the cruel Fascist and anti-Semitic regimes taking hold in Europe. On a dangerous trip to Vienna to help bring aid to Europe’s threatened Jewish scholars, Esther meets Harry Singer, a young Jewish academic and musician.

Tess works tirelessly to rescue at-risk academics and scientists from across Europe, trying to find positions for them in Britain and America. In 1938, she secures employment for Harry at Imperial College, London, their love affair intensifying as the world heads into war, yet they are separated once again as Britain moves to intern European refugees.

With Harry detained on the Isle of Man while still waiting for news of his parents, Esther and the Society plead with the government for the interned scientists’ release. When Harry is eventually liberated, his future with Esther is by no means secure as he faces an impossible choice.

Confronting the horrific dangers of World War Two with remarkable integrity and bravery, Esther Simpson is revealed as an exceptional heroine.

Diane Armstrong
June 1940. `It was a perfect June evening that began with hope and ended in despair.’ So begins the journal of Hugh Jackson, a Jersey doctor, whose idyllic world is shattered when Britain abandons the Channel Islands which are invaded by the Germans. Forced to choose between conflicting loyalties, he sends his pregnant wife to England, believing their separation will be brief. It’s a fateful decision that will affect every aspect of his life.

May 1942. Young Tom Gaskell fumes whenever he sees the hated swastika flying from Fort Regent. Humiliated by Jersey’s surrender and ashamed of his mother’s fraternisation with the occupiers, Tom forms an audacious plan, not suspecting that it will result in guilt and tragedy.

April 2019. Sydney doctor Xanthe Maxwell, traumatised by the suicide of her colleague and burnt out by the relentless pressure of her hospital work, travels to St Helier so she can figure out what to do with her life. But when she finds Hugh Jackson’s World War II journal, she is plunged into a violent world of oppression and collusion, but also of passion and resistance. As she reads, she is mystified by her growing sense of connection to the past. Her deepening relationship with academic Daniel Miller helps her understand Jersey’s wartime past and determine her own future.

By the time this novel reaches its moving climax, the connection between Tom, Xanthe and Hugh Jackson has been revealed in a way none of them could possibly have imagined.