Archive | New Releases

Annie Seaton
A gem-fossicking discovery echoes through time and leads to a dangerous journey through the red dust outback. A gripping mystery from Australian author Annie Seaton. Gemma Hayden has returned to her hometown of Alice Springs for a new job as a primary school teacher. It’s been six years since her family broke apart following the disappearance of her twin brother. And the scars still run deep.

Hard on the heels of her homecoming, Saul Pearce, the man she once loved, is reposted from Parks and Wildlife in Darwin back to Alice. When an old car wreck is uncovered, washed down the river to Ruby Gap, Saul investigates only to find that the wreck belonged to Ethan, Gemma’s twin – and there’s a coded note for her in the glovebox.

Joining forces, they trek through the rugged outback, piecing together clues that not only bring them to the attention of a criminal organisation, but lead them to uncover an even older puzzle … One now lost to the history books.

With targets on their backs, will they unearth the truth in time?

Michelle Gable
Inspired by a real-life female spy, a WWII-set novel about a woman challenging convention and boundaries to help win a war, no matter the cost. 1944, Rome. Newlywed Niki Novotná is recruited by a new American spy agency to establish a secret branch in Italy’s capital. One of the OSS’s few female operatives abroad and multilingual, she’s tasked with crafting fake stories and distributing propaganda to lower the morale of enemy soldiers.

Despite limited resources, Niki and a scrappy team of artists, forgers and others—now nicknamed The Lipstick Bureau—find success, forming a bond amid the cobble-stoned streets and storied villas of the newly liberated city. But her work is also a way to escape devastating truths about the family she left behind in Czechoslovakia and a future with her controlling American husband.

As the war drags on and the pressure intensifies, Niki begins to question the rules she’s been instructed to follow, and a colleague unexpectedly captures her heart. But one step out of line, one mistake, could mean life or death…

Jo Dixon
You should leave the past in the past … or should you? A vividly told, jaw-droppingly twisty and wholly engaging story about the consequences of discovering the truth. For readers of Sally Hepworth, Nicola Moriarty and Adele Parks. Olivia is hiding from vicious media and online scrutiny in a remote Tasmanian house when an unknown man knocks on her door, seeking Pippa, a woman who once lived there. His father, Jeremy, has died, leaving behind a letter for the unknown woman. Olivia wants to help, but can she risk revealing her own sordid past and exposure to the world once more?

Thirty years earlier, bohemian wild-child Pippa and her best friend Jeremy spend a perfect summer in the house. Pippa falls deeply in love with local boy Leo, and they begin to plan a life of adventure together, much to the displeasure of his conservative and controlling family. One night Leo leaves the house to confront his parents … and is never seen again.

As Olivia is drawn into solving the mystery, the unexpected and tragic story of Pippa, Jeremy and Leo is slowly uncovered. At the same time, a path to reclaiming her own life opens, if only she has the courage to take it.

Darry Fraser
Widow Marcella Ross won’t let anything – or anyone – stop her from discovering the truth behind a deadly family mystery … Mystery and romance collide in this compulsive historical adventure from a bestselling Australian author.

1898, South Australia

At the gateway to the Flinders Ranges lies Kanyaka Station, once a thriving sheep and cattle property, now abandoned and in ruins. But a discovery in her late mother’s papers draws recently widowed Marcella Ross out to its remote landscape in search of clues to the disappearance of her Uncle Luca, an Italian immigrant whose fate seems to have been bound up in that of his mysterious partner – also long-since vanished. When Marcella is nearly run over by a handsome stranger, she discovers he too is entangled in the secrets of the past. When tragedy and obsession threaten Marcella’s fragile independence, how far will she have to go to unlock the secrets of Kanyaka – or solve the puzzle of her own future?

1955

After learning that they are unlikely to have children, Frances and Joe MacDonald have taken the unusual step of buying a caravan and travelling together through the outback. They stop and camp at Kanyaka Station, where Fran becomes mesmerised by the past. Family lore holds that an ancestor met an untimely end amid the desolate ruins. But what truly happened, and to whom, at the isolated station? As fate alters the course of her life, Fran’s footsteps echo another woman’s from so long ago …

As the mystery unravels, will these two women have the chance to take control of their own destinies?

John Sandford
“We’re going to murder people who need to be murdered.”

So begins a press release from a mysterious group known only as “The Five,” shortly after a vicious predator is murdered in San Francisco. The Five is made up of vigilante killers who are very bored…and very rich. They target the worst of society—rapists, murderers, and thieves—and then use their unlimited resources to offset the damage done by those who they’ve killed, donating untraceable Bitcoin to charities and victims via the dark net.

The Five soon become popular figures in the media …though their motives may not be entirely pure.

After The Five strike again in the Twin Cities, Virgil Flowers and Lucas Davenport are sent in to investigate. And they soon have their hands full–the killings are smart and carefully choreographed, and with no apparent direct connection to the victims, the killers are virtually untraceable. But if anyone can destroy this group, it will be the dynamic team of Davenport and Flowers.

Peter May
Margaret Campbell had finally decided to leave Beijing—and the man she loved—and return home to the States. She had first come to Beijing to conduct a seminar on her specialty, forensic pathology, for the city’s police. The invitation turned out to ask for more than she expected; she was thrust into the search for a murderer. This was how she met and came to fall in love with the Beijing police detective Li Yan. Although they began as enemies, the attraction between them was overwhelming—until personal tragedies pulled them apart.

Now the police need an answer to a series of gruesome murders. Four men have been killed; the first three were Chinese and the fourth man was born in China but became an American in his youth. All were victims of what looks like ritual sacrifices.

The U.S. ambassador practically forces Margaret to work once more with Li Yan. She buries her pain and turns to a new admirer for her free time—an American archaeologist who is making a television documentary. As Margaret and Li Yan investigate, they come closer and closer to finding the truth behind the killer’s executions. They also come closer to a killer who will sacrifice anyone to conceal a secret.

Sarah Barrie
Once a vigilante, she’s now a cop … but she still plays by her own rules. A fast-paced, suspenseful thriller for readers of Candice Fox and Sarah Bailey.
Ace hacker, ex-prostitute, Jack Daniels drinker and part-time vigilante Lexi Winter returns, now working with the police – mostly – with a new enemy in the target and an old foe at the back of her mind.

Most probationary constables would baulk at chasing a drug dealer into a train tunnel in the dead of night. Not Lexi Winter. She emerges injured but alive, to face the wrath of her boss. Lexi may now be in uniform, but she has as much trouble with authority as ever, and is quietly using her hacking skills to investigate a notorious drug-dealing Sydney crime family with links to her old prey, the paedophile Damon Vaughn.

Meanwhile, Detective Sergeant Finn Carson investigates a death on a Sydney building site … which oddly enough, leads him to the picturesque Wondabyne station on the Hawkesbury River, and Inspector Rachael Langley oversees an investigation that could tie it all together. Lexi holds the key … if only she’ll toe the line …

Nora Roberts
Courting Catherine

Catherine ‘C.C.’ Calhoun is determined to keep her family’s estate, the Towers, in the family. The cost of maintaining the crumbling mansion is expensive, so when arrogant hotel mogul Trenton St. James swoops in with an offer to purchase the property and turn it into a resort, C.C. reluctantly gives in. As Trent works out a deal with the Calhouns, he’s taken with the family — especially feisty C.C.. But C.C. expects true love and marriage and Trent has little faith in either. C.C.’s already taken a risk trusting Trent, but can Trent take a leap of faith too?

A Man For Amanda

No-nonsense Amanda Calhoun is more concerned with her endless to-do lists than her Aunt Coco’s predictions about a man appearing in her life. But when easygoing architect Sloan O’Riley shows up to renovate the Calhoun estate, the Towers, the coincidence is hard to ignore. Immediately attracted to Mandy, Sloan tries to charm her every chance he gets, but Mandy’’s attention is divided when the mystery of an old family heirloom resurfaces…

Di Morrissey
Sandy Donaldson has been working for a volunteer organisation in Vietnam for the past four years. As her contract nears its end, she is reluctant to leave so she invites her oldest friend, Anna, to come for a holiday and discover its beautiful tourist destinations.

Both girls have unexplored links to this country. Sandy’s father is a Vietnam vet and Anna’s mother was a Vietnamese boat person.

During their travels, they meet Tom, an old Australian journalist who covered the war and plans to report on the 40th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan. It is Tom who tries to persuade Sandy’s father to return to Long Tan and settle the ghosts that have haunted him for 40 years, and suggests that Anna should delve into her mother’s past.

But the girls are reluctant, swept up in their own concerns, relationships, and a business deal that has the potential to go horribly wrong. However, it is the near-blind Buddhist nun living alone in the pagoda atop one of the karsts in Halong Bay who might hold the key.