The best of creativity and compassion and the worst of unchecked greed and entitlement are in ‘The Eighth Wonder’, a historical fiction set in the Gilded Age of New York by Tania FarrellyAntoni Jach, in his latest work, ‘Travelling Companions’ demonstrates that travelling is more about the journey than the destination as well as the people you meet along the way.

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Tania Farrelly and Antoni Jach

Erin’s teenage friends were charged with a horrific murder. 16 years later and as a crime writer, she gets to investigate it herself, in ‘I Shot the Devil’ by Ruth McIver.Ann Rennie’s, ‘Blessed’, is a collection of reflections about the simple things in life that are, in their own way, keys to more profound thinking.

Ruth McIver and Ann Rennie

Jacquie Byron has created a feisty 65 year old woman, getting older but perhaps not wiser. Friends had become unwelcome in her seclusion until circumstances, being the new neighbours, breach her fortress and heart in the humorous ‘Happy Hour’.J P Pomare explores the psychological intrigues made possible by the voyeuristic capabilities of the digital age in his new book, ‘The Last Guests’, where your every move can be monitored and where there are no such things as secrets.

Jacquie Byron and J P Pomare

Kate Ryan takes the reader back and forth in ‘The Golden Book’ from a childhood friendship and devastating accident to adult acceptance of blame and learning about the nature of fear and love. Robert Gott continues his 1940s Melbourne based detective murder mystery series with ‘The Orchard Murders’ where obsession and religious fanaticism come to the fore.

Kate Ryan and Robert Gott

When family stories are not told or things go unsaid between mothers and daughters or a relationship ends, there is a little death. The grief is played out in many ways through the short stories by Paige Clark in  ‘She is Haunted’.Gabrielle Williams crosses both time and continents in her riff on a ‘freaky Friday’ type transfer of souls in her adolescent novel, ‘It’s Not You, It’s Me’.

Paige Clark and Gabrielle Williams

Three generations are looking for inspiration and guidance to find out how to love and live. From the India ashram in the 70’s to closed societies of the future, the outcomes for these three generations, lead to very different consequences. Miles Allinson looks into the past and future in his novel ‘In Moonland’.Stephen Orr blurs the line between fact and fiction in his account of the great Australian literary hoax, The Ern Malley Affair, in his novel, 'Sincerely, Ethel Malley'. The Malley myth and the resulting poems have endured and are remembered more so than the actual people involved in the whole affair.

Miles Allinson and Stephen Orr

Grandmothers may live on the periphery of a family’s life but when Shirley and Beth suspect their grand daughter is being abused they abduct her with much interest from police, media and of course their family in The Unusual Abduction of Avery Conifer by Ilsa Evans. Sara El Sayed’s memoir, ‘Muddy People’, is more than just an account of a young Egyptian Muslim girl negotiating cultures. The pressures within her family expose how traditional practices are not necessarily reconcilable with a new generation in a new country.

Ilsa Evans and Sara el Sayed

Poland in 1939, with the background of anti-semitism and the imminent Nazi invasion, Maria is absorbed in finding the whereabouts of her mother in  ‘Secrets my father kept’ by Rachel Givney.Against the tide of communism and nuclear devastation that followed World War Two, individuals find a simple, common good that gives them comfort. The Quaker, Wes, finds happiness with the socialist, Beth, and Wes’ sister, Patty, finds purpose in nursing the victims of Hiroshima. ‘The Bride of Almond Tree’ is Robert Hillman’s account of their selflessness. 

Rachel Givney and Robert Hillman

In the middle of a heatwave in Brisbane, a son disappears. This causes a family to reconnect, share their secrets, surprisingly make new friendships and investigate their skills, be it art or disappearing, in ‘The Rabbits’ by Sophie Overett.              Told in the voice of an eleven year old boy, Mark Brandi’s, ‘The Others’, provides an insight into a child’s coming of age against a backdrop of uncertainty where an irascible father controls the boy’s destiny. 

Sophie Overett and Mark Brandi

Japanese life is steeped in traditions, but four interconnected characters tell of how a different life can be lived in ‘The Shut Ins’ by Katherine Brabon. Charlie Donlea uses the Twin Towers collapse as the source of a cold case that must be solved in ‘Twenty Years Later’ but there is still intrigue in the present day. The FBI spy on the investigative journalist whose past could be embarrassing if revealed, but she may yet uncover the truth behind the gruesome murder at the centre of that cold case.

Katherine Brabon and Charlie Donlea

Things are falling apart: the lake is drying up, the town is changing and who you are in a marriage and a broader family is under scrutiny, in ‘Echolalia’ by Briohny Doyle.Tania Chandler exposes the fractures in social behaviour that lead her protagonist, Sidney, to question her own mental stability. The novel, ‘All That I Remember About Dean Cola’ creates a complex scenario where memory and emotional development intermingle and stereotypes about such illnesses are challenged.  

Briohny Doyle and Tania Chandler

Murder  can be opportunistic or professional planned.  Simon Rowell has Detective Sergeant Zoe Mayer investigating against time in 'The Long Game'.       In Michelle Wright’s, ‘Small Acts of Defiance’, little gestures come to mean a great deal and such is the case for Australian girl Lucie living in occupied France during world War Two.

Michelle Wright and Simon Rowell

Brendan Murray takes us back to school highlighting the challenges and rewards in his book,  “The School”, where he covers the academic yearly cycle of tests, bullying and the kindness of students.Tippy and her flamboyant uncles help to solve murders in a Nancy Drew way, but with a lot more inappropriate humour and alcohol in ‘Nancy Business’, a cosy queer crime novel by R.W.R. MDonald.

Brendan Murray and R. W. R. McDonald

Elle has a popular true-crime podcast, her investigation into a cold case serial killer has more murders happening in this thriller, ‘Girl, 11’ by Amy Suiter Clarke.‘The Newcomer’ plays on the murder mystery genre. Laura Elizabeth Woollett gives voice and agency to the victim who is a damaged individual but, none the less, deserving of the reader’s sympathy.

Amy Suiter Clarke and Laura Elizabeth Woollett

'By chance the Future' by Amy Rudder blends the philosophy of why we travel, with politics and comedy with the big question what did we learn on the way? There’s no better way to appreciate how the ancient Roman’s lived than to read Anna Ciddor’s adventure of ‘The Boy Who Stepped Through Time’ where Perry finds himself living an authentic Roman lifestyle. 

Amy Rudder and Anna Ciddor

Australian and international authors talk about their books and how they got published or how they self-published. Listeners, writers and readers will also hear about what's going on in our local writing community.

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