Carrie Tiffany
Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living

It is 1934. Billowing dust and information, the government ‘Better Farming Train’ slides through the wheat fields and small towns of Australia, bringing city experts and advice to those already living on the land. Robert Pettergree and Jean Finnegan settle in the impoverished Mallee with the ambition of proving that science can transform the land. Erotically charged, and shot through with humour and a quiet wisdom, this haunting first novel evokes the Australian landscape in all its stark beauty and vividly captures the hope and disappointment of an era.

Catherine Cole
The Grave at Thu Le

The desire for a holiday and a break from her life in Paris prompts Catherine Danyers to visit Hanoi to trace her family’s history in the city. The family first moved to Hanoi from France in 1900. Generations followed, leaving only as the Viet Minh fought the French at Dien Bien Phu. But the family left an intriguing legacy. In the quest for truth, lies are often unearthed, as Catherine will discover. Powerfully visual and beautifully executed, The Grave at Thu Le is a story of a family, and the myriad contradictions of living a colonial lifestyle in a country rapidly changing.

As World War II drags on, failed Shakespearian actor and would-be private detective William Power returns to Melbourne. Needing to escape the maternal home and a growing police investigation into the kidnapping of his odious sister-in-law, Will rents a room in the Parkville home of wealthy, charismatic and obsessively neat Paul Clutterbuck, and is introduced to an underworld of bohemians, black marketeers and neanderthal henchmen. Power is fascinated – until a savage murder is discovered. A Thing of Blood perfectly recreates the tension and fear of wartime Australia, and takes the murder-mystery to new comic heights.