New Releases
City in Ruins
Sometimes you have to become what you hate to protect what you love.
Danny Ryan is rich.
Beyond his wildest dreams rich.
The former dock worker, Irish mob soldier and fugitive from the law is now a respected businessman - a Las Vegas casino mogul and billionaire silent partner in a group that owns two lavish hotels. Finally, Danny has it all: a beautiful house, a child he adores, a woman he might even fall in love with.
Life is good.
But then Danny reaches too far.
When he tries to buy an old hotel on a prime piece of real estate with plans to build his dream resort, he triggers a war against Las Vegas power brokers, a powerful FBI agent bent on revenge and a rival casino owner with dark connections of his own.
Danny thought he had buried his past, but now it reaches up to him from the grave to pull him down. Old enemies surface, and when they come for Danny they vow to take everything - not only his empire, not just his life, but all that he holds dear, including his son.
To save his life and everything he loves, Danny must become the ruthless fighter he once was - and never wanted to be again.
Hope
After tragedy, how do we find hope?
A memoir about what it takes to get through the very worst of times from Rosie Batty - a woman who has experienced tragedy, who had lost all hope, yet now is intent on finding it again.
On a warm summer's evening in February 2014, eleven-year-old Luke Batty was killed by his father at cricket practice. It was a horrific act of family violence that shocked Australia.
The next morning, his mother Rosie bravely stood before the media. Her powerful and gut-wrenching words about family violence galvanised the nation and catapulted her into the spotlight. From that day on, Rosie Batty campaigned tirelessly to protect women and children, winning hearts and minds with her courage and compassion, singlehandedly changing the conversation around domestic violence in this country. Rosie's remarkable efforts were recognised when she became the 2015 Australian of the Year and a year later she was named one of the World's Greatest Leaders by Fortune magazine. However, behind Rosie's steely public resolve and seemingly unbreakable spirit, she was a mum grieving the loss of her adored son.
What happens when you become an accidental hero? What happens the day after the worst day of your life? What happens when you are forced to confront the emptiness and silence of a house that once buzzed with the energy of a young son?
You go to dark places from which you're not sure you'll ever recover.
Power of Balance
Power of Balance is the landmark memoir from Dr Kerryn Phelps AM that explores the events and ideas that have inspired her to create change throughout her lifetime. From medicine, media, politics, advocacy and activism, Kerryn has led a remarkable life of changemaking in many domains.
One of Australia's first ‘TV doctors’, Dr Kerryn Phelps served as President of the Australian Medical Association, Deputy Lord Mayor of Sydney, and a key leader of Australia's LGBT+ community. Little did she know, as she celebrated the historic Marriage Equality win in 2017, that she would be back just one year later as a Member of Parliament, having been elected as an independent by the people of Wentworth after a leadership coup ousted Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
In her memoir, Dr Kerryn candidly explores her struggles and achievements, in medicine, media and politics – from her advocacy around Medevac and COVID-19 management, to the fallout of her public ‘outing’ in the Australian media, and her inspirational role in the Teal movement of the 2022 elections. She also reflects on the ideas and passions that have motivated and sustained her during these times, including her philosophies of leadership and equality, and her love of nature. Power of Balance is a compelling and thought-provoking read that will inspire others to become leaders and changemakers.
The Stellar Debut of Galactica MacFee
Glasgow for Bertie is the promised land. The city of pies and Irn Bru, far from his controlling mother, Irene — his place of escape. But how will he respond to the news of the proposed merging of Edinburgh and Glasgow? A new member of Bertie’s class at school is causing ripples in his social circle. She is called Galactica MacFee and is going to be a match for Olive and her lieutenant, Pansy.
And, an incredible new discovery: a Pictish stone, that is said to have the first-know written poem carved into it is the talk of the town. But, when the poem is eventually translated, it is thought it is best to keep it under wraps.
The Call
After surviving a brutal attack, Auckland cop DS Honey Chalmers has returned to her hometown to care for her mother. The remote coastal settlement of Waitut? holds complicated memories for Honey, not least the tragic suicide of her younger sister, Scarlett.
Honey is hardest on herself. She let herself get too close to a gang informant. She got sloppy. The Reapers are a 501 gang of Aussie imports, ruthless and organised, and she's pretty sure the informant, mother-of-three Kloe Kovich, paid the price. But when a couple of gang enforcers turn up in Waitut?, Honey realises they are hoping she will lead them to Kloe. But if Kloe is still alive, can Honey save her this time around?
When Honey catches up with her oldest friend, Marshall, her feelings are complicated. As teenagers they were inseparable, but Marshall was the last person to see Scarlett alive, and there are rumours they were sleeping together, that he broke her heart. Honey fears Marshall is not who she wants him to be. Eventually she learns the awful truth about the events that led her sister to take her own life.
When Kloe arrives in town, Honey and Marshall must work together to try and keep the hapless Kloe out of the hands of those who want her - and Honey - silenced.
The Phoenix Crown
San Francisco, 1906. In a city bustling with newly minted millionaires and scheming upstarts, two very different women hope to change their fortunes: Gemma, a golden-haired, silver-voiced soprano whose career desperately needs rekindling, and Suling, a petite and resolute Chinatown embroideress who is determined to escape an arranged marriage.
Their paths cross when they are drawn into the orbit of Henry Thornton, a charming railroad magnate whose extraordinary collection of Chinese antiques includes the fabled Phoenix Crown, a legendary relic of Beijing’s fallen Summer Palace.
His patronage offers Gemma and Suling the chance of a lifetime, but their lives are thrown into turmoil when a devastating earthquake rips San Francisco apart and Thornton disappears, leaving behind a mystery reaching further than anyone could have imagined . . .
Until the Phoenix Crown reappears five years later at a sumptuous Paris costume ball, drawing Gemma and Suling together in one last desperate quest for justice . . .
The 24th Hour
The Women's Murder Club is out celebrating an engagement at San Francisco's finest restaurant when a blood-curdling scream interrupts the festivities.
They soon discover a young woman who has been the victim of a violent assault. Sergeant Lindsay Boxer makes an arrest. Assistant District Attorney Yuki Castellano takes the case.
But assigning blame is made impossible due to the victim's chaotic version of events - and the shocking reason behind her ever-changing memory.
As Yuki argues the toughest case of her career, Lindsay must chase down a high-society killer whose target practice may leave the Women's Murder Club short a bridesmaid . . . or two.
Small Hours
If you stood before sunrise in this wild old place, looking through the trees into the garden, here's what you'd see:
A father and son, a fox standing between them.
Jack, home for the first time in years, still determined to be the opposite of his father.
Gerry, who would rather talk to animals than the angry man back under his roof.
Everything that follows is because of the fox, and because Jack's mother is missing. It spans generations of big dreams and lost time, unexpected connections and things falling apart, great wide worlds and the moments that define us.
If you met them in the small hours, you'd begin to piece together their story.
The Rumor Game
A determined reporter and a reluctant FBI agent face off against fascist elements in this gripping historical thriller set in World War II-era Boston from the multi-award-nominated author.
Reporter Anne Lemire writes the Rumor Clinic, a newspaper column that disproves the many harmful rumors floating around town, some of them spread by Axis spies and others just gossip mixed with fear and ignorance. Tired of chasing silly rumors, she wants to write about something bigger.
Special Agent Devon Mulvey, one of the few Catholics at the FBI, spends his weekdays preventing industrial sabotage and his Sundays spying on clerics with suspect loyalties - and he spends his evenings wooing the many lonely women whose husbands are off at war.
When Anne's story about Nazi propaganda intersects with Devon's investigation into the death of a factory worker, the two are led down a dangerous trail of espionage, organized crime, and domestic fascism - one that implicates their own tangled pasts and threatens to engulf the city in violence.
Burma Sahib
Eric Blair stood out amongst his fellow police trainees in 1920s Burma. Nineteen years old, unusually tall, a diffident loner fresh from Eton, after five years spent in the narrow colonial world of the Raj - a decaying system steeped in overt racism and petty class-conflict - he would emerge as the George Orwell we know.
Drawing on all his powers of observation and imagination, Paul Theroux brings Orwell's Burma years to radiant life, tracing the development of the young man's consciousness as he confronts the social, racial and class politics and the reality of Burma beyond. Through one writer, we come to understand another - and see how what Orwell called 'five boring years within the sound of bugles' were in fact the years that made him.
