Award Winners

Michael Shamanov is a man running away from life’s responsibilities. His marriage is over, he barely sees his son and he hasn’t seen his mother since banishing her to a nursing home two years earlier. A successful screen writer, Michael’s encounter with his mother’s nurse leads him to discover that the greatest story he’s never heard may lie with his dying mother. And perhaps it’s her life he’s been running away from and not his own. Is the past ever finished? Should we respect another’s silence? And if so, is it ever possible to understand and put to rest the strange idea of family that travels through the flesh?From the Miles Franklin shortlisted author of No One comes a haunting gem of family secrets and impossible decisions.John Hughes is based in Sydney. He has published six books, all acclaimed and highly awarded, including the National Biography Award and Premier’s Book Awards. His previous novels, The Remnants and Asylum were critically acclaimed, and in 2019, No One was shortlisted in the Miles Franklin Award 2020.

Hilarious, heartbreaking, provocative and affecting - Howard Jacobson's irresistible journalism reveals the Man Booker Prize-winning novelist in all his humanity. From the tiniest absurdities to the most universal joys and desolations, Jacobson writes with a thunder, passion and wit unmatched.

You can run, but you can never escape your family. Amy and Johnny Novak have fled to a seaside town in northern New South Wales. They want a fresh start with their eleven-year-old son Sasha, and Amy is determined to shake off the legacy of Johnny's criminal family. But it's hard to outrun the Novaks. Are Amy and Johnny still keeping secrets from each other? And how did they get involved in a high-stakes game with Arturo Raoul De Leon, aka The Snake? Can Amy rise to the occasion to keep her family safe or will she be forced to become Johnny's partner in crime? Loraine Peck's The Second Son won the 2021 Best Debut Crime Fiction Ned Kelly Award and was shortlisted for two Davitt Awards and the Danger Award. With its character-driven plot, psychological finesse, humour and sparkling dialogue, The Double Bind is an enthralling sequel. From magician's assistant to crime novelist, it's all about mastering the art of subterfuge for Loraine Peck, whose love of crime fiction propelled her to write the kind of book she loves to read. The Second Son, Loraine's debut novel, won the 2021 Ned Kelly Award for Best Debut Crime Fiction from the Australian Crime Writers Association. It was shortlisted for two Davitt Awards by Sisters in Crime and for a Danger Award by BAD Crime Sydney.  The Double Bind, the sequel to The Second Son, will be out in April 2023. Loraine and her husband spend their time between Sydney and the Gold Coast. 'An urban noir masterpiece. Street-wise, with crackling prose, this is a deep, rich mystery with family at its centre. It keeps all the promises of the best crime fiction on offer.' Candice Fox, author of Fire with Fire 'Tight and tense...a wonderfully sharp-toothed crime thriller.' Christian White on The Second Son 'A tense, sinuous, fast-moving debut where hard answers are given to questions of honour and justice.' Garry Disher on The Second Son

Every moonshadow elf child knows the scary stories of the Bloodmoon Huntress, the evil sorceress who steals your blood on the night of the harvest moon. Everyone also knows those legends aren't true. But for young Rayla, whose parents recently left her behind to fulfill their duty as members of the elite Dragonguard, this autumn is scarier than most. Her guardians, Runaan and Ethari, are still getting the hang of the whole parenting thing, and no-one will tell Rayla what Runaan does for a living. She spends most of her time exploring the forest outside the Silvergrove. When Rayla discovers a young Skywing elf in danger just hours before the Harvest Moon will rise, the scary stories become real. Can she stop the Huntress before the moon reaches its zenith?

‘Dying is bracing and beautiful, possessed of an extraordinary intellectual and moral rigor…Every human should read it.’ New York TimesCory Taylor wrote this remarkable book in the space of a few weeks before her death from melanoma-related cancer in July 2016. In a tremendous creative surge, as her body weakened, she described the experience of knowing she would soon die.Her powerful and beautifully written book is a clear-eyed account of the tangle of her feelings, her reflections on her life, her memories of the lives and deaths of her parents. She tells us why it was important to her to have the ability to choose the circumstances of her death.Dying: A Memoir is a breathtaking book about vulnerability and strength, courage and humility, anger and acceptance. It is a deeply affecting meditation on dying, but it is also a funny and wise tribute to life.Cory Taylor was born in Queensland in 1955. She was an award-winning novelist and screenwriter who also published short fiction and children’s books. Her first novel, Me and Mr Booker, won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Pacific Region) in 2012 and her second novel, My Beautiful Enemy, was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award in 2014. She died on 5 July 2016, a couple of months after Dying: A Memoir was published.‘The book rings louder in my imagination the more time I spend apart from it…Taylor’s prose is clear and direct, with flashes of surpassing loveliness…it has a startling offhand grace…Taylor writes that she will most miss her husband and the faces of her children. They will surely miss her, too. But it’s at least something — maybe a tiny bit lucky, even — that this gorgeous piece of her remains.’ New York Times ‘If a more open discussion of death is needed in the West, Taylor’s book is a manual for the task. It is full of wisdom and vulnerability; it is also profoundly reassuring. Dying, she repeatedly says, is deeply lonely. No one can do it with you. But this book might be a companion, made all the more solid by its lack of sentimentality and any other false comforts.’ Times Literary Supplement ‘A fine and sorrowful finale.’ Sydney Morning Herald‘What is truly profound about this book is that—though itought to be harrowing—it is astonishingly easy, if not strangely uplifting, toread. In part, this is because the narrative voice is so gentle, and tightlycontrolled. Every scene has a radiant quality; it glows.’ Conversation ‘…As this quietly remarkable book illustrates, that kind oflooking entails its own tribute to the sweetness of life.’ Radio Australia‘Unflinchingly honest…This deep meditation is beautifullywritten and destined to be an important piece of the conversation surroundingdeath. Taylor’s last testament to life is a welcome departing gift from athoughtful and inspired author.’ STARREDreview, Publishers Weekly‘An eloquent plea for a more humane approach to death and amoving meditation on the life that leads to that end.’ STARREDreview, Kirkus Reviews ‘Brave and funny, rare and honest.’ Bookseller UK

It s bedtime, and Elmer's looking after two baby elephants. But how will he get them to sleep? A good walk will do it, Elmer thinks. But as they walk past their friends, everyone in the jungle seems to think he should tell them a bedtime story, and they each have their own favourites. What's yours?

Where is theirs? And where is mine? To hurt a shadow Is surely a crime. When Etta steps on Baawaa's (her sister's) shadow, she learns of the Shadow Taboo, and learns to value the personal space of others, as well as her own. Written by Gamilaraay author JM Field and illustrated by Ngarabal/Gomeroi artist Jeremy Worrall, Etta and the Shadow Taboo will invite readers to follow a Gamilaraay tradition where one must avoid stepping on the shadows of others.

Winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Eucalyptus is Murray Bail's best and most moving novel. On a country property a man named Holland lives with his daughter Ellen. Over the years, as she grows into a beautiful young woman, he plants hundreds of different gum trees on his land. When Ellen is nineteen her father announces his decision: she will marry the man who can name all his species of eucalypt, down to the last tree. Suitors emerge from all corners, including the formidable, straight-backed Mr Cave, world expert on the varieties of eucalypt. And then, walking among her father's trees, Ellen chances on a strange young man who in the days that follow tells her dozens of stories set in cities, deserts, faraway countries...Eucalyptus is both a modern fairy tale and an unpredictable love story played out against the searing light and broken shadows of country Australia.

"At a busy festival site on a warm spring night, a baby lies alone in her stroller, her mother vanishing into the crowds. A year on, Kim Gillespie's absence casts a long shadow as her friends and loved ones gather deep in the heart of South Australian wine country to welcome a new addition to the family. Joining the celebrations is federal investigator Aaron Falk. But as he soaks up life in the lush valley, he begins to suspect this tight-knit group may be more fractured than it seems. Between Falk's closest friend, a missing mother, and a woman he's drawn to, dark questions linger as long-ago truths begin to emerge"--

"He hated the word 'retirement', but not as much as he hated the word 'village', as if ageing made you a peasant or a fool. Herein lives the village idiot. Professor Frederick Lothian, retired engineer, world expert on concrete and connoisseur of modernist design, has quarantined himself from life by moving to a retirement village. His wife, Martha, is dead and his two adult children are lost to him in their own ways. Surrounded and obstructed by the debris of his life - objects he has collected over many years and tells himself he is keeping for his daughter - he is determined to be miserable, but is tired of his existence and of the life he has chosen. When a series of unfortunate incidents forces him and his neighbour, Jan, together, he begins to realise the damage done by the accumulation of a lifetime's secrets and lies, and to comprehend his own shortcomings. Finally, Frederick Lothian has the opportunity to build something meaningful for the ones he loves. Humorous, poignant and galvanising by turns, Extinctions is a novel about all kinds of extinction - natural, racial, national and personal - and what we can do to prevent them." --Back cover.