Tenderfoot by Toni Jordan

Brisbane, 1975: Andie Tanner's world is small but whole.

Her mum is complicated, but she adores her dad and the kennel of racing greyhounds that live under their house.

Andie is a serious girl with plans: finish school, then apprentice to her father until she can become a greyhound trainer.

But real life rarely goes to plan, and the world is bigger and more complex than Andie could imagine.

When she loses everything she cares about - her family, her friends, the dogs - it's up to Andie to reclaim her future. 

Ash by Louise Wallace

Thea lives under a mountain – one that’s ready to blow.

A vet at a mid-sized rural practice, she has been called back during maternity leave and is coping – just – with the juggle of meetings, mealtimes, farm visits, her boss’s search for legal loopholes and the constant care of her much-loved children, Eli and Lucy.

But something is shifting in Thea – something is burning. Or is it that she is becoming aware, for the first time, of the bright, hot core at her centre?

Then comes an urgent call.

Ingeniously layered, Ash is a story about reckoning with one’s rage and finding marvels in the midst of chaos.

Pilbara by Judy Nunn

The Pilbara, late 1800s: Frontier country, the wild west of Australia – a lawless place where treachery is a way of life.

Widower Charles Burton arrives in this forbidding corner of the world with his three young children.

They've travelled half the globe, from the rolling hills of Yorkshire, on a mission to save their family's sheep property.

Here in the oldest landscape on earth, survival has always proved a battle. And when greed takes over, the battle only intensifies.

Aboriginal people are robbed of their lands and their very way of life as every new arrival fights for the riches on offer.

Amid all this brutality, the Burtons must fight to conquer the surrounding savagery.

Mary Penfold
by Grantlee Kieza

Grantlee Kieza shares the story of the Australian wine industry and Mary Penfold, who grew her garden vineyard into a world-renowned empire.

Mary left her home in England in 1844 to follow her husband Dr Christopher Rawson Penfold to South Australia.

As they settled on a farm in the Adelaide Hills, Mary tended grapevines sourced from the south of France, planted in her cottage garden.

She expanded her vineyard and built a company that supplied Australia's demand for quality wine but also export markets.

Nobody's Girl 
by Virginia Roberts Giuffre

In 2011, Virginia hit the headlines as Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s most outspoken victim.

But first and foremost she became known as a voice of courage and resilience for women everywhere.

This story demonstrates that once you come to truly understand the horrifying impact of abuse, you would never think to question why a victim stays.

In April 2025, Giuffre took her own life. She left behind a memoir written in the years preceding her death and stated unequivocally that she wanted it published.

This is her story, in her own words.

Australia: A History
by Tony Abbott

Australia is one of the world's great success stories: a land long hidden from outsiders, chosen as a convict dumping ground, where - since 1788 - people have built one of the most prosperous countries on earth.

By the standards of a harsher time, early governors tried to respect the original inhabitants and to encourage the outcasts of the British Isles to start to a better life.

This Indigenous heritage and British foundation have shaped the land of the 'fair go'. It's not perfect, even now, yet mostly we have a history to be proud of.

Within a century of settlement, Australia had the world's highest standard of living and had become a global pioneer for democratic freedoms such as voting rights for women.

The Detective
by Matthew Reilly

For 150 years, women have been going missing.

And all of the investigators who went in search of them - from 1877 to the present day - have disappeared, too.

Now Sam Speedman, a most unique private detective, is on the case.

Brilliant, direct and disarming, Sam is ... different.

He's not your average private detective. But then again, this isn't your average case.

For not even he will be prepared for what he will find.

The Power of Choice 
by Neale Daniher

Neale Daniher is in his thirteenth year of living with Motor Neurone Disease.

His body is broken, and he can no longer speak, but his mind is sharp and his capacity to give, unvanquished.

With the terminal diagnosis came a choice: to retreat or look for opportunity.

Neale chose to fight.

Neale shares with us what he wishes to pass on to his grandkids, to help them harness the power of choice.

Lessons on choosing your attitude sit beside advice on valuing actions over words and making the world a better place.