New Titles and Recommendations August 2024

Mystery 
Death Under A Little Sky | Stig Abell
Mystery 
The Paris Window | Kimberley Belle
Mystery 
The Wrong Hands | Mark Billingham
Mystery 
The Death Watcher | Chris Carter
Mystery 
Our Holiday | Louise Candlish
Mystery 
High Island Blues | Ann Cleeves
Mystery
The Mill on the Shore | Ann Cleeves
Mystery
Think Twice | Harlan Corben
Mystery
Murder is Skin Deep | M G Cole
Mystery
Slaughter of Innocents | M G Cole
Mystery
The Midnight Freast | Lucy Foley
Mystery
The Woman Who Fell | Matthew Frank
Mystery
The Hunter | Tana French
Mystery
Heavy is the Crown | Jack Gatland
Mystery
Dead Man's Hands | David J Gatward
Mystery
The Dream Home | T Logan
Mystery
In a Place of Darkness | Stuart MacBride
Mystery
A Grave in the Woods | Martin Walker
Mystery
Refuge Rescue & Reform | Dorothy Wickham & Frank Golding
Australian
Among the Grey Gums | Paula J Beavan
Australian
Edenhope | Louise Le Nay
Australian
Wallaby Lane | Maya Linnell
Australian
Storm Child | Michael Robotham
Australian
The Rivertown Vet | Jennifer Scoullar
Historical
The Secrets of the Villa Amore | Carol Kirkwood
Novel
The Conditions of Unconditional Love | Alexander McCall Smith
Novel
The Lyrebird Lake Ladies Choir | Sadie Docker
Novel
Mind Games | Nora Roberts
Literature
The Swift Dark Tide | Katia Ariel

Stella Prize shortlist

Literature
Limberlost | Robbie Arnott
Literature
Body Friend | Katherine Brabon

Stella Prize shortlist

Literature
Feast | Emily O'Grady

Stella Prize shortlist

Literature
Hospital | Sanya Rushdi

Stella Prize shortlist

Literature
Abandon Every Hope | Hayley Singer

Stella Prize shortlist

Literature
Long Island | Colm Tóibín
Literature
Praiseworthy | Alexis Wright

Stella Prize winner

Scandinavian
The Windows | Pascal Engman
Scandinavian
Cult | Camilla Läckberg & Henrik Fexeus
Scandinavian
The Cuckoo | Camilla Läckberg
Scandinavian
Silenced | Sólveig Pálsdóttir

Rosemary's Newsletter

Authors of the Month

Margaret Hickey

Margaret was born in London to Australian parents and grew up in small country towns across Victoria.

Margaret has been shortlisted and has won prizes in awards including the Grace Marion Emerging Writer’s prize and the Victorian Regional Writing prize. Her plays have been performed in Melbourne ( L Mama), Brisbane, New York and regional Victoria.

She works as a lecturer, teacher, public presenter and is a regular guest on ABC regional radio.

Don’t miss Margaret in-conversation with Gabriel Bergmoser on 18 August at the BMI.

portrait of author
Margaret Hickey, Author | Photo: Charlotte Guest

Anna Romer

Anna grew up in a family of book-lovers and yarn-tellers, which inspired her lifelong love affair with stories. A graphic artist by trade, she also spent many years travelling the globe stockpiling story material from Australian outback, and Asia, New Zealand, Europe and America.

Anna lives and works in a secluded bush hideaway surrounded by national parks.

Don’t miss Anna in-conversation with Gregory Flood on 20 August at the BMI.

Anna Romer, Author
Books of the Month
The Creeper
by Margaret Hickey.

The chilling new mystery novel from the award-winning author of bestsellers Cutters EndStone Town and Broken Bay.

Victim … or killer?

For the last decade, the small mountain town of Edenville in Victoria’s high country has been haunted by the horrific murders of five hikers up on Jagged Ridge.

Also found dead near the scene was Bill ‘Creeper’ Durant, a bushland loner, expert deer-hunter, and a man with a known reputation for stalking campers . . .

Conclusion: murder-suicide. Case closed.

But as the ten-year anniversary of the massacre draws near, Detective Constable Sally White – the only officer at Edenville’s modest police station – finds herself drawn into the dark world of the notorious Durant family.

Lex Durant, in particular, has started to publicly protest his brother’s innocence and accuse the police of persecution.

As Sally combs the investigation to prove him wrong, it becomes all too clear that each murdered hiker had skeletons in their closet – and possible enemies in their past . . .

book cover
The Creeper | Margaret Hickey
The Ghost of Briar Rose
by Anna Romer.

Everyone says the old mountainside house is haunted. Which is perfect because ghost hunter Cleary Branchwood knows it’s easy money. He’ll buy the propertydirt  cheap, flush out the poor wretch of a ghost they call Briar Rose, and resell for an unthinkable sum to investors from Melbourne. Simple, right?

But feisty Rose isn’t going anywhere till she solves the devastating crime that tethers her to the garden. A crime everyone says she committed. Only when she remembers will she be free to cross over and be with her true love William.
As Cleary and Rose join forces to solve the mystery and set her free, Rose glimpses the happiness she was denied in life. Could Cleary and his young daughter be the family she’s always yearned for? But as buried memories surface, Rose fears the
monster lying dormant inside her will destroy the two people she’s come to love the most.

A heart-wrenching enemies to lovers mystery from bestseller Anna Romer.

The Ghost of Briar Rose | Anna Romer
Recommended Reads
Refuge Rescue & Reform
Dorothy Wickham & Frank Golding.

Rhoda Schutt was admitted to the Female Refuge in 1897. A month later she was safely delivered of a female child named Mary. When she is threatened to do herself an injury and kept the whole house disturbed by singing, dancing and at night refusing her food and her medication, Rhonda was handed over to the police and committed to the insane asylum.

Mary, her baby daughter, was arrested by the police in the grounds of the Refuge and committed to the Department of Neglected Children.

Lizzie Fairfax was arrested by the police in May 1894, Born in Collingwood 16 years previously, she had been living in poverty in a tent for around two years with her father and her brother, a boy of 18 years of age. She had hardly any clothes. After her father was gaoled for stealing, Lizzie was arrested as a  Neglected Child and was sent to Brookside. Lizzie had a criminal record.

Refuge Rescue & Reform | Dorothy Wickham & Frank Golding
Storm Child
Michael Robotham.

The most painful of Evie Cormac’s memories have been locked away, ever since she was held prisoner as a child – a child whose rescue captured hearts and headlines.

Forensic psychologist Cyrus Haven’s mission is to guide her to something near normality. But today, on a British beach, seventeen bodies wash up in front of them. There is only one survivor, with two women still missing. And Evie’s nightmares come roaring back…

Whatever happened all those years ago lies at the core of this new tragedy. Because these deaths are no accident. The same dark forces are reaching out, dragging her back into the storm.

Storm Child | Michael Robotham
The Lyrebird Lake Ladies Choir
Sandie Docker.

Sisters Eleanor and Maggie have been running the Lyrebird Lake Ladies Choir for fifteen years. It has become a haven for the lost and lonely women who have found their home in the stately federation house by the lake.

Single mum Hannah arrives in Lyrebird Lake, homeless after being widowed and hoping for a new start with her son. With her angelic voice, Hannah could give the choir a winning edge. But when Eleanor hears her singing a long-forgotten
lullaby, she is transported to her past, a traumatic time when two teenage girls were banished from their Irish homeland to a faraway country.

Will Hannah ‘s arrival mend old wounds, or will the secret she unknowingly carries tear the sisters apart? Particularly when she becomes the PA of a big
studio boss, and her eyes re opened to the perils of her friends dreams.

The Lyrebird Lake Ladies Choir | Sadie Docker

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