A girl full of heart A thief touched by darkness A boy with a fiery temper An unwitting servant of evil The era of magic was once thought to be a myth, but after the Reemergence ushered forces both dark and light into the mundane world, it has since become a harsh reality. Now those affected by this strange power-a specialized group of Empowered called Jokers, known collectively as Cardplay-must protect their world from the darkness that threatens to consume it, all the while fighting for equality in a society clinging to normalcy. But the Reemergence was only the beginning. When another influx occurs on the seventh anniversary of that fateful event, an unfortunate encounter at ground zero lands Iori Ryone, a teenage boy in possession of a corrupt and legendary magic, in the care of recent Joker graduate Ellen Amelia Jane. From him, she learns the Reemergence may not have been the inevitable natural disaster it first seemed. Someone is trying to tear down the barrier that separates the magical realms from the mundane. The question is, can Cardplay stop them before it's too late? Bloody Spade is the first installment in an urban fantasy duology that follows a cat-eared thief and a spirited girl as they try to navigate his wild magic, her hotheaded brother, a sinister plot, and the feelings they're developing for each other.

Winner of the 2018 Stella Prize A collective memoir of one of Aboriginal Australia’s most charismatic leaders and an epic portrait of a period in the life of a country, reminiscent in its scale and intimacy of the work of Nobel Prize-winning Russian author Svetlana Alexievich. Miles Franklin Award-winning novelist Alexis Wright returns to non-fiction in her new book, Tracker, a collective memoir of the charismatic Aboriginal leader, political thinker, and entrepreneur who died in Darwin in 2015. Taken from his family as a child and brought up in a mission on Croker Island, Tracker Tilmouth returned home to transform the world of Aboriginal politics. He worked tirelessly for Aboriginal self-determination, creating opportunities for land use and economic development in his many roles, including Director of the Central Land Council. He was a visionary and a projector of ideas, renowned for his irreverent humour and his anecdotes. His memoir has been composed by Wright from interviews with Tilmouth himself, as well as with his family, friends, and colleagues, weaving his and their stories together into a book that is as much a tribute to the role played by storytelling in contemporary Aboriginal life as it is to the legacy of a remarkable man. ‘A magnificent work of collaborative storytelling…It paints a vision of action and possibility for this continent that makes it required reading for all Australians and all those interested in this land.’ — Sydney Morning Herald ‘Wright builds, as much as anyone is able to in writing, a detailed portrait of a complex man, whose vision “to sculpt land, country and people into a brilliant future on a grand scale” is inevitably accompanied by an irrepressible humour and suspicion of authority.’ — The Guardian ‘Tilmouth was a man who worked through conversation and yarn more than with paper and pen, and this is a book about the place of the story in Indigenous culture and politics as much as it is about Tracker himself.’ — The Monthly ‘[Wright] enacts the complex relationship between self and community that a Western biography could not…There is a cumulative power in the repetitions, backtrackings and digressions the formula necessitates: a sinuous, elegant accommodation of selves. It is a book as epical in form and ambition as the life it describes.’ — The Australian ‘Wright’s brace of ineffable, awkward, uncanny novels will be unravelled and enjoyed by readers when other contemporary fiction is forgotten. Tracker, a book performed by a folk ensemble rather than a solo virtuoso, adds to her enduring non-fiction oeuvre that captures the unique ground-level realpolitik of Aboriginal Australia.’ — Australian Book Review ‘Alexis Wright is one of the most important voices in our literary landscape…This is a landmark work – epic in its scope and empathy.’ — Readings

#1 New York Times Bestseller In 1989, Ken Follett astonished the literary world with The Pillars of the Earth, a sweeping epic novel set in twelfth-century England centered on the building of a cathedral and many of the hundreds of lives it affected. Critics were overwhelmed—“it will hold you, fascinate you, surround you” (Chicago Tribune)—and readers everywhere hoped for a sequel. Look out for the next book in this series, A Column of Fire, available now. World Without End takes place in the same town of Kingsbridge, two centuries after the townspeople finished building the exquisite Gothic cathedral that was at the heart of The Pillars of the Earth. The cathedral and the priory are again at the center of a web of love and hate, greed and pride, ambition and revenge, but this sequel stands on its own. This time the men and women of an extraordinary cast of characters find themselves at a crossroads of new ideas—about medicine, commerce, architecture, and justice. In a world where proponents of the old ways fiercely battle those with progressive minds, the intrigue and tension quickly reach a boiling point against the devastating backdrop of the greatest natural disaster ever to strike the human race—the Black Death. Three years in the writing and nearly eighteen years since its predecessor, World Without End breathes new life into the epic historical novel and once again shows that Ken Follett is a masterful author writing at the top of his craft.

Thomas Martindale, a journalism professor, is enjoying the first day of his summer vacation on the Oregon coast. He has brought with him the active curiosity and investigative abilities that often get him into situations most people would ignore. When he is invited to brunch at the home of an old friend, she confides that someone may be trying to kill her. The next night, that fear is realized when Tom finds her body at a nearby lighthouse. Tom immediately sets out to find her killer, using clues from a manuscript his friend gave him for review. Have the incidents during World War II, described in the manuscript, caused her death? Did they reveal secrets about someone--someone who feared their consequences if they were revealed? As he has in the past, Tom seeks help from his former lover, a State Police officer She has gotten him out of many tight spots in the past. But his determination to solve the murder puts him in great danger from unexpected sources--especially when he is finally confronted on a suspension bridge high above the swirling waters of Yaquina Bay.

In Book 4 of The Speedicut Memoirs, Charles Speedicut finds his fortunes (and misfortunes) tied up with those of the future King Edward VIII, Mr & Mrs Ernest Simpson and Adolf Hitler. In the course of his narrative, Speedicut relates how he was responsible for the murderous Night of the Long Knives, when Hitler ruthlessly purged the Sturmabteilung. He also provides previously unpublished details of his intimate involvement in the events leading to the Abdication, his activities to subvert the British Government’s policy of ‘appeasement’, his part in the Duke & Duchess of Windsor’s infamous tour of Germany in 1937 and his disruptive (and usually secret) role in many other events of the period. “The history of the twentieth century might have been very different – possibly better but probably worse – without the activities of Major Charles Speedicut.” Sir Winston Churchill “I bitterly regret the day that Wallis met that shit, Speedicut.” Ernest Simpson

Bring on the Outback Heat with four spicy romance reads (plus bonus novella!) from Australia’s favourite romance author. They breed them tough in small-town Jumbuck Springs—none more than the Weston family. Little sister Lacey, who wants to be a famous fashion designer. Youngest brother Jarrod, a firefighter who bleeds red dust. Middle brother Marcus, a paramedic and the larrikin of the family. Eldest brother, Ethan, head of the family and the police officer in charge of the town. Some Girls Do Fashion student Lacey is homesick in the city and determined to go home—come hell, high water, or a fake pregnancy. Is it her fault her brother’s best friend, Cooper, puts his hand up as the baby-daddy to protect her from the fallout? Some Girls Don’t Rural firefighter Jarrod’s old flame is back in town, but they’ve both moved on. Selena’s about to hit it big as a hotshot reporter in the city and nothing can stop her. No matter how much Jarrod still lights her fire. Some Guys Need A Lot of Lovin’ Paramedic Marcus hits the city looking for a sexy distraction from his looming PTSD and offers birthday girl Juanita some uncomplicated action between the sheets. They’re one and done. Until she turns up in Jumbuck Springs as his new psychologist… Some Guys Lie Single-dad police chief Ethan takes his responsibility to the town and his family seriously. And then one night he crosses a line with his oldest friend, Jemima Jane, and then insists on a fake engagement to protect her from her abusive ex. But it’s not love. What’s love got to do with it? Bonus Novella—Shut Up And Drive A charity car rally through Outback Australia. Firefighter colleagues Duncan and Ruth are too close for comfort and there’s only one bed. But what happens on the road trip stays on the road trip, right?

The fourteen essays in this volume contribute significantly to a consideration of the interplay between nation and narration that currently dominates both literary and cultural studies. With the fervent reassertion of tribal domains throughout the world, and with the consequent threat to the stability of a common discourse in putative countries once mapped and subsequently dominated by colonizing powers, the need for such studies becomes increasingly obvious. Whose idea of a nation is to prevail throughout these postcolonial territories; whose claims to speak for a people are to be legitimized by international agreement; amid the demands of patriotic rhetoric, what role may be allowed for individual expression that attempts to transcend the immediate political agenda; who may assume positions of authority in defining an ethnic paradigm — such are the questions variously addressed in this volume. The essayists who here contribute to the discussion are students of the various national literatures that are now becoming more generally available in the West. The range of topics is broad — moving globally from the Caribbean and South America, through the African continent, and on to the Indian subcontinent, and moving temporally through the nineteenth century and into the closing days of our twentieth. We deal with poetry, fiction, and theoretical writings, and have two types of reader in mind: We hope to introduce the uninitiated to the breadth of this expanding field, and we hope to aid those with a specialized knowledge of one or other of these literatures in their consideration of the extent to which post-colonial writing may or may not form a reasonably unified field. We seek to avoid the new form of colonialism that might impose a theoretical template to these quite divergent writings, falsely rendering it all accessible and familiar. At the same time, we do note questions and concerns that cross borders, whether these imagined lines are spatial, temporal, gendered or racial.

Northern China, 1899. As the Boxer Rebellion erupts, a cast of innocents, fanatics, sinners, and lovers are drawn to the Palace of Heavenly Pleasure - an infamous brothel that overlooks an execution ground - where the fury of the East will meet the ideals of the West and all will face their destiny. Adam Williams's first novel is a historical tour-de-force and a triumphant return to traditional storytelling on a truly grand scale.

A Childhood Dream. A Lost Land. The Journey of a Lifetime. How do you become an explorer? It's a question every child has asked. And, Steve Backshall was no different. But after a rainy-day visit to an exhibition of artefacts from Papua New Guinea, it was a question that began to obsess the seven-year old Backshall. Due to this childhood interest, the vast, untamed wildness of Papua New Guinea was where Backshall forged his unlikely path. From crushing lows of early failures to the extraordinary highs of the BBC's Lost Land of the Volcano expedition, it was this dark island which gave Backshall his opportunity. Full of incredible wildlife, extraordinary wilderness, jungles, cannibals, pitfalls, triumph, danger and excitement, Looking for Adventure is the irresistible, inspiring story of a little boy who let his heart rule his head.