Helen can' t sleep. Her husband' s hoarding tendencies have taken over not only their house, but their marriage too, and she needs out. In a moment of desperation, Helen burns her bed, and leaves. Seeking to rediscover herself, she rather spontaneously seizes the opportunity to buy a run-down secondhand bookstore. But when her two adult sons unexpectedly return home with their own problems, Helen' s attempt to turn her life into something out of a literary novel starts to look like more of a comedy of errors. As quirky characters browse the shelves of The Book Maze, and relationships are put to the test, Helen fights to write her own happy ending to her story.

"Meet the Budd-Doyles: a suburban family in shambles, and about to unravel further as Helen Budd-Doyle in one fell swoop destroys her bed, abandons the family home, and buys a second-hand bookshop form a man in a pub ? leaving her bewildered junk-collecting husband Arnold to sort out his life. But he can't. Enter Gabriel, one of their sons, wreaking havoc as he pushes his father to sell off the accrued junk of a lifetime. Add a little sibling rivalry with his brother Vivian fresh home and licking his wounds from a life in far north... and watch the fireworks on Jacaranda Street."--Back cover.

A book for book lovers, The Last Bookshop is a uplifting novel that reminds us never to underestimate the power of people who love books. Cait is a bookshop owner and book nerd whose social life revolves around her mobile bookselling service hand-picking titles for elderly clients, particularly the grandmotherly June. After a tough decade for retail, Book Fiend is the last bookshop in the CBD, and the last independent retailer on a street given over to high-end labels. Profits are small, but clients are loyal. When James breezes into Book Fiend, Cait realises life might hold more than her shop and her cat, but while the new romance distracts her, luxury chain stores are circling Book Fiend's prime location, and a more personal tragedy is looming.

Anne and Joe have at long last found the sweet spot in their relationship &– theyhave overcome conflict and difficulties and the challenges of growing towardsold age together, and now appreciate each other's company, a great sex life, andare looking forward to what retirement brings. But inexplicably, Joe &– a giftedarchitect &– finds himself losing things, making miscalculations and blankingout parts of his day.

When Australian expat Simone moves to London to start a career, getting pregnant is not on her agenda. But she's excited to start a new life with her baby and determined to be a good mother. Even though her boyfriend Paul's cold and grey apartment in the Barbican Estate seems completely ill-suited for a baby. Even though Simone and Paul have only known each other for a year. Even though she feels utterly unprepared for motherhood. The arrival of Paul's cousin Rachel in the flat should be a godsend. But there is something about Rachel that Simone doesn't trust. Fighting sleep deprivation and a rising sense of unease, she begins to question Rachel's motives, and to wonder what secrets the cousins share.

A stunning debut novel set in post-revolutionary Iran that gives voice to the men, women, and children who won a war only to find their livesNand those of their descendantsNimperiled by its aftermath.

Full of suspense, Harmless, is the tightly woven story of eight year old Amanda, whose father is in prison, and Rattuwat, a Thai man burying his daughter in a strange land. Abandoning their broken-down car on the way to the prison's visiting hour, Amanda and Rattuwat venture into the trackless scrub of Australia's outer suburbs. As the day heats up, the sense of menace intensifies and each of them enters the no-man's-land between safety and peril.

A richly imagined story of two sisters' struggle for true freedom in the mid-nineteenth century as their paths diverge in the middle passage—one to the court of Queen Victoria, the other to an American plantation. Salimatu and her sister Fatmata are captured, sold to slavers, renamed and split apart. Forced to change their names to Sarah and Faith, they end up on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Faith is taken to America, where slavery is still legal and she is stripped of all rights. Sarah ends up in a Victorian England and as the goddaughter of Queen Victoria. Can the two sisters reclaim their freedom and identity in a world that is trying to break them down? Will these once inseparable sisters survive without each other? And if they do find each other again, will they find the other changed beyond recognition? Based on the true story of Sarah Forbes Bonetta, Breaking the Maafa Chain is by turns epic and intimate and will take the readers on a journey of loss, survival, and hope.

Shola von Reinhold's decadent queer literary debut immerses readers in the pursuit of aesthetics and beauty, while interrogating the removal and obscuring of Black figures from history.