Modern Fiction (post 1945)

One morning, a woman treads on a snake. She comes home that evening and realises the snake has moved into her house and is saying she is her mother... So...

In September 1883, the South Australian town of Fairly huddles under strange, vivid sunsets. Six-year-old Denny Wallace has gone missing during a dust storm, and the whole town is intent...

Defence lawyer Mickey Haller works out of his Lincoln Town Car, travelling between the far-flung courthouses of Los Angeles to defend clients of every kind: bikers, con artists, drunk drivers,...

When former journalist-turned-caf-owner Kate Jackson abandons her six-month-old baby and disappears without a word, the quirky boat-access community of Cook's Basin quickly steps in to salvage a delicate and difficult...

'Lukins' prose is supple and elegant ... his doomed and flailing Gulch family are a stunning comic creation. But even as they writhe and scheme under the law's heel, Lukins...

'More than one ghost haunts this tender novel about love in its many guises, condoned and illicit. In his deceptively simple, lucid prose, Alex Miller examines the emotional contradictions inherent...

Art is not only about rage and justice and politics. It is also about pleasure and joy; it is also about beauty ... In a time of rage and confusion,...

'Bold, furious, unapologetic and deeply insightful.' Sofie Laguna, author of Infinite Splendours 'A stunning, immersive novel that will change the conversation about class and about what possessions mean. It's important...

Why is a massive bridge being built to connect the sleepy island of Bruny with the mainland of Tasmania? And why have terrorists blown it up? When the Bruny bridge...

Shortlisted for the 2024 Stella Prize Three women. Three secrets. One weekend. Alison is an actress who no longer acts, Patrick a musician past his prime. The eccentric couple live...

' The Family Doctor is a compelling thriller - fast-paced, gripping and frightening. But is more than that because it is a story that draws desperately needed attention to domestic...

'...engaging and satisfying rural romance novel from bestselling author, Karly Lane.' Book'd Out 'Characters leap off the page and into your imagination, the settings are vivid, the narrative is fast...

'Utterly absorbing, astonishingly inventive, and richly imagined. Dominic Smith is a wizard.' Andrea Barrett, National Book Award Winner and author of Archangel From the award-winning author of the acclaimed New...

In the freezing Antarctic waters south of Tasmania, a mountain was discovered in 1642 by the seafaring explorer Gerrit Jansz. Not just any mountain but one that Jansz estimated was...

When Vonita opened the doors of the Center that morning, she had no idea that it would be for the last time. Wren has missed school to come to the...

Already struggling to come to terms with the tragic death of her husband, Sophie Bryant nearly loses her own life while attending a domestic dispute as a paramedic. Diagnosed with...

'Capacious, wise, and startlingly honest about human frailty and the permutations of love over time. Frankly autobiographical, it is also a work of fully achieved fiction, ripe with experience, double-voiced,...

'. . . worthy of comparison to Tracy Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring and Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch . . . A masterly, multilayered story that will dazzle readers.'...

When Erin Macalister leaves the city to take care of her beloved grandmother, she's relieved to be escaping the remnants of her broken marriage. Arriving in the small rural community...

In 1930, at her twenty-first birthday party, Nell O'Connor learns the devastating story of an abandoned little girl, found alone on a passenger ship bound for Australia on the eve...

Love, sex, death, family, friendship, betrayal, tenderness, brutality, sacrifice and revelation. This incendiary collection of stories from acclaimed writer Christos Tsiolkas, bestselling author of The Slap and Barracuda , takes...

He asked the water to lift him, to carry him, to avenge him. He made his muscles shape his fury, made every stroke declare his hate. And the water obeyed;...

Since inheriting Nambina, the property that's been in her family for generations, Laura Murphy has worked wonders. Rather than just focus on farming she has set up a successful school...

Poppy Abbott seems to have it all. Bright, successful and attractive, she lives in a beautiful apartment with sweeping views of Sydney. However, since the recent death of her beloved...

'Me and Ben had been mates since we was boys and if it come to it I knew I would have to be on his side.' Bobby Blue is caught...

Crazy Rich Asians is the outrageously funny debut novel about three super-rich, pedigreed Chinese families and the gossip, backbiting, and scheming that occurs when the heir to one of the...

Winner of the 2013 Miles Franklin Award A mesmerising literary novel, Questions of Travel charts two very different lives. Laura travels the world before returning to Sydney, where she works...

Anna and Matt Butler were childhood sweethearts with a dream of owning their own land, a dream they achieved through hard work and determination. But as the seasons conspire against...

Why I can't review Animal People 'I read Charlotte Wood's novel Animal People twice. I think it's one of the best contemporary novels I have read. But I cannot review...

At a suburban barbecue, a man slaps a child who is not his own. It is a single act, but the slap reverberates through the lives of everyone who witnesses...

Tom Loxley is holed up in a remote bush shack trying to finish his book on Henry James when his beloved dog goes missing. What follows is a triumph of...

You bring your children up to escape sorrow. You spend your best years trying to stop them witnessing it on television, in you, in your neighbours' faces. Then you realise,...

Winner of the 2005 Miles Franklin Literary Award One spring day in late 1992, when William was halfway between his eighth birthday and his ninth, he looked out from the...

Winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award A terrific tale of love and redemption that captivates from the first line.' Nicholas Shakespeare, author of The Dancer Upstairs Betrayed by her...

In the deep winter snows of a Swedish hamlet, a strange young woman fakes a break-in at the house of an elderly artist in order to persuade her that she...

Walker is at a party where he meets Rachel. Two days later she turns up at his apartment. However it's not Walker she wants , but her husband Malory who...

'In the race to be first in describing the lost generation of the 1980s, Geoff Dyer in The Colour of Memory leads past the winning post. 'We're not lost,' one...

In a quiet Wiltshire village, Larch Tree Lane winds slowly up a gentle hill.Among the residents is Maggie Hatherall, full of life despite her advancingyears, who worries what she is...

Meet the Corrigans. Childless Maeve, though rich and successful, is dying of cancer. She wants to leave her business empire to one of the offspring of her two estranged brothers,...

A path-breaking novel of art, womanhood and violence, from the author of the Outline trilogy. Midway through his life, an artist begins to paint upside down. In Paris, a woman...

LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024 Well, Sailor. Here we are once more, you and me in one another's arms. The Earth rotates beneath us and all is...

'A complex literary comedy from an extraordinarily powerful writer,.' Malcolm Bradbury 'The great unbreakable wild horse of the 1960s British literary stable.' Rose Tremain 'Rich as a compost heap. '...

Eighteen is a good time for suffering Welcome to the country town of Stillbourne. Restless teenage resident Oliver wants to enjoy himself before going to university, beginning with his pursuit...

When eighteen-year-old Michael visits the Hanbury's remote family home he is captivated by their bohemian lifestyle. Years later, when he marries the strong-willed, beautiful Rebecca, he is secretly hoping to...

Ralph Loman works in an unsatisfying job, for a free London newspaper, when Francine Snaith, a temporary secretary for a corporate finance firm, unexpectedly crosses his path at a party....

Thomas Bradshaw and Tonie Swann are experiencing the classic symptoms of marriage in its middle years: comfortable house, happy-enough daughter and an eerie sense that life might be happening elsewhere....

Arlington Park is an ordinary English suburb. Over the course of a single day, the novel moves from one household to another, revealing its characters: Juliet, enraged at the victory...

Stella Benson sets off for Hilltop, a tiny Sussex village housing a family that is somewhat larger than life. Her hopes for the Maddens may be high, but her station...