A CBCA NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR YOUNGER READERS 2025Alytash and Leopold - Tash and Leo - are neighbours who used to be best friends, but aren't anymore, for reasons that Leo doesn't entirely understand. But now it's the last week of Year Six and Tash is standing in Leo's front yard with a misdelivered letter - and a favour to ask.It's a request that will set off a chain of events in their little crescent in Noble Park, a suburb that is changing, and fas...

We always listen out for the train when we're down in the cutting because sometimes they come quicker than you expect. There aren't as many trains as there used to be. Mostly just the freight ones, like the one that nearly killed us on the bus . . . The best train is the Southern Aurora. It goes all the way from Melbourne to Sydney, and from Sydney to Melbourne. It stops in Mittigunda because we're pretty much exactly halfway between.'**J...

The first three audio books in the Sassy Saints Series.From award-winning young adult author Amra Pajalic comes an own voices, found family, coming of age YA series for fans of Melina Marchetta and John Green.1 Sabiha’s DilemmaSabiha and her mother Bahra are more than mother and daughter, they’re best friends. But when their extended family comes to Australia, Bahra becomes a Born-Again-Muslim to impress them, and expects S...

From award-winning young adult author Amra Pajalic comes a best friends love triangle, zero to hero makeover, found family, coming of age YA novel for fans of Melina Marchetta and John Green.Jesse's childhood took a backseat as he became his ailing mother's primary caregiver, patiently counting down the days until high school finished and his real life began. When a new student, Sabiha, arrives at his school he meets his dream girl, but she’s met his best friend fi...

I heard voices talking last night. I've never heard my father talk to someone else. Not that I can remember. I was in bed, and I heard my father's voice first. He was talking to someone, and then I heard another man with a deep voice. The man got angry, I could tell, even though I couldn't hear exactly what he was saying. Then my father said, 'I'd kill you first.'On his eleventh birthday, Jacob's father gives him a diary. To write about things that happen. About what he an...

The discovery of decades-old human bones in the Tasmanian wilderness reveals tragic connections between the disparate lives of post-war migrants and local workers in a haunting new novel from the author of Fortune.There are animals in the camouflage of undergrowth; they forage this final, fading night hour. They hear the grunting men and lift their heads, listen, then bound away: the scrub, the bushes shake and wave, signalling their invisible trajectories.After decades-old...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE NED KELLEY AWARD FOR BEST DEBUT CRIME FICTIONA missing girl. Decades of silence. A secret too big to bury.1987: It’s late summer and a time of change when a 17-year-old girl leaves the local shopping centre in the sleepy town of Lowbridge and is never seen again.Her unsolved disappearance is never far from the town’s memory. There’s those who grew up in the shadow of her loss whose own lives were altered forever, and those who know more than they...

Told from five different points of view, each one revealing something different, On a Bright Hillside in Paradise, tells the story of a family of convict descendants in the back-blocks of Tasmania, on a farm in a place called Paradise. They lead hard-scrabble lives. The drama begins when strangers arrive, Christian Brethren evangelists who hold big revival meetings in local barns.On a Bright Hillside in Paradise tackles big questions of faith and family but remain...

A body on an empty highway. Floodwaters rising fast. And nowhere left to run.Longlisted for the Davitt Awards Best Adult Novel, this electrifying Australian thriller will keep listeners hooked until the final twist.As the first drops of rain begin to fall, Quinn spots a body lying beside an isolated highway. With no phone reception, no help for miles, and a dangerous storm approaching, she faces an impossible choice: stop and investigate—or...

From the bestselling author of Wimmera comes an unputdownable literary thriller that shows we all have secrets, but some are deadlier than others.Big City. Deadly Secrets.Cities are tough when you've grown up as a country kid. They're even tougher after nine years inside. Tom Blackburn is fresh out of jail and not sure where his future lies. He knows what he wants. But he's pretty sure she doesn't want him.Tom's left his old life and his old name behind. But his opti...

**'It's funny how quick it happens and without you really noticing. Anton said once that it's like walking out into the sea, and you think everything's fine and the water's warm, but when you turn back you're suddenly miles from shore. I've never been much of a swimmer, but I get what he means. Like, being caught in a current or something. A rip.'A young woman living on the street has to keep her wits about her.Or her friends. But when the...

From the author of WILD DOGS comes an electrifying combination of outback action thriller and the classic locked room mystery.'Did you have to kill them all?'It's the question Gabe Ahern has been running from since he bust open a major criminal operation - and left a dozen men dead. He knows that one day the 'bad guys' will come for revenge.A skilled dog-trapper, Gabe has one rule: leave no sign, leave no trace. And for the last year he's b...