The vast sea with its hissing, black swells surrounds us. Its cajoling, alluring, vindictive voice beckons and things happen. Suffusing the subconscious, the sea is rendered as a capricious backdrop to the frailties, failures and fraudulence of the characters as they fathom psychological or physical depths and test their courage to sink or swim.

They were all running. Running away from or to something. Something as brutal as rejection, lost love or perhaps obsession. For some it was a matter of running out of time, knowledge, faith or self-belief. But for all, the tender, the bruised, the brash, the feisty, it was the constant urgency to endure, to keep going, to squeeze in moments of reflection into tiny matchbox sizes of time and then get on with it.

Lose yourself in a collection of heart-warming, uplifting short stories. Can a small cluster of ladybirds help Anna and Heidi to reconnect with each other? Will a 'left-shelled' snail help Conor make new friends? What is the story behind Great-Aunt Shirley's porcelain doll? Why is there a half-naked young man under Jan's desk? And what really happened that day when Fiona nearly drowned in the garden pond?

Dark secrets lurk in a parent's bedroom, secrets that should never be unearthed. An inquisitive child seeking answers to the secrets; dark and mystical secrets to which only his parents know the horrifying reality.The Toy Hospital is a chilling tale as told by a child about to change his own world inexorably and permanently. This chilling tale comes from my upcoming anthology of short stories:' Death Row Rejects' The story is around 4200 words and is a short horror story told in the first ...

A collection of short stories and poems with a twist.

The debut novel from the author of Under Your Skin, Remember Me This Way, and A Life With Me, a page-turning and comedic story about a woman on the brink.Maggie Owen has given up her day job and resigned herself to a life of playground moms and soiled clothing—until the day she runs into Claire Masterson. Claire was the girl at school Maggie always wanted to be, and (surprise, surprise) it's as if nothing has changed. Claire still has everything—a...

A collection of short stories and poems with a twist.

*A DIGITAL-EXCLUSIVE SHORT STORY*A lot can change in a year . . .The children's books Jenny writes and illustrates from her countryside studio are doing well, and after a lifetime of looking after everyone else, she's finally putting herself first. Meanwhile, Maggie's ordered world is thrown into chaos when her baby son Leo arrives. Candlelit baths have made way for endless night feeds, and she and partner Owen are struggling to find any ti...

In steamy northern Queensland, Conor is rebuilding his shattered life. Working at Cooktown's youth centre has given him the chance to make a difference again, and the opportunity to flirt with Dr Kristy Dark. The local GP is hiding her own secrets and struggling to raise her feisty teenage daughter alone.When a severe cyclone menaces the coast, threatening to destroy everything in its path, tensions come to a head – and the weather is not the only danger. Cut off from the world and ...

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 it. I tried a number of times and failed each time. I only recently realised why this is. I don't want to review Animal People. I want to recommend it. 'I felt I had been dismantled, cleaned and reassembled by the novel. The novel did not change me. It reintroduced me to the important parts that make up who I am. And this is...

THE TIMES CRIME BOOK OF THE YEARSHORTLISTED FOR THE McILVANNEY PRIZE'Superb' The Times Crime Book of the Month'A hardboiled gem' Guardian'I doubt I'll read a better book this year' Val McDermidAuctioneer Rilke has been trying to stay out of trouble, keeping his life more or less respectable. Business has been slow at Bowery Auctions, so when a...

Haunted by the brutal murder of a local couple, David heads to his weekend shack with his new lover, Lydia, and his children from his recently crumbled marriage. Together they find escape, if only briefly, in the ocean and the bush.The Bodysurfers, the title story of Robert Drewe's classic first collection, is a vivid evocation of love, passion, terror and the beauty of the beach.