Weaving together the narratives of three very different women living in vastly different times, The Steele Diaries paints a rich and evocative portrait of the Sydney art scene from the '30s to the '70s, and the eternal conflict between motherhood and self. The only child of two famous but self-absorbed artists, Zelda Steele is adopted by her parents’ patrons when she is just a baby. Great things are expected of this privileged young woman, but at 27 years old, Zelda is dead, leaving two young children and a body of work that only hints at her promise. 

Running from a bad relationship, journalist Jo Sharpe heads home to Arthurville, the drought-stricken town she turned her back on years earlier. While some things have changed - her relationship with her ailing, crotchety father, her new job at the community newspaper - Jo finds that her return has rekindled the grief and uncertainty she experienced during her childhood following the inexplicable disappearance of her mother and baby sister.

Somebody is lying. After 18-year-old Ellie Canning is found shivering and barely conscious on a country road, her bizarre story of kidnap and escape enthralls the nation. Who would do such a thing? And why? Local drama teacher Suzannah Wells, once a minor celebrity, is new to town. Suddenly, she's in the spotlight again, accused of being the monster who drugged and bound a teenager in her basement. As stories about her past emerge, even those closest to her begin to doubt her innocence. And Ellie? The media can't get enough of her.

When teenage bullying spirals out of control who is to blame? Blogger Lizzy's life is shiny, happy, normal. Two gorgeous children, a handsome husband, destiny under control. For her real-life alter ego, Beth, things are unravelling. Tensions simmer with her husband, her mother-in-law, her own mother. Her daughters, once the objects of her existence, have moved into teenage-hood, their lives - at school, at home, and online - increasingly mysterious to her. Then a fellow student is callously bullied and the finger of blame pointed at one of Beth's girls.

Two bodies. One long hot summer. A town that will never be the same. When Adam Lawson’s wrecked car is found a kilometre from Daisy Baker’s body, the whole town assumes it’s an open-and-shut case. But Jesse Redpath isn’t from Canticle Creek. Where she comes from, the truth often hides in plain sight, but only if you know where to look. When Jesse starts to ask awkward questions, she uncovers a town full of contradictions and a cast of characters with dark pasts, secrets to hide and even more to lose. 

A mysterious plague known as the Grey grips the small village of Pilam, which the world has quarantined without pity. Laying waste to Pilam’s residents, the sickness saps its victims of strength, drains the color from their eyes, and kills all promise. Only the young are immune. But beyond the barricades and walls of soldiers—the manifestation of a nation’s terror—there are rumors of a cure. Dunka, the eldest son of a family reeling from the Grey, takes on the daunting task of leaving Pilam to find that cure for his siblings and save them before it’s too late.

A local schoolteacher is found taped to a tree and stoned to death. Suspicion instantly falls on the refugees at the new detention centre on Cobb's northern outskirts. Tensions are high, between whites and the local Indigenous community, between immigrants and the townies. Still mourning the recent death of his father, Detective Sergeant George Manolis returns to his childhood hometown to investigate. Within minutes of his arrival, it's clear that Cobb is not the same place he left. Once it thrived, but now it's a poor and derelict dusthole, with the local police chief it deserves. 

Merritt Coletto and her husband, Luca, have the life they dreamed of: a coastal home, a promising future, and a growing family. That dream ends with a late-night knock on the door. Weak, broken, and emaciated, it’s Luca’s first wife, Lydia. Missing for ten years, presumed dead, and very much alive, she has quite a story. Racked with guilt over the beautiful life they’ve built, Merritt and Luca agree to help get Lydia back on her feet - it’s the least they can do. But the more enmeshed Lydia becomes in Merritt’s family, the more questions Merritt has. 

From the award-winning author of A Watershed Year comes a heartrending story of unlikely bonds made under dire straits. Holly is a young widow with two kids living in a ramshackle house in the same small town where she grew up wealthy. Now barely able to make ends meet editing the town's struggling newspaper, she manages to stay afloat with help from her family. Then her mother suffers a stroke, and Holly's world begins to completely fall apart.

In Northern New South Wales, heavily pregnant and a week away from maternity leave, Detective Sergeant Kate Miles is exhausted and counting down the days. But a violent hold-up at a local fast-food restaurant with unsettling connections to her own past means that her final days will be anything but straightforward. When a second case is dumped on her lap, the closed case of a man drowned in recent summer floods, what begins as a simple informal review quickly grows into something more complicated.

Deaf PI Caleb Zelic has always been an outsider, estranged from family and friends. But when he receives a message that his brother, Anton, is in danger, Caleb sees it as a chance at redemption. He tracks Anton down to a small wind-punished island, where secrets run deep and resentments deeper. When a sniper starts terrorising the isolated community, the brothers must rely on each other like never before. But trust comes at a deadly price.

Recently widowed, Miriam Duffy is a respectable North Shore real estate agent and devoted mother and grandmother. She was thrilled when her younger daughter, Ally, married her true love, but as time goes by, Miriam wonders whether all is well with Ally, as she moves to the country and gradually withdraws, finding excuses every time Miriam offers to visit. Their relationship has always had its ups and downs, and Miriam tries to give her daughter the distance she so clearly wants. But is all as it seems?

Becky and Jamie are an ordinary hard-working couple trapped in the daily grind, dreaming of an easier life. On one of their rare vacations, they meet Phil and Mel, a wealthy couple who seem to have it all—they're fun, well-traveled, and very generous with their money. But they are also very, very dangerous. Phil and Mel are not who they say they are, and this is no random vacation friendship. 

Barbara McClymont walks the cane fields searching for Janet, her 16-year-old daughter, who has been missing for weeks. The police have no leads. The people of Quala are divided by dread and distrust. But the sugar crush is underway, and the cane must be burned. Meanwhile, children dream of a malevolent presence, a schoolteacher yearns to escape and history keeps returning to remind Quala that the past is always present.

Maine, 1969. After losing her parents in a car accident, aspiring artist Annalisa Mancuso lives with her grandmother and their large Italian family in the stifling factory town of Payton Mills. Inspired by her mother, whose own artistic dreams disappeared in a damaged marriage, Annalisa is dedicated only to painting. Closed off to love, and driven as much by her innate talent as she is the disillusionment of her past, Annalisa just wants to come into her own.