Nicole and Samantha Cooper both remember the summer day when their mother, Tina, lost control of their car - but not in quite the same way. It is only after Tina's death, almost four decades later, that the sisters are forced to reckon with the repercussions of the crash. Nicole, after years of sabotaging her own happiness, seems finally content but still can't get through to her sister. And Samantha is hiding something that might just tear apart the life she's worked so hard to build for herself. 

Cassie and Erin are sisters. They are close - in age, looks and personality - but there is one crucial difference: Cassie is adopted. At 17, Cassie sets out to find her birth mother. She is hungry for the truth, but she discovers her adoption was far more complicated than even she could have imagined. In uncovering her real identity Cassie learns her adoptive parents have kept a terrible secret from her her whole life, which now threatens to destroy everything she has ever held dear.

Conscripted into the Polish army as Hitler’s forces draw closer, Jewish soldier Tolek Klings vows to return to his wife, Klara, and son, Juliusz. However, the army is rife with anti-Semitism and Tolek is relentlessly tormented. As the Germans invade Poland, he is faced with a terrible dilemma: flee home to protect his family - and risk being shot as a deserter - or remain a soldier, hoping reports of women and children being spared by the occupying forces are true.

When Shirley Sullivan signs her 83-year-old husband, Frank, out of the Sunset Lodge Nursing Home, she has no intention of bringing him back. For 57 years the couple has shared love, happiness and heartbreak. And while Frank may not know who his wife is these days, he knows he wants to go home. Back to the beach where they met in the early 1960s.

This is the story of Mary, a young girl born in a beautiful city full of rose gardens and fluttering kites. When she is still very small, Mary meets Lanmo, a shining golden snake, who becomes her very best friend. The snake visits Mary many times; he sees her city change, become sadder as bombs drop and war creeps in. He sees Mary and her family leave their home, he sees her grow up and he sees her fall in love. 

Seventeen-year-old Layla was just like any other teenager in the small town of Glasswater Bay – she studied hard, went out drinking with her friends and worked at the local cafe. But when she started having a relationship with her older, married boss, everything changed. Twenty years later she's living a quiet life in the suburbs with a husband and two children, a life far removed from the girl she was. Until she receives a text message: I know what you did.

As a vibrant, young woman with a lifetime of possibilities ahead of her, Freya grants her sister, Pearl, the ultimate gift of motherhood. However, this comes at a hefty price - an unexpected rift in her family and the loss of the man she loves. Decades later, Freya is divorced, childless and homeless, at rock bottom after losing everything she's worked for. When her estranged niece, Billie, offers sanctuary, managing the family restaurant on beautiful Magnetic Island, Freya can hardly refuse. 

It’s Livia’s 40th birthday, and she’s having the party of a lifetime to make up for the wedding she never had. Everyone she loves will be there except her daughter Marnie, who’s studying abroad. But although Livia loves Marnie, she’s secretly glad she won’t be at the party. She needs to tell Adam something about their daughter, but she’s waiting until the party is over so they can have this last happy time together. 

It's 1996. Detective Sergeant Tom Thorne is a haunted man. Haunted by the moment he ignored his instinct about a suspect, by the horrific crime that followed and by the memories that come day and night, in sunshine and shadow. So when seven-year-old Kieron Coyne goes missing while playing in the woods with his best friend, Thorne vows he will not make the same mistake again. Cannot. The solitary witness. The strange neighbour. The friendly teacher. All are in Thorne's sights. This case will be the making of him...or the breaking. 

Maggie Cotton's life is a hot mess. In one day, she's dumped by her boyfriend, disinherited by her mum, and kicked off the three-year degree course she'd stretched to a decade. And that was before she received the letter saying she owed the government $70,000. But that's no reason to grow up, is it? With a decrepit 1960s caravan to call home, Maggie has to prove to her mother she can survive without a safety net, stop her loyal best friend Jen from marrying a scumbag, and convince her sexy workmate Rueben that she's not a walking disaster. 

Tom Hope doesn’t think he’s much of a farmer, but he’s doing his best. He can’t have been much of a husband to Trudy, either, judging by her sudden departure. It’s only when she returns, pregnant to someone else, that he discovers his surprising talent as a father. So when Trudy finds Jesus and takes little Peter away with her to join the holy rollers, Tom’s heart breaks all over again. Enter Hannah Babel, quixotic small-town bookseller: the second Jew, and the most vivid person, Tom has ever met. He dares to believe they could make each other happy. 

Exploring themes of ownership and abandonment, Eleanor Anstruther’s debut is a fictionalised account of the true story of Enid Campbell (1892-1964), granddaughter of the 8th Duke of Argyll, who sold her son to her sister for £500. Interweaving one significant day in 1964 with a decade during the interwar period, A Perfect Explanation gets to the heart of what it is to be bound by gender, heritage and tradition, to fight, to lose, to fight again. In a world of privilege, truth remains the same; there are no heroes and villains, only people misunderstood. 

When Mina receives an urgent call from her best friend back in Melbourne, her world is turned upside down. Her reclusive mother, Elaine, has left the house for the first time in 12 years. Mina drops everything to fly home, only to discover that Elaine will not talk about her sudden return to the world, nor why she's spent so much time hiding from it. Their reunion leaves Mina raking through pieces of their painful past in a bid to uncover the truth.

Nikki Gemmell's world changed forever in October 2015 when the body of her elderly mother was found and it became clear she had decided to end her own life. After the immediate shock and devastation came the guilt and the horror, for Nikki, her family, relatives, and friends. No note was left, so the questions that Elayn's death raised were endless. Was the decision an act of independence or the very opposite? Was it a desperate act driven by hopelessness and anger, or was her euthanasia a reasoned act of empowerment?

Mim’s husband is missing. No one knows where Ben is, but everyone wants to find him - especially The Department. And they should know, the all-seeing government body has fitted the entire population with a universal tracking chip to keep them "safe". But suddenly Ben can’t be tracked. And Mim is questioned, made to surrender her passport and threatened with the unthinkable - her two children being taken into care at the notorious BestLife.