The wealthy community of Esperance is picture-perfect. Big houses, stunning views, beautiful people. A brand new running track for the local club to jog around in the evenings. From the outside, it looks like paradise. But the women of the town know the truth: you can hide anything—from wrinkles to secrets from your past—if you have enough money. You could even hide a murder.

From the outside the parents of the kindergarten class at Darley Heights primary school seem to have it all. Living in the wealthy Sydney suburbs, it's a community where everyone knows each other - and secrets don't stay secret for long. The big date in the calendar is the school's annual fundraising trivia night, but when the evening gets raucously out of hand, talk turns to partner-swapping. Initially scandalised, it's not long before a group of parents make a reckless one-night-only pact. But in the harsh light of day, those involved must face the fallout of their behaviour.

The exciting thriller by Rebecca Heath, author of THE SUMMER PARTY. A dark and twisty domestic thriller set in a seemingly idyllic suburban neighbourhood, where family secrets are best kept buried!

My hand trembles as I stare at the anonymous text. On this sunny Saturday morning, our twin ten-year-old boys were playing in the park just down our tree-lined street. But only one of them has come home… and it’s all my husband’s fault. I race to Leo’s study and demand answers. As his face turns white, I know: one of his affairs has turned deadly. I always smell the unfamiliar perfume on his shirt. I try to pretend we are a happy family, for the sake of the children… but now, my child is in terrible danger.

Meadow Reed used to get confused when explaining that she had grandparents from Australia, Tonga and Great Britain. She'd say she was full-White and full-Tongan, thinking that so many halves made separate wholes. Despite the Anglo-Saxon genetics that gave Meadow a narrow nose and light-brown skin, everybody who raised her was Tongan. Everybody who loved her was Tongan. This was what made her Tongan.

Summer, 2000. In the tranquil town of Queen's Point in southern Australia, the Whitlam family marks the end of every season with a lavish party in their clifftop mansion. Here, clutching her first glass of real champagne, the summer breeze intoxicating on her skin, sixteen-year-old Lucy Ross is kissed for the very first time. And then, in the shadows of the rose garden, she sees something she shouldn't.

Everyone thinks I’m living the perfect life. I have my dream job, a stunning apartment, and glamourous friends – who know nothing about my dark past. So I’m shocked when I run into Anna, who I haven’t seen in eighteen years. Everything about her reminds me of the life I’ve left behind. But as her eyes fill with tears and she tells me she’s lost her job and can’t pay her rent, I reluctantly offer her my spare room.

A bright and welcoming haven, the playgroup sits at the heart of the town, tucked away inside a red-brick building. The Nest should have been the safest place for my rosy-cheeked, pink-obsessed daughter, Florence. Run by mothers like me, I trusted my newfound friends–Alice, Beth and Georgie–to take care of my child. But now my choice has left Florence fighting for her life.

Eve has a good life. She wakes up each day, kisses her husband Nate, and heads off to teach math at the local high school. All is as it should be. Except… Last year, Caseham High was rocked by a scandal involving a student-teacher affair, with one student, Addie, at its center. But Eve knows there is far more to these ugly rumors than meets the eye. Addie can’t be trusted. She lies. She hurts people. She destroys lives. At least, that’s what everyone says. But nobody knows the real Addie. Nobody knows the secrets that could destroy her. And Addie will do anything to keep it quiet…

Psychiatry registrar Doctor Hannah Wright, a country girl with a chaotic history, thought she had seen it all in the emergency room. But that was nothing compared to the psychiatric ward at Menzies Hospital. Hannah must learn on the job in a strained medical system, as she and her fellow trainees deal with the common and the bizarre, the hilarious and the tragic, the treatable and the confronting.

I know Benjamin’s new business is in trouble, that he desperately needs your money. I saw the way Gwyn looked at him at your wedding reception, finding any excuse to be close, to laugh too loudly at his jokes. After all, she always wanted your perfect life. But don’t worry, Madeline. I won’t let it end like this. I can see everything from my place in the shadows between the trees. With their house lit up, they are on display. I’ll bide my time and worm my way into their home, their lives. They will never know the truth about who I am.

Most of us have done our time in the retail trenches, but service stations are undoubtedly the frontline, as Melburnian David Goodwin found out when he started working the weekend graveyard shift at his local servo. From his very first night shift, David absorbed a consistent level of mind-bending lunacy, encountering everything from giant shoplifting bees and balaclava-clad goons hurling cordial-filled water bombs from the sunroof of their BMW, to anarcho-goths high on MDMA releasing large rats into the store from their matching Harry Potter backpacks.

For Rebecca Bloomwood, life is peachy. She has a job on morning TV, her bank manager is actually being nice to her, and when it comes to spending money, her new motto is Buy Only What You Need—and she's really (sort of) sticking to it. The icing on the brioche is that she's been offered a chance to work in New York.

Death stalked the Vale. In every corner, every whisper. They just didn't know it yet. Six neighbours, six secrets, six reasons to want Olive Collins dead. In the exclusive gated community of Withered Vale, people's lives appear as perfect as their beautifully manicured lawns. Money, success, privilege - the residents have it all. Life is good. There's just one problem. Olive Collins' dead body has been rotting inside number four for the last three months. Her neighbours say they're shocked at the discovery, but nobody thought to check on her when she vanished from sight.

Katelyn smiles around at her husband and friends, gathered to celebrate her 36th birthday in their beautiful home decorated with fairy lights. But the next day Katelyn wakes up shaken and terrified in a hospital bed. She doesn’t remember the sweet taste of birthday cake icing, or how angry her best friend was at midnight, or the terrible things her husband said. She doesn’t remember the party at all. When she asks her husband what happened the night of the party he says "nothing". But her blood runs cold at the way his voice lilts slightly. The way it always does when he is lying.