This past year has seen new fiction from a number of multi-award-winning and bestselling authors including crime thrillers, sweeping sagas, strange and mysterious tales, gripping historical novels, stunning story collections and more.

Force of Nature by Jane Harper

Federal Police Agent Aaron Falk returns in another addictive crime thriller from Jane Harper. Five women reluctantly head out on a hike together at a corporate retreat; only four return. The disappearance is of particular importance to Falk as the missing bushwalker – Alice Russell – is the whistleblower in his latest case and she was full of secrets. As he attempts to unravel the mystery, he soon realises that the dangers ran far deeper than even he suspected.

A Long Way from Home by Peter Carey

A Long Way from Home is a celebration and interrogation of the Australia of Peter Carey’s childhood. He takes us on a wild ride around the country in 1954 by way of the famous Redex car trial, during which our protagonist, Willy Bachhuber, learns the poignant truth of his troubled past. This is a tender and wonderfully wry, portrait of Australia in the 1950s.

Taboo by Kim Scott

Taboo takes place in the present day, in the rural South-West of Western Australia. It tells the story of a group of Noongar people who revisit, for the first time in many decades, a taboo place: the site of a massacre that followed the assassination, by these Noongar’s descendants, of a white man who had stolen a black woman. They’ve come at the invitation of Dan Horton, the elderly owner of the farm on which the massacres unfolded, who hopes for closure and reconciliation – but the sins of the past will not be so easily expunged.

First Person by Richard Flanagan

Kif Kehlmann, a young penniless writer, is rung in the middle of the night by the notorious con man and corporate criminal, Siegfried Heidl. About to go to trial for defrauding the banks of $700 million, Heidl offers Kehlmann the job of ghostwriting his memoir. He has six weeks to write the book, for which he’ll be paid $10,000. But as the writing gets under way, Kehlmann begins to fear that he is being corrupted by Heidl.

The Red Coast by Di Morrissey

Di Morrissey returns to the red earth of the Kimberley with a passionate story of resistance and resilience under its soaring blue skies. After the upheaval which separated Jacqui Bouchard from her beloved son, she has finally settled in Broome, a magical remote town on the northwest coast of Australia. But when a proposed mining development is unveiled, the town begins to tear itself apart. Rifts run deep, as friends, families and lovers are faced with a battle that could change their lives irrevocably.

The Secrets She Keeps by Michael Robotham

The Secrets She Keeps is compelling psychological thriller from Michael Robotham. Everyone has an idea of what their perfect life is, and for Agatha, it’s the life of Meghan Shaughnessy. These two women from vastly different backgrounds have one thing in common – a dangerous secret that could destroy everything they hold dear. Both would risk everything to hide the truth, but their worlds are about to collide in a shocking act that cannot be undone.

The Life to Come by Michelle de Kretser

Michelle De Kretser’s sprawling new novel is a dazzling meditation on intimacy, loneliness and our flawed perception of other people. Set over Sydney, Paris and Sri Lanka, The Life to Come is smart and politically engaged with a cutting sense of humour. In its pages we meet Pippa, a jealous and delusional writer who longs for success, along with a cast of other flawed, relatable characters.

Whipbird by Robert Drewe

Six generations of the Cleary family come together at Whipbird – Hugh and Christine Cleary’s new vineyard in Kungadgee, Victoria – to celebrate the 160th anniversary of the arrival of their ancestor Conor Cleary from Ireland. Some of these family members know each other, some don’t, and as the wine flows, it promises to be an eventful couple of days. Robert Drewe’s telling of a classic Australian family saga is comic, topical, honest, sharply intelligent, and, above all, sympathetic.

Atlantic Black by AS Patric

Teenage Katerina Klova and her mother are crossing the Atlantic by ocean liner. When Anne suffers a psychotic breakdown, Katerina is left alone on a ship full of strangers who span classes and stations, all of whom carry their ambitions, fears and obsessions with them. This story takes place over one day and night, New Year’s Eve, 1939. The RMS Aquitania steams across the Atlantic ocean. On the horizon the world is about to explode.

Stories by Helen Garner

This new edition of Helen Garner’s collected short fiction celebrates the 75th birthday of one of Australia’s most loved authors. Each of these 14 stories delve into the complexities of love and longing, of the pain, darkness and joy of life, and are all told with Garner’s characteristic sharpness of observation, honesty and humour.

The Passage of Love by Alex Miller

Sitting in a New York park, an old man holds a book and tries to accept that his contribution to the future is over. Instead, he remembers a youthful yearning for open horizons, for Australia, a yearning he now knows inspired his life as a writer. Instinctively he picks up his pen and starts at the beginning. In a rich blend of thoughtful and beautifully observed writing, the lives of a husband and wife are laid bare in their passionate struggle to engage with their individual creativity.

City of Crows by Chris Womersley

Chris Womersley’s richly imagined historical novel is set the backdrop of the notorious Affair of the Poisons murder scandal of seventeenth-century France. Desperate to save herself and her only surviving child Nicolas from an outbreak of plague, Charlotte Picot flees her tiny village in the French countryside. But when Nicolas is abducted by a troop of slavers, Charlotte resorts to witchcraft and summons assistance in the shape of a malevolent man. She and her companion travel to Paris where they become further entwined in the underground of sorcerers and poisoners.

Common People by Tony Birch

In this unforgettable new collection Tony Birch brings alive a cast of recognisable characters. From a young girl who is gifted to a middle-class family for Christmas to a homeless deaf man who unexpectedly delivers a baby, his stories are set in gritty urban refuges and struggling regional communities. His deftly drawn characters find unexpected signs of hope in a world where beauty can be found on every street corner, and where the ordinary kindness of strangers can have extraordinary results.

The Choke by Sofie Laguna

Abandoned by her mother as a toddler and only occasionally visited by her volatile, secretive father, Justine is raised by her Pop, an old man tormented by visions of the Burma Railway. Justine finds sanctuary in Pop’s chooks and in The Choke, a place of staggering natural beauty that is both a source of peace and danger. The Choke is a claustrophobic novel about a child navigating an often dark and uncaring world of male power, guns and violence.

Two Steps Forward by Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist

From husband and wife team Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist, Two Steps Forward is a smart, funny and romantic story that takes place on the Camino de Santiago. Zoe, a sometime artist from California, and Martin, an engineer from Yorkshire, have each decided to make a new start by setting out alone to walk the 2,000km from picturesque Cluny to Santiago – following the footsteps of pilgrims who have walked the Camino for centuries. As their paths cross and recross, these two very different people might just discover a kindred spirit in each other.

Sanctuary by Judy Nunn

On a barren island off the coast of Western Australia, a rickety wooden dinghy runs aground. Aboard are nine people who have no idea where they are – strangers before the violent storm that tore their vessel apart, the instinct to survive has seen them bond during their days adrift on a vast and merciless ocean. And while they remain undiscovered on the deserted island, they dare to dream of a new life. Meanwhile, 40km away on the mainland lies the tiny fishing port of Shoalhaven, a place where things never change, until now…

Border Districts by Gerald Murnane

Conceived as Gerald Murnane’s last work of fiction, Border Districts was written after the author moved from Melbourne to a small town on the western edge of the Wimmera plains, near the border with South Australia. The narrator of this fiction has made a similar move, from a capital city to a remote town in the border country, where he intends to spend the last years of his life. In this work, Border Districts also refers to the border country between life and death; and there is another meaning, in the narrator’s discovery of others who might share his world, even though they enter it from a different direction, across the border districts which separate, or unite, two human beings.

The Twentieth Man by Tony Jones

In September 1972, journalist Anna Rosen takes an early morning phone call from her boss at the ABC, telling her about two bombings in Sydney’s busy CBD. It’s the worst terrorist attack in the country’s history and Anna has no doubt which group is responsible for the carnage. She has been investigating the role of alleged war criminals in the globally active Ustasha movement. Meanwhile, high in the Austrian Alps, Marin Katich is one of 20 would-be revolutionaries who slip stealthily over the border into Yugoslavia on a mission planned and funded in Australia. And soon the arrival in Australia of Yugoslavia’s prime minister will trigger the next move in a deadly international struggle.