Here they are, our next releases!

July to October so far… (there are always more books coming soon and we’ll add them as we know about them)

Read all the story blurbs and find your pre-order links

 

Happy book pre-ordering!

Out 1 July 2022

They’re saving lives in the outback. Can love save them?

Pilot Jess Pearson is running away from a broken heart and a terrible burden of guilt. A new job flying an air ambulance in outback Australia is a lifeline, after the headlines claimed she betrayed her lover to escape a prison sentence. That was all lies, and in Coorah Creek she has a chance to start over. She’s not hoping for forgiveness or love, just to escape from the past. But no matter how many people she helps save, can she ever atone for a lost life?

Dr Adam Gilmore is a brilliant doctor who wants only two things-to work and to be left alone. Unwilling to let any woman past his well-built barriers, he gives everything of himself to his patients. But when the new pilot comes to his small town, with a dedication to the job that matches his own, he starts to wonder if maybe he doesn’t have to shoulder the burden alone …

Can these battered souls learn to take strength from each other? Or will their desire to deal with their demons alone keep them apart forever?

Pre-order Flight to Coorah Creek

available in eBook format only
* this is a newly polished version of a previously published story

Read more about Janet Gover

 

Out 5 July 2022

‘A heart-warming rural romance from the best-selling author of The Wattle Seed Inn.’

Sometimes, home isn’t a place: it’s a feeling.

Lucie Tamberlani had it all: a business manager with a passion for naturopathy, she was set to take over the bookwork at the family strawberry farm in South Australia. But the unexpected fallout from a relationship sees her flee to Melbourne, raising her daughter alone. Summoned back to the farm after her father’s death, Lucie must find a way to deal with not only grief, guilt, and the betrayal that forced her away – but the fear of losing her daughter.

Jack Schenscher is doing it tough: caring for his aged grandparents and managing their wheat farm while simultaneously pursuing his passion of sustainable eco-farming on his own acreage leaves him with little time and even less money. With the death of his business partner, he could lose all he has worked toward. Yet when he meets Lucie, can he set aside one passion for another?

Both Lucie and Jack must discover that home is wherever the heart is.

Pre-order The River Gum Cottage

Read more about Leonie Kelsall

 

Out 6 July 2022

When Kirsty Fox goes on the run to escape a crash-and-burn at work, she finds a family she didn’t know she needed… ‘A witty and warm rural romance perfect for readers of Rachael Johns and Alissa Callen.’

They say change is as good as a holiday. Joey Miles is hoping so after leaving the city behind, his stockbroking career in flames, to embrace a brand-new challenge: farming. But while returning to his hometown somehow feels right, he’s got a long way to go to get back on his feet financially and the last thing he needs is the townsfolk meddling in his love life (or lack thereof).

To the townsfolk of Clarence, Joey has always been the ultimate tragic romantic hero – and it’s time this hero had a happy ever after…

But Kirsty Fox is only in Clarence to dig up information about a World War II figure from her family’s past – she has no intention of sticking around and finding out if Joey is as adorable as he seems. Kirsty doesn’t stick around. Ever.

But when the locals of Clarence spy the chemistry between these two, a secret item gets added to the agenda of the next town committee meeting: matchmaking. This warm-hearted community will pull every trick in the book to show Joey and Kirsty everything they’ve unwittingly been searching for is right under their noses… What could possibly go wrong?

Pre-order A Town like Clarence

Read more about Stella Quinn

 

Out 3 August 2022

‘Inspired by the popular 90s romcom While You Were Sleeping, this is both a nostalgic throwback and a modern-day love story about what happens when the man of your dreams isn’t quite who you expected.’

He’s finally met The One … and she’s dating his brother.

Ant Murphy has spent his life picking up after his famous AFL star brother. So when he gets a phone call telling him that Jed has ended up in the hospital after a drink-driving incident, Ant is far from surprised. He’s not even shocked by Jed’s manager’s wild scheme to have him spend the next six weeks living in the country with a girlfriend Ant didn’t even know about. All par for the course in his brother’s crazy life.

In fact, Ant isn’t thrown by anything … until he turns up at the new girlfriend’s farmhouse and discovers that he already knows her. Intimately.

Frankie Fox has dealt with a lot over the last few weeks. She’s turned thirty, lost her roof in a storm, been ghosted by The One, and is now somehow dating her longstanding celebrity crush, THE Jed Murphy. But none of these come close to the blow of having The One turn up on her doorstep after weeks of silence … and for him to turn out to be Jed’s brother.

With a secret she’s forbidden from revealing, growing feelings for her boyfriend’s brother, two Murphys living in her home and her future happiness on the line, Frankie must ask the most important question of all: is all this trouble really worth a new roof?

Pre-order While You Were in the Country

Read more about Eva Scott

 

Out 3 August 2022

‘A lonely windswept lighthouse island in Bass Strait hides a dangerous secret hundreds of years in the making … Secrets and sabotage keep readers guessing in the new novel from Kaye Dobbie.’

1882

Laura Webster and her father are the stalwart keepers of Benevolence Island Lighthouse, a desolate place stranded in the turbulent Bass Strait. When a raging storm wrecks a schooner just offshore, the few survivors take shelter with the Websters, awaiting rescue from the mainland. But some of the passengers have secrets that lead to dreadful consequences, the ripples of which echo far into the future …

2020

Nina and her team of volunteers arrive on Benevolence to work on repairs, with plans to open up the island to tourists. Also on the expedition, for reason of his own, is Jude Rawlins, a man Nina once loved. A man who once destroyed her.

But the idyllic location soon turns into a nightmare as random acts of sabotage leave them with no communication to the mainland and the sense of someone on the island who shouldn’t be there.

The fingers of those secrets from the passengers lost long ago are reaching into the present, and Nina will never be the same again …

Pre-order The Keepers of the Lighthouse

Read more about Kaye Dobbie

 

Out 7 September 2022

‘Beth has forgotten the core truth of her own life. In a cruel move, her dead mother is about to remind her. A wise and ultimately warm-hearted story about self-discovery, family and community for readers of Tricia Stringer and Liz Byrski.’

Since adolescence, 58-year-old Beth has lived her life with blinkers on, repressing the memory of a teenage trauma. Her mother, Marian, took control of that situation, and of all else in their family life – and as much as she could in the small town of Miner’s Ridge as well.

Now Marian is dead, and Beth, unemployed and in the middle of an embarrassing divorce, is living with her gentle-hearted father in the family home. Beth feels obliged to take over her mother’s involvement in the local town hall committee, which becomes a source of new friendships, old friendships renewed, and a considerable amount of aggravation.

Researching town hall history, Beth finds photographs that show Marian in a surprising light; sorting through Marian’s belongings, she realises that her mother has left a trail of landmines, cruel revelations that knock the feet out from under her supposed nearest and dearest. Beth struggles to emerge from the ensuing emotional chaos … in middle age, can she really start anew?

‘A deeply felt, acutely observed novel about mothers and children, about what people hide from themselves and each other, about the richness and difficulties of community, and about becoming your own person.’

Pre-order Becoming Beth

Read more about Meredith Appleyard

 

Out 1 October 2022

It might take some Christmas magic to make this outback town feel like home…

Eager to make a real difference, English nurse Katie Brooks has travelled halfway around the world to work on an air ambulance in outback Queensland. She was prepared to be a fish out of water, but she hadn’t anticipated how challenging the isolation would be. And she’d certainly never expected to be rescued on day one by Scott Collins: Coorah Creek’s prodigal son, who might just be the best thing about the town.

Meeting Katie is the one bright spot in Scott’s reluctant return to his childhood home. He has nothing but bad memories of growing up. He once vowed never to return, but now he needs to put old ghosts to rest, before beginning a new life as far away as he can get.

Katie is determined to stay. Scott is just as determined to leave. Can a small-town Christmas change their minds?

Pre-order Christmas at Coorah Creek

available in eBook format only
* this is a newly polished version of a previously published story

 

Read more about Janet Gover

 

Out 5 October 2022

‘A dazzling, heart-breaking story of friendship and redemption from bestselling author Jennie Jones’

A war. The girl she’d been. And the woman she was forced to become.

Townsville, 1942. Young women aged sixteen and over are obliged by law to join the war effort, and Emma Hatton’s world is at last about to change. Longing to escape the humdrum poverty of oceanside Blueholm Bay and the demands of her domineering mother, Emma reaches the bustling wartime mayhem of Townsville where the city streets are filled with glamorous GIs and red lipstick is the colour of the day. Befriending charismatic Cassie O’Byrne, Emma believes her adult life has finally begun.

Private Frank Kendrick’s kisses make her heart beat faster and with all the talk of his family in California, surely a proposal is imminent. But after a hasty seduction, Frank disappears and Emma finds herself in trouble.

Her family’s solution is the Holy Refuge of Saint Philomena in Brisbane, a prison-like ‘home’ where unmarried, pregnant young women are sent to repent and used as drudges while they wait out their term before their babies are forcibly adopted. Longing to keep her child, Emma befriends other girls struggling in this cruel environment while her dearest friend of all seeks a way to help.

Cassie’s solution, and the courageous choices Emma must make, lead her to true adulthood, forever friendships … and a home and family she could never have anticipated.

Pre-order Daughter of the Home Front

Read more about Jennie Jones

 

Out 5 October 2022

As tensions simmer in a small country town, three women are going to need more than CWA sausage rolls and can-do community spirit to put things right. ‘From a bestselling Australian author comes a delightful novel full of practical wisdom and dry humour that examines female friendship, buried secrets and why honesty is (usually) the best policy.’

Privacy is hard to maintain in Badara, the kind of small Australian country town where everyone knows everyone else’s business. So discovers single mum Paige when she and her three children arrive from the city seeking refuge. Paige’s only respite from child care and loneliness is the Tuesday gym club, where she had feared the judgement of the town matriarchs, but she is met only with generosity and a plethora of baked goods. Besides, both the brusque Marion and her polished sister-in-law Briony are too busy dealing with their own dramas to examine hers.

Well-to-do farmer’s wife and proud mother Briony is in full denial of her family’s troubles. Even with her eldest daughter’s marriage in ruins and her son Blake’s recent bombshell. Suddenly Briony and husband Vince have a full house again – and the piles of laundry aren’t the only dirty linen that’s about to be aired.

For Marion, the unearthing of a time capsule – its contents to be read at the Celebrate Badara weekend – is a disaster. She was only a teenager when she wrote down those poisonous words, but that doesn’t mean she won’t lose friends and family if they hear what she really thinks of them – especially as the letter reveals their darkest secrets to the world.

When the truth comes out for Badara, keeping up appearances may no longer be an option for anyone …

Pre-order Keeping Up Appearances

Read more about Tricia Stringer

 

Out 5 October 2022

‘Bestselling Australian author Mandy Magro returns with a standalone rural romance, set in the world of Mandy’s novel Jacaranda.’

Falling in love was never part of her plan … ‘A captivating contemporary romance about new beginnings and risking it all, from bestselling Australian author Mandy Magro.’

What happens when fate sends you just the right person, at just the wrong time …?

Rose Jones is twenty-two, and has followed in her mother Molly’s footsteps working with horses as a champion barrel racer. Hard on the heels of being dumped by her fiance Rose is determined to chart her own path in life from now on. But meeting handsome bull rider Ty Parker wasn’t part of the plan.

After bonding at the Roses’ family Christmas, Rose accepts Ty’s offer of a quaint country cottage on his outback station as a bolthole to focus on her writing work and sorting through her feelings. Here among the beauty of the bush landscape she finds surprising adventure and friendships, but is taking a risk on love worth the gamble of breaking her heart all over again if it all goes wrong?

Pre-order Jillaroo from Jacaranda

Read more about Mandy Magro

 

Plus!

A sneak preview of a Christmas bindup – paperback only and up for pre-order now.

Out 5 October 2022

A collection of festive rural stories from five well-loved Australian authors.

Under Christmas Stars by Alissa Callen

Small-town teacher Freya George is determined to make up for last year’s disastrous Christmas. This year she will stop at nothing to ensure that she and the Woodlea community have the best holiday season ever. But from the moment Freya meets cattleman Drew Macgregor, her plans unravel faster than red Christmas ribbon…

Christmas at Coorah Creek by Janet Gover

English nurse Katie Brooks is here to stay after travelling halfway around the world to outback Queensland. But she hadn’t anticipated being rescued on day one by Scott Collins: Coorah Creek’s prodigal son … who is determined to leave town as soon as possible. Can a small-town Christmas change their minds?

The Christmas Wish by Jacquie Underdown

Returning home, schoolteacher Brielle hopes a quiet Christmas will quash the ever-present feeling that she no longer belongs anywhere. For single dad Luke, romance is off the agenda – no matter how appealing his one-time antagonist Brielle has become. It’s not only his heart that’s at risk – it’s that of his young daughter too. But after a Christmas wish is cast, the spirit of Christmas conspires to create some holiday magic.

Above the Mistletoe by Juliet Madison

Determined to Escape all things Christmas in far-off Australia, Angelette hadn’t counted on being forced to stay at the local Christmas-themed pub, where the owner is intent on enforcing holiday cheer. But embracing Christmas will mean opening up about the one reason Angelette vowed never to celebrate Christmas again. And that will take a miracle.

His Christmas Feast by Nora James

Jilted French chef Christophe has sworn off women. Until his sexy neighbour Emily turns up at the lavish Christmas party he throws at his country home. The trouble is, Emily, the queen of mixed signals, is hiding something. Will he ever understand her? Or will the fence they’re building between their two properties keep them apart for good?

Pre-order Beneath a Christmas Sky

 

 

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