End of May update which is smaller than recent ones because book things have quietened down just a little.
Despite that, I don't know about anyone else, but I can't keep up with the great things publishers have got on their lists these days, so I've started posting Thursday Temptations which is a combination of new / recent and upcoming releases, and books that I noticed that sound really interesting. Hopefully you'll find those posts useful.
Click here for the Other Places / 2nd part of the newsletter if you've not received your copy.
Reviews
On the review side of things, I'm still running a lot behind (tsunami of elderly animal illness / welfare and coincidental Australia Post chaos has meant I've spent a lot of what was previously spare time preparing medications / supplements and chasing my tail and my parcels half-way across the State). What I have managed to read however has been great (see the lists below), and of the two reviewed The Quiet Man by Caimh McDonnell made me laugh as always and Honey by Imani Thompson was not what I expected, and everything I wanted.
Just Finished Pile
Actually accomplished something in this list: Honey by Imani Thompson, Empathy by Brian Walpert (2026 Ngaio's), Against the Grain by Bing Turkby (2026 Ngaio's), A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan (2026 Ngaio's) and Fatima Down Under, Julie Ryan (2026 Ngaio's) were all read - very different selection of books as it turns out.
Current Reading Pile
The current reading pile is also heading into very different from each other territory with Like, Follow, Die by Ashley Kalagian Blunt, What Rhymes with Murder by Penny Tangey, Happy Woman by Abby Corson and The Bathing Box Murders, Laraine Stephens (early ARC / details to come).
#NextUp
This grouping is still more than a bit random as I'm juggling a lot of priorities at the moment but if we put it in the groupings
#FeelingGuiltyAbout
The Ledge by Christian White and Parrot Heaven by Jessica Howland Kany (still)
#NgaiosSubmissions
A Man Called Box by Tina Clough (2026 Ngaio's), The Good Father by Liam McIlvanney (2026 Ngaio's) and The Birds Began to Sing by Jeffrey Buchanan (2026 Ngaio's)
#NudgedToRead
Red River Road by Anna Downes and The Writers Retreat by Victoria Brownlee
#ReallyWantToRead
#NetGalleyReads
Hero by Patricia Wolf, Against Their Will by Karina Kilmore, Later, Only Love Remains by Leah Swann and The Nowhere Boy, Anne Cleary
Recent Arrivals / Upcoming Releases (Australia / NZ)
This section, as always, includes new and upcoming releases, and acquisitions.
Region: Australia
Publication Date: Wed, 02/04/2025
ISBN: 9781761426704
Based on the true story of Tasma Walton’s ancestor, a powerful, heart-wrenching novel about maternal love that endures against pitiless odds. Kidnapped by sealers and enslaved far from her homeland, Nannertgarrook has a spirit that refuses to bow …
From her idyllic life in sea country in Nerrm (Port Phillip Bay, Victoria), Nannertgarrook is abducted and taken to a slave market, leaving behind a husband, daughter and son. Pregnant when seized, she soon gives birth to another son, whom she raises with the children of her fellow captives. ...Read more
Region: Australia
Publication Date: Thu, 13/11/2025
ISBN: 9781764362412
When justice and family loyalties collide, how far will we go to protect the ones we love?
On a blustery Melbourne night, Detective Jonathon Carver gets a call. Fourteen-year-old Summer King didn’t come home.
When Summer’s body washes up on the banks of the Yarra River, her dance teacher, Harry Pickering, quickly becomes the prime suspect.
Harry swears he drove Summer home that night.
Her parents claim she never arrived.
When the investigation gets too close to the truth, those Detective Carver loves the...Read more
Region: Australia
Publication Date: Tue, 28/04/2026
ISBN: 9781761355387
Journalist and human rights advocate Antoinette Lattouf takes us on a gripping journey through women who defied expectations and shattered cultural and legal barriers — often while being told to calm down.
From Australia’s first female law graduate to Indigenous leaders who resisted colonisation, from pioneers in sport and science to the women behind the first sex discrimination class action in Jobs for Women as well as those fighting against climate destruction. Some names you’ll recognise. Others you’ll wish you'd met sooner. ...Read more
Region: Australia
Publication Date: Tue, 07/07/2026
ISBN: 9780733651410
'The cloth that was over his head and tied tightly around his neck smelt like the army disposal store he'd been with his father. Lying on the floor of the van, hands tied behind his back, he closed his eyes and breathed in the kerosene-like scent of the sack, and he wished he was back there again. Back with his father on a Sunday afternoon ...'
They say your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. For Dan Milligan it isn't his life ... it's memories of his dad.
Dan has spent his whole life chasing something. Fast cars, leggy blondes, the rush...Read more
Region: Australia
Publication Date: Tue, 05/05/2026
ISBN: 9780143777731
It’s 1991, and Australian singer-songwriters Mick Woods and Drew Lovelock – 'tall and skinny, rock-star-wrecked handsome' – haven’t yet managed to crack the big-time. But that’s soon to be the least of their problems.
On tour in Central Queensland, what seems like a minor marijuana bust turns ugly, and they're incarcerated in a low-security institution in the middle of nowhere. With help from a couple of prisoners, they escape – but now what? They're songwriters on the run, desperately evading the long arm of the law and trying to clear their names. On the upside, they...Read more
Region: New Zealand
Publication Date: Tue, 23/06/2026
ISBN: 9781991142788
The stunning debut novel by the Winner of the Allen & Unwin Fiction Prize 2025. An emotionally charged exploration of what happens when one moment changes everything.
A child disappears in broad daylight—and no one sees a thing.
Three-year-old Oliver, known as Apple Man, vanishes from a remote car park while his young father, Scott, carries fishing gear down to the beach. When he returns, the car is empty. His son has vanished without a trace....Read more
Region: Australia
Publication Date: Tue, 30/06/2026
ISBN: 9781761822582
**‘**Neighbourhood Watch is a sharp, stylish thriller with a killer opening hook, a generous dose of dark humour, and a truly distinctive voice.’ Christian White
The annual Curlew Street scarecrow competition is back, and the residents of Melbourne’s inner north have never seen an entry like it. Shirt bloody, head and arms slumped over a scarecrow crucifix: Victoria’s most conservative Supreme Court Judge, Harry ‘The Pope’ Somerton, is dead. ...Read more
Region: Australia
Publication Date: Fri, 03/07/2026
Jen is seventeen, travelling under her older sister's identity, and married to a bikie. No one knows her real name. No one knows her real age. And no one suspects what she's capable of.
She has a secret. And that secret has a name.
By October 1983, she's executed the perfect crime.
Not with violence—though she's capable of that too. Not with chaos—though she leaves it in her wake.
The birth certificate says one thing. Biology says another.
The adoption is fraud. The mother is erased.
And everyone who...Read more
Region: Australia
Publication Date: Thu, 16/07/2026
ISBN: 9780008795450
It might look idyllic, but the secrets buried there are deadly…
When human bones are found in the garden attached to the glamorous London home where she grew up, Jess McIntyre prepares to receive the news she has dreaded for thirty-four years: that her sister, Nina, is dead and now here is the proof.
Nina disappeared without a trace in 1992, aged eighteen, the summer she fell in with a charismatic group of friends who squatted in a vacant house on the other side of Willow Gardens. ...Read more
Region: New Zealand
Publication Date: Tue, 28/07/2026
ISBN: 9781923419421
In the dying days of the Second World War, a new conflict is about to ignite.
May, 1945: After fighting to liberate Europe from the Nazis, Tito's Yugoslav Army and Allied forces have come to a tense standoff in the city of Trieste. Every day, locals with fascist and Nazi ties are disappearing, arrested by Yugoslav soldiers. Meanwhile the Allies watch on, reluctant to become mired in yet another conflict.
But when rumours circulate that New Zealand soldiers are among the missing, the stakes begin to rise. ..Read more
Region: Australia
Publication Date: Tue, 28/07/2026
ISBN: 9781038943521
The claustrophobia of Room meets the camaraderie of Yellowjackets with a touch of Picnic at Hanging Rock in this dark, immersive, psychological thriller debut with a speculative/lite-horror edge.
Christmas Eve, 1974.
As Cyclone Tracy tears through Darwin, four girls disappear into the heart of the outback. No tracks. No bodies. No answers.
Decades later, one returns. ...Read more
Region: Australia
Publication Date: Tue, 28/07/2026
ISBN: 9781761351136
Deep in the mountains, secrets grow deadly . . .
Detective Constable Sally White knows how easily hikers can go missing in Victoria’s high country. But there’s something about the disappearance of Louis Taylor, a young man lost up Mount Viking, that’s not sitting right with her.
Louis was an aspiring journalist, researching the illegal tobacco trade – also known as chop chop – that was once so prevalent in the area. And the last person he interviewed before his hike has just met a gruesome end . . . Read more
Region: Australia
Publication Date: Tue, 04/08/2026
ISBN: 9781761474019
From the bestselling author of How to Kill a Client and The Bluff comes a page-turning thriller of fraud and lies, murder and greed.
Ruth Dawson finds her ideal living space in an Art Deco building in Potts Point, The Lumen. A twenty-minute walk from her office in the city, the apartment boasts parquetry flooring, a wall of books and Harbour Bridge views from the sofa.
It's perfect until Ben, the homeless guy, dies under the corrugated iron lean-to in the garden where he lived....Read more
Region: Australia
Publication Date: Tue, 04/08/2026
ISBN: 9781786585332
Theft. Extortion. Dinner with Dad.
Lola McKenzie never wanted to steal from her dodgy boss.
But she also never wanted to be stuck in a dead-end job, paying off her dad’s debts.
So when she sees a bag of cash sitting around unattended at work, she figures it’s time to make life a little easier. Only, the next day...Read more
Region: Australia
Publication Date: Tue, 01/09/2026
ISBN: 9781761636615
When Ollie heads out for a run in the park, the last thing he expects to find is a dead body. But the real shock is that Ollie recognises the man. And somehow, he's connected to Ollie's father ... who vanished ten months ago.
And then he learns that the dead man was a spy.
With everything he thought he knew about his dad now in doubt, there's only one way for Ollie to get answers. He's going to have to solve the murder.
Armed with an old spy kit, a couple of bikes and a drone, Ollie and his friends Ella and George are about to step into...Read more
Region: Australia
Publication Date: Tue, 01/09/2026
ISBN: 9781761823855
When the system fails, justice must take another form.
When two convicted rapists walk free on appeal, the town of Deception Bay splits down the middle. The men swagger onto a packed cricket ground on Australia Day to a hero’s welcome. Before lunch is over, dozens of people fall ill. Among them, the newly released men.
As panic rips through the town and emergency services buckle, Detective Antigone Pollard and her partner, Wozza, scramble to figure out what has happened. Is it an accident? Or was this deliberate?...Read more
Region: Australia
Publication Date: Tue, 29/09/2026
ISBN: 9781761154850
In the gridlocked heart of Melbourne, a split-second of road rage changes everything. For one driver, the crash is a bizarre stroke of luck that sets their life on an upward trajectory they never thought possible. For the other, it is the first domino to fall in a terrifying downward spiral.
Detective Sergeant Claudia Russo doesn't care about the insurance claims—she’s focussed on the search for a missing eighteen-year-old girl. But the girl’s father, a man defined by entitlement and influence, is playing a dangerous game. He’s more afraid of his own double life being...Read more
Region: Australia
Publication Date: Tue, 05/01/2027
ISBN: 9780802168924
I look along the road and notice how many people are standing outside their houses or watching from doorways and windows. Staring. Studying.
“Do you think this town will ever forgive me?” I ask.
“Not in a million years.”
Small towns are quick to anger and slow to forgive, but Arlo Hackett doesn't expect mercy when he emerges from a twelve-year prison sentence and makes his way back to Yulara, a waypoint on Australia's Great Southern Road. The last time Arlo was home in 1988, his brother Luke was charged with a terrible...Read more