Our newest display features a little armchair travel and some inspiration from Down Under.  These books are either written by Australian or New Zealand authors, feature characters from Australia or New Zealand, or are set in either location.  Check out some of these titles:

“The Paper Cage” is the prizewinning debut by New Zealand author Tom Baragwanath.  Its protagonist, Lorraine Henry, is generally content “to keep her head down and get on with her work as a records clerk at the Masterton police station.  But when children start going missing in her small town, Lo can’t help but pay attention.  After all, she has Bradley, her young nephew, to worry about, and the cops don’t seem to be putting much effort into finding the kids. And then the unthinkable happens: Bradley disappears.  Distraught but determined, Lorraine vows to bring him home no matter what. And, together with a detective from Wellington, she embarks on a dangerous mission, one that will illuminate all the good and all the bad in Masterton, ” asking the question: how far would you go to keep your family safe?  “Baragwanath’s debut is both social novel and thriller, spinning the tensions between the white and Māori populations, the chokehold of street gangs, and the toll of drug addiction on young families into a suspenseful crime drama…just the kind of dark, disturbing, gritty, and unusual treat thriller lovers are looking for.”

Eleanor Catton is another New Zealand author featured in our display.  In “Birnam Wood,” this Booker-winning author of The Luminaries delivers a “gripping thriller of high drama and kaleidoscopic insight into what drives us to survive.”  “Birnam Wood is on the move . . . A landslide has closed the Korowai Pass on New Zealand’s South Island, cutting off the town of Thorndike and leaving a sizable farm abandoned.  The disaster presents an opportunity for Birnam Wood, an undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic guerrilla gardening collective that plants crops wherever no one will notice. For years, the group has struggled to break even.  To occupy the farm at Thorndike would mean a shot at solvency at last.  But the enigmatic American billionaire Robert Lemoine also has an interest in the place: he has snatched it up to build his end-times bunker, or so he tells Birnam’s founder, Mira, when he catches her on the property. He’s intrigued by Mira, and by Birnam Wood; although they’re poles apart politically, it seems Lemoine and the group might have enemies in common.  But can Birnam trust him? And, as their ideals and ideologies are tested, can they trust one another?  Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood is Shakespearean in its drama, Austenian in its wit, and, like both influences, fascinated by what makes us who we are. A brilliantly constructed study of intentions, actions, and consequences, it is a mesmerizing, unflinching consideration of the human impulse to ensure our own survival.”

Sulari Gentill is a Sri Lankan-born Australian author.  In her latest novel “The Mystery Writer,” “Theo Benton decides to move to the United States to finally finish her novel, and she is soon drawn into a literary labyrinth where identity is something that can be lost and remade for the sake of sales and readership. When her mentor and lover is brutally murdered, Theo wants the killer to be found and justice to be served. But when the prime suspect turns out to be her older brother, Gus, Theo does what is necessary to protect him-to save him. Then she disappears. But the writer has left a trail, a thread out of the labyrinth in the form of a story. When Gus finds that thread, he follows it, and in attempting to find his sister, inadvertently, or perhaps recklessly, threatens the foundations of the labyrinth itself. In order to protect the carefully constructed deceit, Theo Benton, and everyone who ever looked for her, will have to die.”

Georgia Clarke is a native Australian, and her novel “Island time” features Aussie characters.  “The Kellys are messy, loud, loving Australians.  The Lees are sophisticated, aloof, buttoned-up Americans. They have nothing in common…except for the fact that their daughters are married.  When a nearby volcano erupts during their short vacation to a remote tropical island off the coast of Queensland, the two families find themselves stranded together for six weeks.  With only two island employees making up the rest of their party, everyone is forced to question what–or who–they really want.  Island Time is a sumptuous summer read that dives deep into queer romance, family secrets, ambition, parenthood, and a bird-chasing bromance.  This sexy, sun-soaked paradise of white sandy beaches, crystal-clear waters, and lush rainforest will show you it’s never too late to change your destiny.”

You’ll find these titles and lots more in our “Gone Walkabout” display.  For additional title suggestions, see the lists below: