2025 Spring Giveaway #2

Samantha Byres Dead Ends

‘Byres is a red-hot new voice in contemporary noir.’ – Jenny Valentish

Nell Jenkins returns to the small hometown she escaped as a teen, but her homecoming isn’t the triumph it should be. Settling into old habits, she sparks a relationship with her dead best friend’s brother, and falls in lust with Katya, who works for a once-famous TV psychic. A portrait of love and loss, and the bad decisions we make in their wake.

Courtesy of UQP

Murray Middleton U Want It Darker

In this collection of short stories, Murray MIddleton delves deeply into the absurdities of creative life — stories of artists struggling with their egos, facing their failures and redeeming their bad behaviour.

Courtesy of Picador

Gretchen Shirm Out of the Woods

An Australian woman travels to the Hague to work as secretary to a judge. There, she sits through the trial of a military man charged with war crimes. Deeply affected by the testimony of witnesses, she is also plagued by doubt about the defendant’s guilt. Shirm’s novel asks what it means to bear witness to suffering and whether it is possible afterwards to resume a normal life.

Courtesy of Transit Lounge

Katharine Pollock Starry Eyed

The new novel from the author of Her Fidelity. Addilyn Acker thinks all her dreams have come true when she’s invited to interview her idol, Josh Courtney, director of the cult feminist sci-fi film Scarlett Fever. But when she arrives in New York, she discovers that Josh might not be quite who she thought he was. And that some fan-fiction is best left unwritten.

‘a big, funny jaunt into the world of fan culture’ – Melanie Saward

Courtesy of Wakefield Press