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  The Hunt - Lord Edward's Archer...

  Griff Hosker

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  The seventh audiobook in Griff Hosker's epic Lord Edward's Archer series of historical adventures. Stirling Bridge is a haunting memory for King Edward. When Scottish rebels threaten his northern borders the king acts swiftly to quash it. William Wallace remains a threat and hiding across the seas he sends his hunter to fetch him back. Sir Gerald Warbow is no longer a young man and his frame is not that of a young archer but he is the most trusted of King Edward’s men and he is sent to France to bring back the rebel who has defied him.

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  The Mesmeriser

  Alan Sherry

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  The Mesmeriser
  
  Respectable. Charming. Deranged.
  
  Surgeon-dentist Louis Bertrand arrives in Sydney with gleaming instruments, impeccable manners and a reputation polished to perfection. To polite society, he is a man of science and sophistication bringing the advances in modern dentistry to the colonies. But beneath the veneer lies something far darker.
  
  When Bertrand falls for Ellen, the elegant wife of a prominent banker, desire quickly turns into obsession. What follows is a spiral of delusion and depravity – a feverish descent into madness and the most bizarre behaviour that plays out in plain sight. The eventual crime of passion is merely the grim punctuation mark at the end of a tale so twisted, so flagrant, it could only have unfolded right under the noses of respectable society.
  
  Based on true events that scandalised nineteenth-century Sydney, The Mesmeriser is a chilling portrait of the man they called The Mad Dentist of Wynyard Square. It's a story of vanity, lust and the thin line between brilliance and insanity – a case where murder may be the least shocking of the perpetrator's crimes.

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  The Adventures of Roderick...

  Yvonne Schaefer

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  Born into privilege but condemned to the brutal realities of poverty, young Roderick faces a world that is as merciless as it is absurd. Disowned by his ruthless grandfather and orphaned by tragedy, he must survive by his wits alone in a society teeming with corrupt aristocrats, tyrannical schoolmasters, and murderous highwaymen. 
  In The Adventures of Roderick Random, Yvonne Schaefer breathes fresh life into a classic picaresque epic. When Roderick's fiercely loyal, seafaring Uncle Bowling arrives to defend his honor, it sets off a chain of events that will propel the brilliant but destitute young man from the grim Scottish countryside to the bustling, perilous roads of London. 
  Will Roderick succumb to the cruelty of a world that despises him, or will his unyielding spirit carve out a destiny of his own making? 
  Filled with razor-sharp satire, pulse-pounding encounters, and an unforgettable cast of scoundrels and saints, this is a masterful journey of survival, friendship, and the relentless quest for justice in an unforgiving era.

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  Nothing Without Honour

  Martin Hicks

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  It is the Spring of 1864 and the Confederate raider Palmetto is off the Philippines, pursuing her campaign against US shipping. For her captain, Thomas Grover there is much to consider, for with the ship’s previously sustained engine damage not fully repaired, he learns that these seas are now patrolled by a new Union warship that vastly overmatches his own ship. As the war turns increasingly against the south, Grover must redouble his efforts against the enemy, but the hidden threats facing him are as dangerous as the known ones.

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  Before the First Fleet to Australia

  John Gardiner

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  Most know the story of Australia's First Fleet. But who were those convicts, sailors, marines and administrators who travelled to Botany Bay in 1787? And who orchestrated this ambitious expedition? In his meticulously researched new book, John Gardiner pulls back the curtain on the world from which the First Fleet emerged. Delving into English newspapers, official reports, and government documents from the era, Gardiner vividly captures the squalor of London's slums, the rotting hulks on the Thames where prisoners languished, and the hardscrabble lives of those who would people New South Wales. We meet real-life figures like Prime Minister William Pitt, Home Secretary Lord Sydney, and the Fleet's commander, Captain Arthur Phillip. And we discover a society rife with corruption, violence, and despair. Before the First Fleet to Australia paints an unflinching portrait of late 18th century England in all its vulgarity and cruelty. Gardiner's fearless account confronts historical truths often glossed over about the First Fleet's origins. Was this ragged band of convicts a collection of pathetic vagabonds or part of a strategically calculated colonial enterprise? Readers can decide for themselves in this absorbing and revelatory narrative history.

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  The Butterfly Women

  Madeleine Cleary

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  DYMOCKS FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH 
   
  It's 1863, and Melbourne is transitioning from a fledgling colony to a thriving, gold-fuelled metropolis. But behind its shiny new façade, the real Melbourne can be found in the notorious red-light district of Little Lon, full of brothels where rich and poor alike can revel all night. The most glamorous among them is Papillon, home to the most alluring women in the city. 
   
  For poor Irishwoman Johanna Callaghan, a job at Papillon could be her ticket to success, but in a time when women's lives are cheap, it also brings great danger. Meanwhile, for respectable women like journalist Harriett Gardiner, Papillon is strictly off-limits, but when a murderer begins stalking the streets of Little Lon, she becomes determined to visit it and find the truth. 
   
  As both women are drawn into the hunt for the killer, a long-hidden side of old Melbourne is revealed. Lush, dark and meticulously researched, The Butterfly Women weaves romance and mystery into an unforgettable tale of Australian history, and the women so often erased from it. 
   
   
  'Impeccably researched and beautifully told, The Butterfly Women is a daring novel that gives voice to the silenced women of early Melbourne – women who were maligned, judged and buried under layers of mainstream history. Weaving a marvellous, and oft dark tale, that doesn't hesitate to expose class and cultural differences, as well as trenchant sexism, misogyny and racism, Madeleine Cleary breaks down an imposing door and, invoking the ghosts and monsters of other places and times, beckons the reader to follow her into Australia's hidden past. Go with her – you won't regret it.' KAREN BROOKS

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