Curtis Brown (Aust) Visiting International Publishers Catalogue 2017

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CURTIS BROWN VIPS 2017 C A T A L1 O G U E Image & design © Design by Committee, courtesy Hachette Australia

INDEX The Good People | Hannah Kent

4-5

See What I Have Done | Sarah Schmidt

6-7

The Scent of You | Maggie Alderson

8-9

The Fifth Letter | Nicola Moriarty

10-11

Bridget Crack | Rachel Leary

12-13

The Lone Child | Anna George

14-15

The Way Back | Kylie Ladd

16-17

Mine | Susi Fox

18-19

Fine | Michelle Wright

20-21

Wimmera | Mark Brandi

22-23

Birds and Ships | Eleanor Limprecht

24-25

The Midsummer Garden | Kirsty Manning

26-27

Four Respectable Ladies Seek Part-Time Husband | Barbara Toner

28-29

Congo Dawn | Katherine Scholes

30-31

Music and Freedom | Zoe Morrison

32-33

Beauty in Thorns | Kate Forsyth

34-35

Unmasked | Turia Pitt

38-39

Baby Lost | Hannah Robert

40-41

Line of Fire | Ian Townsend

42-43

The Build-Up Season | Megan Jacobson

46-47

'Game Day' Series | Patty Mills & Jared Thomas

48-49

Jane Doe and the Cradle of All Worlds | Jeremy Lachlan

50-51

'The Turners' Series | Mick Elliot

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Fiction | 400 pp | October 2016

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THE GOOD PEOPLE Hannah Kent

Publisher: Pan Macmillan Format: Paperback Rights available: Translation excl. Swedish, Estonian, Portuguese, Italian, German, Lithuanian, French, Spanish, Russian, Turkish Agent: Pippa Masson Contact: pippa@curtisbrown.com.au

Nรณra Leahy has lost her daughter and her husband in the same year, and is now burdened with the care of her four-year-old grandson, Micheรกl. The boy cannot walk, or speak, and Nora, mistrustful of the tongues of gossips, has kept the child hidden from those who might see in his deformity evidence of otherworldly interference.

Alone, hedged in by rumour, Nora seeks out the only person in the valley who might be able to help Micheรกl.

For although her neighbours are wary of her, it is said that old Nance Roche has the knowledge. That she consorts with Them, the Good People. And that only she can return those whom they have taken...

Hannah Kent is the co-founder of Australian literary journal Kill Your Darlings. In 2011, she won the inaugural Writing Australia Unpublished Manuscript Award for her debut novel, Burial Rites. Since its publication in 2013, Burial Rites has been translated into nearly thirty languages and has received numerous awards and nominations.

Shortlisted for Indie Book Awards 2017 Shortlisted for Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2017 Shortlisted for ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year 2017 Shortlisted for ABIA Best Audiobook 2017

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Fiction | 336 pp | April 2017

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SEE WHAT I HAVE DONE Sarah Schmidt

Publisher: Hachette Format:

On 4 August 1892 Andrew and Abby Borden were murdered in their home in Fall River, Massachusetts.

During the inquest into the deaths, Lizzie Borden was arrested and charged with the murder of her father and her stepmother.

Rights available:

Through the eyes of Lizzie's sister Emma, the housemaid Bridget, the enigmatic stranger Benjamin and the beguiling Lizzie herself, we return to what happened that day in Fall River.

Translation excl. German,

Lizzie Borden took an axe. Or did she?

French, Italian, Dutch,

Sarah Schmidt has completed a Bachelor of Arts (Professional writing and Editing), a Master of Arts (Creative Writing), and a Graduate Diploma of Information Management. Sarah currently works as a Reading & Literacy Coordinator (read: a fancy librarian) at a regional public library. She lives in Melbourne with her partner and daughter.

Paperback

Polish Agent: Pippa Masson Contact: pippa@curtisbrown.com.au

'...deserves to be considered a Gothic classic.' - The Saturday Paper 7

Fiction | 512pp | April 2017

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THE SCENT OF YOU Maggie Alderson

Publisher: HarperCollins Format: Paperback Rights available: Film/TV, Translation Agent: Fiona Inglis Contact: fiona@curtisbrown.com.au

Polly's life is great. Her children are away at uni, her glamorous mother – still modelling at eighty-five – is happily settled in a retirement village, and her perfume blog is taking off. Then her husband announces he needs some space and promptly vanishes.

As Polly grapples with her bewildering situation, she clings to a few new friends to keep her going. And while she distracts herself with the heady world of luxury perfume, Polly knows she can't keep reality at bay forever.

Eventually she is forced to confront some difficult truths: about her husband, herself and who she really wants to be.

Maggie Alderson is the author of seven novels and four collections of her columns from Good Weekend.

Her children's book Evangeline, The Wish Keeper's Helper was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Award.

Before becoming a full-time author she edited several magazines, including UK ELLE. She writes a column for the Sunday Age. She is married and has one daughter.

'A classic Alderson which mixes everything good in life; perfume, the internet, family and Very Good Looking men into one can't-put-down read.' - Vogue Australia 9

Fiction | 336pp | March 2017

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THE FIFTH LETTER Nicola Moriarty

Publisher: HarperCollins Format: Paperback Rights available: Film/TV, Translation excl. German Agent: Pippa Masson Contact:

Joni, Deb, Eden and Trina try to catch up once a year for some days away together.

Now in their thirties, commitments have pulled them in different directions, and the closeness they once enjoyed growing up seems increasingly elusive. This year, determined to revive their intimacy, they each share a secret in an anonymous letter to be read out during the holiday. But instead of bringing them closer, the revelations drive them apart.

Then, a fifth letter is discovered, venting long-held grudges, and it seems that one of the women is in serious danger. But who was the author? And which of them should be worried?

Nicola Moriarty lives in Sydney's northwest with her husband and two small (but remarkably strong-willed) daughters. In between various career changes, becoming a mum and studying at Macquarie University, she began to write. Now, she can't seem to stop.

pippa@curtisbrown.com.au

'This is the kind of book I can't get enough of - relatable characters, a fast-moving plot and just the right amount of mystery. I was hooked!' - Rachel Johns, author of The Art of Keeping Secrets 11

Fiction | 320pp | August 2017

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BRIDGET CRACK Rachel Leary

Publisher: Allen & Unwin Format: Paperback Rights available: Film/TV, US, UK, Translation Agent: Grace Heifetz Contact: grace@curtisbrown.com.au

Van Diemen's Land, 1827. When Bridget Crack arrives in the colony, she is just grateful to be on dry land.

But finding the life of an indentured domestic servant intolerable, she pushes back and is punished for her insubordination – sent from one place to another, each significantly worse than the last. Too late, she realises the place she has ended up is the worst of all: the ‘Interior,’ where the hard cases are sent – a brutally hard life with a cruel master, miles from civilisation.

She runs from there and finds herself imprisoned by the impenetrable Tasmanian wilderness. What she finds there – what finds her – is Matt Sheedy, a man on the run, who saves her from certain death. Her precarious existence among volatile and murderous bushrangers is a different kind of hell and, hunted by soldiers and at the mercy of killers, Bridget finds herself in an impossible situation.

Rachel Leary grew up in Tasmania then moved to Melbourne in 2003 having enrolled in the Diploma of Professional Writing and Editing at RMIT. Rachel has had a number of short stories and essays published and in 2014 she was awarded an ASA mentorship to develop her novel manuscript. Bridget Crack is her first novel.

'Bridget Crack is a new Tasmanian legend. This is a brilliant, haunting evocation of women and history.' Heather Rose, Winner of the 2017 Stella Prize 13

Fiction | 288 pp | August 2017

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THE LONE CHILD Anna George

Publisher: Penguin Random House Format: Paperback Rights available: Film/TV, US, UK, Translation excl. German Agent: Tara Wynne Contact: tara@curtisbrown.com.au

‘Absolutely arresting.’ Zoë Morrison, author of Music and Freedom

Neve Ayres has always been so careful. Since her mother’s death when Neve was seven, she’s learned to look after herself and to keep her cards close. But now her deliberately constructed world has collapsed: her partner’s left her when she was eight months pregnant. And so, alone with her newborn son, she’s retreated to her clifftop holiday house in coastal Flinders.

There, another child comes into her life.

The first time Neve sees Jessie, the small girl is playing on an empty stretch of beach. On the cold autumn day, she is bare-legged and alone, while her mother is distracted by her own troubles. At once, almost despite herself, Neve is intrigued and concerned, and Jessie is drawn to Neve’s kindness – and to her home.

To Neve’s surprise, Jessie becomes an unlikely source of much needed care for her and her baby. Having been lost in the sleepless haze of new motherhood, Neve is touched, and finds herself grappling with how to best help the forgotten girl. She has the spacious house, the full pantry, the resources . . . But how much can you – should you – do for a stranger’s child?

Anna George's first novel, What Came Before, was shortlisted for the 2015 Ned Kelly and Sisters in Crime Best Debut Fiction Award, and was longlisted for the 2016 International Dublin Literary Award. She lives in Melbourne with her husband and two children.

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Fiction | 300 pp | August 2017

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THE WAY BACK

Kylie Ladd Publisher: Allen & Unwin Format: Paperback Rights available: Film/TV, US, UK, Translation, Audio Agent: Pippa Masson

Charlie Johnson is 13 and in her first year of high school.

She loves her family, netball and Liam, the cute guy who sits next to her in Science – but most of all she loves horses and horse-riding.

Charlie’s parents have leased her a horse, Tic Tac, from the local pony club, but one day they go out for a ride in the national park and only Tic Tac returns…

Four months later, Charlie is found wandering injured and filthy miles from where she was last seen. Her family rejoice in her return, but can anyone truly recover from what Charlie’s been through?

Kylie Ladd is a novelist and freelance writer. She has published four novels: After the Fall, Last Summer, Into My Arms and her latest, Mothers and Daughters. Kylie holds a PhD in neuropsychology and lives in Melbourne with her husband and two children.

Contact: pippa@curtisbrown.com.au

'The seeming ease of a practiced and proven storyteller.'

- Jo Case, Program Manager at Melbourne Writer's Festival 17

Fiction | 300pp | June 2018

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MINE Susi Fox

Publisher: Penguin Random House Format: Paperback Rights available: TV/Film, US, Translation excl. French, German, Spanish, Portuguese

Told from the dual view of wife and husband, MINE is the story of Dr. Sasha Moloney, who wakes up in the hospital after a car accident to learns she’s given birth prematurely to her first child.

But when she sees her son for the first time, Sasha knows – just knows – there has been an awful mistake.

This infant is not her baby. And no one – not the doctors, or nurses, or her father; not even her husband, Matt – believes her.

Susi Fox studied Medicine/Arts at the University of Melbourne and is currently completing an Associate Degree in Professional Writing and Editing at RMIT. She is the recipient of a 2014 Varuna Fellowship and was part of the 2015 QWC/Hachette Manuscript Development Program. She lives in Central Victoria, where she works as a GP. Mine is her first manuscript.

Agent: Grace Heifetz Contact: grace@curtisbrown.com.au

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Collection | 312 pp | July 2016

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FINE

Michelle Wright Publisher: Allen & Unwin Format: Paperback Rights available: Film/TV, US, UK, Audio, Translation Agent: Clare Forster Contact: claref@curtisbrown.com.au

These stories explore the silent sorrows, desires and regrets that we choose to hide when we say that we are 'fine'. As they describe moments big and small in the lives of ordinary people, they invite us to think about who we are when no one is looking.

By illuminating these quiet moments in ordinary lives, Michelle Wright follows in a tradition which includes Olga Masters, Amy Witting and Alice Munro.

Many of these stories have won Australian and international awards, and this collection was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Award for an Unpublished Manuscript.

Michelle Wight is an award-winning short story writer who brings to life a remarkable range of characters and has begun an impressively productive career as a stylish writer of short fiction, winning attention in many awards, including The Age short story competition, the Grace Marion Wilson Award, and the Overland Victorian University Award.

'Fine is indeed a welcome new contribution to the Australian short fiction renaissance.' - Maxine Beneba Clarke, award-winning author of Foreign Soil 21

Fiction |266 pp | July 2017

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WIMMERA

Mark Brandi Publisher: Hachette Format: Paperback Rights available: Film/TV, US, UK, Translation Agent: Grace Heifetz Contact: grace@curtisbrown.com.au

In the long, hot summer of late 1988, Ben and Fab are best friends.

Growing up in a small country town, they spend their days playing cricket, yabbying in local dams, wanting a pair of Nike Air Maxs and not talking about how Fab’s dad hits him or how the sudden death of Ben’s next-door neighbour unsettled him.

Then a newcomer arrives in town. Fab reckons he is a secret agent and he and Ben stake him out. Neither realise the shadow this man will cast over both their lives.

Twenty years later, Fab is stuck in the same town when a body is found in the local river, and Fab can’t ignore the past any more.

Mark Brandi was born in Italy, but raised in a small town in country Victoria. Mark’s writing appears in The Guardian, The Age, and is often broadcast on ABC Radio National. His creative work has been published in Meanjin, the London Journal of Fiction and the Big Issue, among others.

Winner of the Crime Writers' Association Debut Dagger Award (UK) Highly Commended for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript

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Fiction | 300pp | April 2018

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BIRDS AND SHIPS Eleanor Limprecht

Publisher: Allen & Unwin Format: Paperback Rights available: TV/Film, Audio, US, UK, Translation Agent: Grace Heifetz Contact: grace@curtisbrown.com.au

A war bride and her granddaughter are on a cruise from San Diego to Sydney. The grandmother, Sarah, was born in Australia and has not returned since she left in 1946, after she married an American serviceman during World War II. During the journey, Sarah tells her granddaughter Anna about her childhood, her first marriage, and her trip as a war bride to America. Sarah has kept her first marriage a secret for most of her life. Anna listens avidly – seeing her grandmother for the first time as a woman and a person with a past.

Sarah’s stories bring Anna new perspective on the stories she has always told herself: that she will never be thin enough, that the desire she feels is ugly. When they arrive in Sydney they see Sarah’s surviving brother and the relatives they have never met, and Anna realises the extent of what her grandmother gave up.

Eleanor Limprecht was born and raised in the US, Germany and Pakistan but now lives in Sydney, Australia.

Eleanor's previous novels, What Was Left and Long Bay were both published by Sleepers Publishing to critical acclaim.

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Fiction | 400pp | April 2017

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THE MIDSUMMER GARDEN Kirsty Manning

Publisher: Allen & Unwin Format: Paperback Rights available: TV/Film, US, UK, Translation Agent: Clare Forster Contact: claref@curtisbrown.com.au

1487: Artemisia is young to be in charge of the kitchens at Chateau de Boschaud but, having been taught the herbalists' lore, her knowledge of how food can delight the senses is unsurpassed. After the celebrations are over, she dares to believe that her future lies outside the Chateau. But who will she trust?

2014: Pip Arnet is an expert in predicting threats to healthy ecosystems. Trouble is, she doesn't seem to recognise these signs in her own life. What Pip holds dearest right now is her potential to make a real difference in the marine biology of her beloved Tasmanian coastline. She'd thought that her fiance Jack understood this, believed that he knew she couldn't make any plans until her studies were complete. But lately, since she's finally moved in with him, Jack appears to have forgotten everything they'd discussed.

When a gift of several dusty, beautiful old copper pots arrives in Pip's kitchen, the two stories come together in a rich and sensuous celebration of family and love, passion and sacrifice.

Kirsty Manning grew up in northern New South Wales.

She has degrees in literature and communications and has worked as an editor and publishing manager in book publishing for over a decade. With husband Alex Wilcox, Kirsty is a partner in the award-winning Melbourne wine bar Bellota, and the Prince Wine Store in Sydney and Melbourne.

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Fiction | 400 pp | February 2018

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FOUR RESPECTABLE LADIES SEEK PART-TIME HUSBAND

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Barbara Toner Publisher: Penguin Random House Format: Paperback Rights available: TV/Film, UK, US, Translation Agent: Fiona Inglis Contact:

"When Adelaide Nightingale, Louisa Worthington, Maggie O'Connell and Pearl McLeary threw caution to the wind in the most brazen way imaginable, disgrace was inevitable..."

September 1919. The war is over. Everyone who was going to die from the flu has done so. But there's now a distinct shortage of husbands.

And in the small rural town of Prspect, that's proving an issue for four women with four big problems.

At a time when women are expected to let their men sort out their problems, four respectable ladies decide their only choise is to advertise for a part-time husband – strictly non-connubial – to come to their 'rescue'...

Barbara Toner is an acclaimed author and columnist who has written extensively about family life in all its manifestations with all its glorious intricacies, both in fiction and non fiction. She has three daughters and lives on the far south coast of New South Wales.

fiona@curtisbrown.com.au

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Fiction | 608pp | April 2017

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CONGO DAWN Katherine Scholes Publisher: Penguin Random House Format: Paperback Rights available: TV/Film, US, UK, Translation Agent: Fiona Inglis Contact: fiona@curtisbrown.com.au

Anna Emerson's life is turned upside down when a stranger hands her a plane ticket to the Congo. The newly independent country is in turmoil – but the invitation holds a clue to the whereabouts of her estranged father.

Dan Miller signs up as a mercenary commando to fight the Communist uprising. He supports the cause, but that's not really why he's there.

In the Congo, Dan's belief in the war begins to crumble, while Anna heads deeper into danger as she travels to an abandoned hotel on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, to a leprosy mission in the jungle and beyond. Their two paths collide through circumstances more extraordinary than fate.

Katherine Scholes was born in Tanzania, the daughter of a missionary doctor and an artist. She is the author of international bestsellers including The Rain Queen, Make Me An Idol, The Stone Angel, The Hunter's Wife, The Lioness and The Perfect Wife. She has sold over two million books in Europe.

'This is, in the best sense, a big, lusty novel. But it exceeds most such novels in sensitivity and imagination, in potent narrative and artistic terms.' - Tom Keneally 31

Fiction | 352pp | July 2016

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MUSIC AND FREEDOM Zoë Morrison

Publisher: Penguin Random House Format: Paperback Rights available: TV/Film, US, UK, Translation excl. German, Audio Agent: Clare Forster Contact: claref@curtisbrown.com.au

Alice Murray learns to play the piano aged three on an orange orchard in rural Australia. Recognising her daughter’s gift, her mother sends Alice to boarding school in the bleak north of England, and there Alice stays for the rest of her childhood. Then she’s offered a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London, and on a summer school in Oxford she meets Edward, an economics professor who sweeps her off her feet.

Alice soon finds that Edwards is damaged, and she’s trapped. She clings to her playing and to her dream of becoming a concert pianist, until disaster strikes.

Increasingly isolated as the years unravel, eventually Alice can’t find it in herself to carry on. Then she hears the most beautiful music from the walls of her house...

Zoë Morrison has a DPhil in Human Geography from Oxford University, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar, before working as a college lecturer. Her research work has included the fields of gendered violence and social justice. Zoë also studied piano performance at the Adelaide Conservatorium of Music. She lives in Melbourne.

Winner 2016 Readings Prize for Fiction Shortlisted for ALS Gold Medal Award 2017 Shortlisted for Indie Book Awards 2017

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Fiction | 480 pp | July 2017

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BEAUTY IN THORNS Kate Forsyth

Publisher: Penguin Random House Format: Paperback Rights available: Film/TV, US,UK, Translation Agent: Tara Wynne Contact: tara@curtisbrown.com.au

The Pre-Raphaelites were determined to liberate art and love from the shackles of convention.

Ned Burne-Jones had never had a painting lesson and his family wanted him to be a parson. Only young Georgie Macdonald – the daughter of a Methodist minister – understood.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was smitten with his favourite model, Lizzie Siddal. She wanted to be an artist herself, but was seduced by the irresistible lure of laudanum.

William Morris fell head-over-heels for a ‘stunner’ from the slums, Janey Burden. Discovered by Ned, married to William, she embarked on a passionate affair with Gabriel that led inexorably to tragedy.

Margot Burne-Jones had become her father’s muse.

He painted her as Briar Rose, the focus of his most renowned series of paintings, based on the fairy-tale that haunted him all his life. Yet Margot longed to be awakened to love.

Kate Forsyth is one of Australia's favourite authors. Her books include Bitter Greens, The Wild Girl and The Beast's Garden, as well as the popular 'Rhiannon's Ride' triology.

She has sold over one million books worldwide.

'One of Australia's favourite storytellers.' - Booktopia 35

CURTIS BROWN

Non-Fiction

Memoir | 352 pp | April 2017

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UNMASKED

Turia Pitt & Bryce Corbett

Publisher: Penguin Random House Format: Paperback Rights available: Film/TV, UK, US, Translation Agent: Pippa Masson Contact: pippa@curtisbrown.com.au

Most Australians know Turia Pitt. We know that she was badly burned in a grassfire in 2011; that her recovery was torturous. We've glimpsed the profound love of her fiance, Michael. But now, for the first time, those closest to Turia reveal how two fateful minutes in a Kimberley gorge irrevocably changed their lives, too, and reflect on the essence of this remarkable Australian.

Against a backdrop of a series of remarkable achievements, Unmasked reveals the woman behind the headlines, and uncovers the grace, humour and inner steel that gets Turia Pitt through every day – and leaves the rest of us watching in amazement.

Turia Pitt was competing in an ultramarathon in Western Australia in 2011 when she was trapped in a freak fire and sustained full thickness burns to 64 per cent of her body.

She is now a best selling author, a motivational speaker, humanitarian and athlete.

Bryce Corbett began his 20-year career in journalism as The Daily Telegraph's original Page 13 columnist. During a decade-long stint in Europe, he worked as a journalist, was on the executive staff of the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris and wrote two books.

'At its heart, my story is a love story... A love that no fire could tear apart.' - Turia Pitt 39

Memoir |230 pp | August 2017

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BABY LOST

Hannah Robert Publisher: Melbourne University Press Format: Paperback Rights available: Film/TV, US, UK, Translation, Audio Agent: Clare Forster Contact: claref@curtisbrown.com.au

What happens when a death occurs within your body, but you survive? Two days after Christmas in 2009, Hannah Robert was eight months pregnant when her car was crushed around her.

This extraordinary memoir examines the resulting collision of pregnancy, grief, law and motherhood as Hannah works her way through recovery, IVF and debates over fetal personhood.

In her struggle to make sense of the personal and legal aftermath Hannah has to find out what it means to mother a dead child and to renegotiate her own relationship with hope.

Hannah Robert is a lecturer in law at La Trobe University Law School. Her book, Paved with Good Intentions: Terra Nullius, Aboriginal Land Rights and SettlerColonial Law, was published by Halstead Press in 2016, and her writing has appeared in the Conversation, the Journal of Law and Medicine, the Australian Feminist Law Journal, Good Weekend, and edited collections.

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Non-Fiction | 320 pp | February 2017

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LINE OF FIRE

Ian Townsend Publisher:

A compelling story of spies, volcanoes, history and war.

HarperCollins

In May 1942, in the town of Rabaul in the Australian territory of New Guinea, five Australian civilians were taken by Japanese soldiers to a pit at the base of a volcano and executed as spies.

Format: Paperback Rights available: Film/TV, US, UK, Translation Agent: Clare Forster Contact: claref@curtisbrown.com.au

A mother, her brother, her husband and her friend. And her 11-year-old son.

Who were these people and what had led them to this terrible end, under the shadow of a volcano?

The Australian Government, unable to reinforce its small garrison, abandoned more than 1500 Australian soldiers and civilians as ‘hostages to fortune' in the face of the irresistible Japanese advance.

Ian Townsend is a journalist who worked for many years with ABC Radio National. He has won four national Eureka Prizes for science and medical journalism, and an Australian Human Rights Award for journalism. His first novel, Affection, based on the 1900 plague outbreak, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book. His second novel, The Devil's Eye, was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. He lives in Brisbane with his wife and their three daughters.

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CURTIS BROWN

YA & Middle Grade

Young Adult | 272 pp | August 2017

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THE BUILD-UP SEASON Megan Jacobson

Publisher: Penguin Random House Format: Paperback Rights available: Film/TV, UK, US, Translation, Audio Agent: Tara Wynne

Seventeen-year-old Iliad Piper – Ily for short – is named after war and angry at the world.

Growing up with a violent father and abused mother, she doesn’t know how to do relationships, family or friends.

Her love-hate friendship with Max turns into a prank war and she nearly destroys her first true friendship with misfit Mia. She takes off her armour for nobody, until she meets Jared, a local actor and someone who's as complicated as she is.

Megan Jacobson has a degree in journalism and works in TV news production at the ABC. Her short stories have been published in newspapers and journals. Her first novel Yellow was shortlisted in the Older Readers category of the 2017 CBCA Book of the Year Awards.

Contact: tara@curtisbrown.com.au

'This is young-adult fiction at its best.' - Nick Earls 'Ily Piper is fierce and vulnerable and so authentic.' Melina Marchetta 47

Middle Grade | ~170pp | Various

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'GAME DAY' SERIES

Patty Mills & Jared Thomas

Publisher: Allen & Unwin Format: Paperback Rights available: Film/TV, US, UK, Translation, Audio, Agent: Tara Wynne Contact: tara@curtisbrown.com.au

Sport-mad Patty Mills is a star on the footy field, an ace at athletics, a ripper at rugby.

So when he tries out for basketball, it should be a breeze...

Patty expects to be a great basketballer immediately, just like his uncle Danny. But he soon discovers there’s whole lot more to the game than just shooting hoops.

He’s got a lot to learn, on and off the court – and it’s going to take plenty of practice. Will he and his school team be good enough to get into the finals?

Patty Mills is triple Australian Olympian and plays for the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA. Patty was born to an Aboriginal Australian mother and Torres Strait Islander father. Patty is the only Indigenous Australian to win an NBA Championship (2013/14 season). He also currently represents the Australian Boomers.

Jared Thomas is a Nukunu person of the Southern Flinders Ranges, an Arts Development Officer at Arts, South Australia and an Indigenous Literacy Foundation ambassador. His YA novels, Songs that Sounds Like Blood and Calypso Summer are published by Magabala Books.

Jared's writing explores the power of belonging and culture. He lives in Adelaide with his partner and two daughters.

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Young Adult | 2018

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JANE DOE AND THE CRADLE OF ALL WORLDS Jeremy Lachlan

Publisher: Pending Offer Format: Paperback Rights available: Pending Offer Agent: Grace Heifetz Contact: grace@curtisbrown.com.au

This is the first in a series of YA adventure duologies about a young carer destined to rule the Manor, a dangerous labyrinth connecting Earth to the Otherworlds.

The story is a salute to old-school adventure with a contemporary spin, filled with thrills, spills and gags. This ain't no grim dystopian thriller. There are booby traps.

There are carnivorous forests. There are shifting rooms and runaway trains. But at the heart of the story there’s a girl, an outsider, just trying to save her dad.

Jeremy came up with the idea for the series while lost in the Cairo Museum, and set out to create a funny, entertaining, heart-felt thrill-ride packed with diverse characters in a unique world.

Jeremy Lachlan graduated from the University of Canberra's creative writing program in 2004, where he received First Class Honours. He now calls Sydney home and works part-time as a bookseller at Oscar & Friends.

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Middle Grade | ~ 256 pp | Various

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'THE TURNERS' SERIES Mick Elliott

Publisher: Hachette Format: Paperback Rights available: TV/Film, US, UK, Translation Agent: Fiona Inglis Contact: fiona@curtisbrown.com.au

A trilogy from the funniest new Australian kids' author in years.

Leo Lennox has an epic problem: it's his 13th birthday and he has just grown a tail. You'd think that growing a tail in the middle of the school library would be the worst thing that could happen to you, but Leo is about to discover that things can always get worse – and a whole lot weirder.

Now, as he discovers an unthinkable family secret, Leo must team up with his infuriating older sister to escape snake-skinned henchmen, ancient shape-shifters and a whispering villain determined to feed him to a pack of genetically engineered killer pigs – all while trying to control his new shape-shifting powers.

Mick Elliott is a children's television producer, scriptwriter and animator. Since 2001 he has worked at Nickelodeon Australia, overseeing award-winning series for kids of all ages. His work at Nickelodeon has won more than twenty international awards, while his animated short films have screened at over sixty festivals worldwide.

'A rollicking ride into a fantastic world of weirdness.' Read Plus 53