Media Bites Catalogue April 2023

Maybe Next Time C E SCA MA JOR The most heart-breaking, life-affirming love story of 2023 Even the greatest love stories end. But what if this one didn’t have to? Emma is having the worst day of her life. Frustrating. Chaotic. And the only person who could make it better is gone by the end of the day. Yet even worse than all of that: Emma keeps waking up to the same day, over and over again. But what if this is a sign things could be different? Can Emma change the heartbreaking end to this love story?

The Fancies

A Woman’s Work V I C TOR I A PU RMAN

K I M LOCK

It’s 1956, and while Melbourne is in a frenzy gearing up for the Olympics, the women of Australia are cooking up a storm for their chance to win the equivalent of a year’s salary in the extraordinary Australian Women’s Weekly cookery contest. For two women, in particular, the prize could be life-changing. For war widow and single mum Ivy Quinn, a win would mean more time to spend with her twelve-year-old son, Raymond. Mother of five Kathleen O’Grady has no time for cooking competitions, but the prize could offer her a different kind of life for herself and her children, and the chance to control her own future.

A story about stories: those we tell, those we believe and those we make into a reality, whether true, murky or not true at all. Port Kingerton: the insular cray fishing town at the butt-end of South Australia, where everyone knows everyone. And everyone knows too that when Abigail Fancy left town at seventeen, she hung out the window of her boyfriend’s Corolla, middle fingers held high, swearing she’d never come back. And she hasn’t, until now.

Released: 05/04/23 TPB | 384pp AU $32.99 NZ $35.00 Imprint: HarperCollins

Games and Rituals K ATH E R I N E H E I NY

At her parents’ house Abigail finds a party (read town meeting) in full swing over something iffy found on the beach – a thighbone. And although iffy things aren’t uncommon in Port Kingerton, Abigail’s surprise arrival forces a family – and an entire town – to unpack a twenty-four-year-old secret that rocked this tiny place to its core: that time they found something much iffier ... Through Abigail, her grandfather Old Dick Fancy’s unreliable memories and the collective voices of the town itself, Port Kingerton unravels as old wounds are picked open, skeletons fall from closets and unlikely bonds are forged. But will Abigail finally change the past ...?

As winter turns to spring both women begin to question their lives. For Kathleen, the grinding domesticity of her work as a wife and mother no longer seems enough, while Ivy begins to realise she has the courage to make a difference for other women and tell the truth about the ghosts from her past. But is it the competition prize that would give them a new way of seeing the world - a chance to free themselves from society’s expectation and change their own futures - or is it the creativity and confidence it brings?

The beloved author of Early Morning Riser brings us eleven glittering stories of love – friendships formed at the airport bar, ex-husbands with benefits, mothers of suspiciously sweet teenagers, ill-advised trysts – in all its forms, both ridiculous and sublime The games and rituals performed by Katherine Heiny’s characters range from mischievous to tender. In ‘Bridesmaid, Revisited,’ Marilee, suffering from a laundry and life crisis, wears a massive bridesmaid’s dress to work. In ‘Twist and Shout,’ Ericka’s elderly father mistakes his four-thousand-dollar hearing aid for a cashew and eats it. In ‘Turn Back, Turn Back,’ a bedtime story coupled with a receipt for a Starbucks babyccino reveal a struggling actor’s deception. And in ‘561,’ Charlene pays the true price of infidelity and is forced to help her husband’s ex-wife move out of the family home. From one of our most celebrated writers, our bard of waking up in the wrong bed, wearing the wrong shoes, late for the wrong job, but loved by the right people, Katherine Heiny has delivered a work of glorious humour and immense kindness.

Released: 05/04/23 TPB | 368pp AU $32.99 NZ $34.99 Imprint: HQ victoriapurman.com

Released: 05/04/23 TPB | 400pp AU $32.99 NZ $34.99 Imprint: HQ

katherineheiny.com

Released: 19/04/23 B+P | 240pp AU $29.99 NZ $32.99 Imprint: 4th Estate

kimlock.com.au

F ICT ION

F ICT ION