Media Bites Mar 2024

The Sea Captain’s Wife

JACKIE FRENCH

From bestselling author Jackie French comes a compelling story of murder, mystery, and mutiny on the high seas - and a love so intense it can overcome two different cultures. You never know what the sea will give you ... or what it will take back. When Mair McCrae follows her island tradition and hunts for a husband cast up on the beach, she has no notion that the naked, half-drowned man she rescues is not just Captain Michael Dawson, heir to a major shipping firm, but that he’s also obsessed by a ‘ghost ship’ carrying golden cargo. On Big Henry Island women make the decisions and knit the patterns that mark a man as their own. But Big Henry is also a volcano, and threatening to erupt. Yet when Mair agrees to accompany Michael home, she finds that the Australian comfort he promised has a danger just as real: a social system that tries to keep women confined to small roles at the edges of men’s lives. And as Michael hunts for the ‘Ghost’ in his revolutionary new steamship, a string of mysterious deaths upends Mair’s new life in Sydney. Who is committing these murders, and why is Mair the only one who realises what is happening? Released: 06/03/24 TPB | 400pp AU $32.99 NZ $35 Imprint: HQ jackiefrench.com The Accident A terrible crash... but the facts don’t add up. Worlds converge and two women’s lives are torn apart when a devastating accident uncovers a shocking web of lies. A gripping and thought-provoking new mystery from bestselling Australian author Fiona Lowe. Perfect for readers who enjoy Liane Moriarty and Sally Hepworth. Freya thought she could relax when Ryan’s best mate Jamie got engaged to her best friend Hannah. Two couples, four friends - what could be better than that? But a day before the wedding Freya’s torn between keeping the peace or blowing it up. Hannah’s perfect wedding is hours away and she’s daydreaming of a honeymoon in Tahiti and starting the family she longs for when she hears the first-responder sirens. Is it a grass fire? Worse? And why aren’t Ryan or Jamie answering their phones? When a car veers off the road with devastating consequences, the small wheatbelt town of Garringarup is left reeling, but no one’s world is more shattered than Hannah and Freya’s. As disturbing details surrounding the accident emerge and questions pile up, ugly secrets rise to the surface. Mystery, lies and scandal - it’s soon obvious nothing is as it seems in this small town... The gripping and thought-provoking new mystery from bestselling Australian author Fiona Lowe. Released: 06/-3/24 TPB | 400 AU $32.99 NZ $35 Imprint: HQ FIONA LOWE fionalowe.com

FICTION