Overview
Australian bookshelves are never short on local releases. This winter, we've seen: a Miles Franklin winner's weird short story collection; a murderous family saga from a husband-and-wife duo; and a historical fantasy built on 16th-century Scottish witch hunts. For local flavour, a cosy caper inspired by a real-life Picasso theft from the National Gallery of Victoria and a time-travel novel based in a mysterious news agency in Sydney's Neutral Bay.
And seasonal mood readers can curl up in their sheets with either a chilling winter noir or Japanese healing fiction to welcome spring. Consider this your monthly cheat sheet of local authors and page-turners worth adding to your TBR list.
Recommended reads:
The Best Independent and Pre-Loved Bookshops in Sydney
The Best Bookshops in Melbourne for 2026
The Top Page-Turning Titles of 2025 and Who to Gift Them to This Christmas
The Best Independent and Pre-Loved Bookshops in Brisbane
The Vape Lord of Queanbeyan by Omar Musa
This year's Miles Franklin Literary Award winner has dropped a collection of weird short stories to end any reading slump. The anthology follows a narrator who traverses the world, encountering everything from AI speculation and the black market for vapes to mystical Sufism and talking monitor lizards. The Malaysian-Australian author's wry and rhythmic prose grounds even the most surreal worlds, no doubt influenced by his multidisciplinary background as a poet and rapper.
Time Travel for Beginners by Jaclyn Moriarty
For fans of hopecore fiction like Before the Coffee Gets Cold and The Midnight Library, this whimsical novel revolves around a Sydney news agency with an unusual menu: hot cuppas, pastries, and a trip to any moment in time. Three visitors' paths converge: Anna is a single mum peeking at happiness; Teddy yearns for a second chance at his marriage; and Jade is a cynic with a Deep Dark Secret.
The Mortons by Scott Westerfeld and Justine Larbalestier
What happens when husband-and-wife duo Scott Westerfeld (the speculative fiction writer behind the Netflix-adapted Uglies) and dark YA author Justine Larbalestier team up? A macabre family novel about the Mortons, an old-money clan in the unsettling business of murder.
It follows Jessica Morton, a daughter training to carry out her first kill as she begins to unravel just how far loyalty and cruelty extend. Dark and morally murky, this is one for readers who like family dramas with a body count.
The Changeling by Kate Forsyth
Award-winning speculative fiction author Kate Forsyth weaves a darkly magical world out of 16th-century Scotland in her latest historical fantasy. It follows Caiti NicNaven, a young lassie who discovers that her mother is a faery – a queen with an ancient feud against the mortal crown.
Entangled in the faeries' thirst for vengeance and a human society increasingly gripped by fear of witchcraft, Caiti navigates a world where old magic, religious paranoia and violence against women collide. Inspired by the first Scottish witch hunt, it's a read best saved for peaceful road trips to misty mountains.
I Made This Just for You by Chris Ames
This short story collection leans into the absurd while staying tethered to reality. Ames creates dystopian, uncanny settings populated by characters wrestling with digital-age anxiety and a broader sense of societal breakdown. It's a satirical and thought-provoking debut that feels necessary in a world moving at breakneck speed.
Matcha on Monday by Michiko Aoyama
Equal parts heartwarming and bittersweet, this novel is the second little treat following Aoyama's Hot Chocolate on Thursday. It follows a cast of customers who sit down in a quiet Tokyo cafe for a tea tasting that brings them back to their inner selves, and simple conversations turn into moving vignettes about community and connection. A tender novel to thaw you out before spring.
But Won't I Miss Me by Tiffany Tsao
A haunting novel that tackles the toll of motherhood in a future where pregnancy produces an almost-immortal body double that violently replaces the mother. When that doesn't happen to Vivi, the massive fallout unfolds through three perspectives. The literary-translator-turned-novelist's incisive pen digs into parents' loss of self, postpartum depression and bringing a child into ecological upheaval, simmering underneath a world of body horror in the vein of Nightbitch and The Substance.
Cold River by Margaret Hickey
Hickey won the Ned Kelly Award – the Oscars of crime fiction – last year. Now, she's back with a riveting winter noir to read in the safety of your doona. It introduces a policewoman investigating vanishing hikers in the High Country, and the latest victim is a journalist investigating the illegal tobacco trade that once ran in the area. Hickey's passion for writing about rural communities brings Victoria's snow-capped mountains to life in their own right.
The Shampoo Effect by Jenny Jackson
The author behind New York Times bestseller Pineapple Street has just dropped another fun-filled beach read. It follows Caroline, a new import to a New England beach town who assimilates into a tight-knit circle of friends. An old-money WASP. Two new parents dealing with drinking too much. She falls for Van, a kayaking local with a very pregnant ex. Juicy and sharp, Jackson keeps it light with breezy wit as the group navigates modern love, parenthood, and life's messier bits.
Touch Grass by Mary Colussi
Millennials might know BuzzFeed writer Mary Colussi from her 'Which Stranger Things character are you?' era, but she's since swapped listicles for screwball sci-fi. It follows Charlie, a deletion specialist who discovers that her consciousness is ejecting from her body. Colussi writes with the wryness of someone who grew up within the algorithm as she explores memory, identity, and the exhausting business of performing online.
Stuff the British Stole by Marc Fennell
This one's for the history buffs. Australian journalist Marc Fennell, dubbed "the cheerful Aussie version of Louis Theroux", launched a 2022 docuseries where he uncovers artefacts acquired by the British Empire through shady means. The book version reads like a witty yet reflective travelogue, through the likes of Tuscan marble quarries, Kenyan torture chambers, and the beaches where Captain Cook landed.
The Clinging Thing by Munira Tabassum Ahmed
Ahmed's poetry has been published by Meanjin and Australian Poetry Journal, so it's no surprise that her first novel reads beautifully. It follows Iqra, who has returned to her childhood home – a fictional town outside Sydney – after the loss of har pregnancy. As dreamscapes and memory collide, The Clinging Thing emerges as a poignant exploration of the debt daughters and mothers owe each other.
You Girls Play Nice by K.D. Aldyn
Four grieving friends plot revenge for their murdered friend as a cathartic exercise – all hypothetical, they insist. That is until one week later, when someone turns it into reality. Who among them is capable of murder, even a justified one? A gleeful thriller mixing female rage, messy friendships and getting even.
The Picasso Ransom by A.T. Prewett
If you were invested in the 2025 Louvre heist, this one's for you. A.T. Prewett turns another high-profile art crime - the 1986 theft of Picasso's Weeping Woman from the NGV into a cosy caper. The unlikely culprits? Three retirees protesting the closure of their art school. Stuffed with '80s Melbourne detail and sharp-tongued jokes, this is a novel about friendship, aging loudly, and rebelling against being written off.
Is it Too Early to Bitch? by Grace Rouvray
Rouvray's meditation on best friendship is hilarious and tender - even as it grapples with the heart-shattering grief of losing hers. From "nothing conversations" starting with the question in the title to the momentous act of being someone's rock, this frank memoir celebrates an unbreakable 13-year bond and will have you laughing, crying and sending excerpts to your bestie.
Like what you see? Subscribe to the Concrete Playground newsletter to get stories just like these straight to your inbox.