It’s a wise and true saying that ‘all good things come to he (or she) who waits’. These Australian authors haven’t exactly been standing around waiting, but their success has indeed been a long and hard-worked time coming. So we’re celebrating the upcoming release of three ‘first novels’ from three excellent Australian speculative fiction writers including X6 author Trent Jamieson, Kirstyn McDermott and Nicole Murphy. Here’s the blurbs from their upcoming novels -
Death Most Definite by Trent Jamieson (Orbit) ISBN 9780316085427
Steven de Selby has a hangover. Bright lights, loud noise, and lots of exercise are the last thing he wants. But that’s exactly what he gets when someone starts shooting at him.
Steven is no stranger to death-Mr. D’s his boss after all-but when a dead girl saves him from sharing her fate, he finds himself on the wrong end of the barrel. His job is to guide the restless dead to the underworld but now his clients are his own colleagues, friends, and family.
Mr. D’s gone missing and with no one in charge, the dead start to rise, the living are hunted, and the whole city teeters on the brink of a regional apocalypse-unless Steven can shake his hangover, not fall for the dead girl, and find out what happened to his boss- that is, Death himself.
Madigan Mine by Kirstyn McDermott (Pan Macmillan) ISBN 9780330425711
Alex doesn’t know what he wants to do, how to connect with people or what’s good for him. He drifts his way through dead-end jobs and fumbled relationships, unable to find a way out of the rut his life has become. Then he runs into Madigan Sargood and everything changes.
A ray of light shining from an almost-forgotten past, Madigan is beautiful and impulsive, enigmatic and passionate beyond measure. This is what it means to live, Alex realises, and to love. Never mind that she can be somewhat possessive. Never mind that his best friend thinks there’s something wrong with her, something dangerous even. Never mind that the creepy band of misfits she attracts have all but taken over his home. Madigan fills Alex’s life with significance; he will put up with anything to be with her.
Until, without any warning, she kills herself.
Now Alex can’t seem to get her out of his head, and his world – along with his sanity – begins to disintegrate. Black outs and missing time, conversations he can’t recall, people he can’t remember. Is this the product of a diseased and lovesick mind, or can Madigan really be trying to communicate with him?
When the past threatens to obliterate the future, Alex is forced to take action. To save himself and those he loves, he must discover the sinister reason why Madigan took her own life – and why she won’t lie still in her grave.
Secret Ones by Nicole Murphy (HarperCollins Voyager) ISBN 0732291615
She’s from an ancient clan. He has no family. Can they save the world … together?
Maggie Shaunessy is used to keeping secrets. She’s a fantastic teacher, but she’s also gadda, part of a hidden, powerful race – and she has a habit of annoying the wrong people. Until Lucas Valeroso meets Maggie, he had no idea what awaited him: super-human powers, a smart and beautiful woman interested in more than unlocking his new abilities and, above all, a sense of belonging. But dark ambition and dangerous bigotry are emerging in the gadda ranks. Lucas’s new family might cast him out before he’s even truly found his place.
And Maggie must work with new allies to find and retrieve a missing artefact before the entire world is changed for all time.