Big, Weird, Lonely Hearts

by Allen C. Jones

PB 224 | 198 x 129 |
ISBN: 9781922858344 | $24.99
Short Fiction | Also available as ebook
MidnightSun Publishing | November 2023
Distributed by NewSouth Books

One part absurd humor, one part social commentary, Big, Weird, Lonely Hearts throws the most unlikely couples into bed together. This hilarious book includes a man mistaken for a bush, a mermaid refugee, a bird who dreams of weaponizing cats, a boy with a computer for a face, and a woman in love with a severed arm. These and more are the weird and lonely characters who drag their broken hearts through this collection, diligently searching for someone to stitch them up.

Allen C. Jones’ debut collection reads like a meeting between Peter Carey, Nikolai Gogol, and Lydia Millet where the task at hand is to write a love story. While the surface of these stories seems humorous and even absurd, beneath it runs a desperate nostalgia carried by a set of characters who will do anything to force their way back into love. Continue reading Big, Weird, Lonely Hearts

Strangely Enough

edited by Gillian Hagenus

PB 240 | 198 x 129
ISBN: 9781922858313 | $24.99
Short Fiction | Also available as ebook
MidnightSun Publishing | November 2023
Distributed by NewSouth Books

Neglected by society, a group of caravanning 60-somethings encounter a place where time stops. A baby swims in a witch’s cauldron. A statue of Jesus grows fat off fish and chips. An ancient Egyptian God swims through the sewers under a suburban street and a desperate family harvests the fingers they find growing in their soil after their final food supplies wither.

Strangely Enough is a celebration of the far-reaching possibilities of short fiction from some of Australia’s most creatively ambitious minds. Surreal and haunting, funny and gripping, these intensely strange tales encompass what it means to grieve, love, wonder, fear and change, each ultimately offering something entirely unexpected and strangely, deeply Continue reading Strangely Enough

Polluted Sex

by Lauren Foley

PB 240 | 198 x 129
ISBN: 9781922858214 | $24.99
Short Fiction | Also available as ebook
MidnightSun Publishing | October 2023
Distributed by NewSouth Books

A pregnant woman takes the ferry to the UK.

A fractious intimate relationship develops between an Irish woman, an English man, and her girlfriend.

Two ungendered characters contest the same female body.

A deserted wife takes a lover but remains unsatisfied.

Lauren Foley’s debut collection of dramatic short stories, Polluted Sex, is fearless in its depiction of women’s bodies and sexuality, offering an unflinching window into Irish girl and womanhood.
Continue reading Polluted Sex

The Weaver

by Melanie Kanicky

PB 352 | 198 x 129 | ISBN: 9781922858283 | $19.99
Young Adult | Also available as ebook
MidnightSun Publishing | October 2023
Distributed by NewSouth Books

In a remote village, bordered by woods and an endless winter, Saatcha lives in the attic of her ailing father’s blacksmithery. As her father’s health fades and he is no longer able to work, Saatcha takes it upon herself to keep the forge running.

But when a pair of thieves appear in the dead of night, Saatcha’s duty to her father is torn from her. Forced to leave her home behind, the bounds of magic that once held Saatcha begin to slip away.
Continue reading The Weaver

City Knife

by Rachel Hennessy

PB 344 | 198 x 129 | ISBN: 9781925227970 | $19.99
Young Adult | Also available as ebook
MidnightSun Publishing | September 2023
Distributed by NewSouth Books

The chimera of the city are on the hunt.

After years of being individually slaughtered, they have come together to make war on Pandora and her people.

In the conclusion to The Burning Days, the sins of the past will be revealed and all hope for the future will be Continue reading City Knife

Tank Water

by Michael Burge

PB 300 | 234 x 153 | ISBN: 9781925227888 | $29.99
Novel | Also available as ebook
MidnightSun Publishing | October 2021
Distributed by NewSouth Books

James Brandt didn’t look back when he got away from his rural hometown as a teenager. Now, he’s returned to Kippen for the first time in twenty years because his cousin Tony has been found dead under the local bridge.

The news that Tony has left him the entire family farm triggers James’s journalistic curiosity — and his anxiety –— both of which cropped up during his turbulent journey to adulthood. But it is the unexpected homophobic attack he survives that draws James into Continue reading Tank Water

The Lanternist

by Stephen Orr, illustrated by Timothy Ide

PB 400 | 198 x 128 | ISBN: 9781925227840 | $19.99
YA Fiction | Also available as ebook
MidnightSun Publishing | July 2021
Distributed by NewSouth Books

1901. The slide clunks into the lantern, and Phantoms come alive on the wall. The father-and-son Magic Lantern team of Bert and Tom Eliot are masters of The Art of the Story. The only problem is that they are missing a wife and mother. Then one morning eleven-year-old Tom wakes to find his father missing, too. Continue reading The Lanternist

The Breaking

by Irma Gold

PB 272 | 234 x 153 | ISBN: 9781925227819 | $29.99
Novel | Also available as ebook
MidnightSun Publishing | March 2021
Distributed by NewSouth Books

Hannah Bird has just arrived in Thailand. Disoriented and out of her depth, she meets Deven, a fierce and gutsy Australian expat who sweeps her into thrilling adventures rescuing elephants.

As they head deeper and deeper into the fraught world of elephant tourism, their lives become tangled in ways Hannah never imagined. But how far will they go to save a life? Continue reading The Breaking

The Ghost Squad

by Sophie Masson

PB 448 | 198 x 128 | ISBN: 9781925227772 | $19.99
YA Fiction | Also available as ebook
MidnightSun Publishing | February 2021
Distributed by NewSouth Books

Imagine a world where all seems normal and yet nothing is — a world very much like our own, yet jarringly unlike. A world where two clandestine organisations, the Ghost Squad and the Base, are engaged in a secret battle for control of information so dangerous it could literally change life as humans have always known it… Continue reading The Ghost Squad

Rural Dreams

by Margaret Hickey

PB 224 | 198 x 128 | ISBN: 9781925227680 | $27.99
Short story collection | Also available as ebook
MidnightSun Publishing | October 2020
Distributed by NewSouth Books

Margaret Hickey’s Rural Dreams takes a look at life outside the big smoke, introducing us to the kind of characters you might expect in the country, as well as some you might not.

Funny, heartbreaking and true; the characters in Rural Dreams are the people we know and grew up with. Some of them might even be us. Continue reading Rural Dreams

Life, Bound

by Marian Matta

PB 224 | 198 x 128 | ISBN: 9781925227710 | $27.99
Short story collection | Also available as ebook
MidnightSun Publishing | October 2020
Distributed by NewSouth Books

Marian Matta’s Life, Bound moves through time and place, following characters who struggle to escape the past and strive to shape the future.

Free agents or captives of our past? In Life, Bound, characters find themselves caught in situations not of their own making, or trapped by ingrained habits, walking in grooves carved out by past events.

An artist’s progress is pleasingly channelled Continue reading Life, Bound

Anisa’s Alphabet

Written by Mike Dumbleton, illustrated by Hannah Sommerville

HB 32 | 280 x 240
ISBN: 9781925227574 | $17.99
Picture book | March 2020
MidnightSun Publishing
Distributed by NewSouth Books

For many refugees the alphabet represents the start of a new language and a new future, but Anisa’s Alphabet is different.

A poignant and highly imaginative telling of one girl’s story which will appeal to children and adults alike … Come with Anisa, and see things through her eyes. Continue reading Anisa’s Alphabet

No Neat Endings

by Dominic Carew

PB 224 | 198 x 128 | ISBN: 9781925227611 | $27.99
Short story collection | Also available as ebook
MidnightSun Publishing | February 2020
Distributed by NewSouth Books

A young man can’t make love. A pedantic father spots a blemish in his new shorts and returns to the shop to demand their exchange. A girl rocks up to a Tinder date wearing a helmet.

In nineteen short stories, No Neat Endings pits its characters against the challenges of modern life, sex, love, work and the world. Continue reading No Neat Endings

Hide

by S.J. Morgan

PB 320 | 153 x 234 | ISBN: 9781925227581
$32.99 | Fiction | Also available as ebook
MidnightSun Publishing | November 2019
Distributed by NewSouth Books

It’s 1983 in Thatcher’s Britain. Alec Johnston has left his comfortable family home in Cardiff and taken a flat with bikers Minto, Stobes and Black. There he meets Sindy, Minto’s strange and vulnerable young girlfriend. When she starts to view Alec as a possible saviour from her abusive relationship, it earns Alec a big target on his back. Continue reading Hide

River Stone

by Rachel Hennessy

PB 368 | 198 x 129 | ISBN: 9781925227499
$19.99 | YA Fiction | Also available as ebook
MidnightSun Publishing | May 2019
Distributed by NewSouth Books

Pandora, of the River People, wants more than her village can provide. When disaster comes to her people, Pan has the opportunity to become their saviour and escape her inevitable pairing with life-long friend Matthew. She wants to make her own choices. Deep in her soul, she believes there is something more out there, beyond the boundaries, especially since she encountered the hunter of the Mountain People.

A story of confused love, difficult friendships and clumsy attempts at heroism, Pan’s fight for her village will bring her into contact with a whole new world, where the truth about the past will have terrifying reverberations for her people’s future survival. Continue reading River Stone