Must Read Books by Australian Authors 2025

Australia's literary landscape is as vast and diverse as its stunning landscapes, boasting a wealth of talented authors who have captivated readers both at home and across the globe. From the sun-drenched outback to bustling cityscapes, Australian writers offer unique perspectives, compelling narratives, and voices that resonate long after the final page. Whether you're a long-time fan of Aussie fiction or new to the treasures down under, prepare to dive into a curated list of must-read books that showcase the incredible depth and breadth of storytelling by our very own homegrown literary stars.

Must Read Australian Books This Year (so far)

The Forsaken by Matt Rogers

For ten years, Logan Booth served as a contract killer for the CIA – he just never knew it. The first book in a blockbuster thriller series from Matt Rogers, a million-copy bestseller and 'a bright new talent shaking up the genre' (Candice Fox).

In the twilight of his career, Logan learns he has been a vessel for furthering government interests, not a rogue hitman for a band of vigilantes. The revelation destroys him.

But when Jorge Romero – an investigative reporter and Logan's oldest friend – is brutally and inexplicably murdered, Logan allows his fury to deliver him from despair.

With an ally in Alice Mason, a homeless witness with a target on her back, Logan goes to war. Against whom, he isn't sure, but he knows powerful forces are at work behind the scenes.

Now, to deliver justice, Logan and Alice must confront their demons and win a savage battle that could destroy their lives... even if they survive.

Rytual by Chloe Elisabeth Wilson

I support women’s rights, but more importantly I support women’s wrongs.

Marnie Sellick is adrift when she lands a job at the coveted, mysterious beauty brand rytuał cosmetica.

The enigmatic founder and CEO, Luna Peters, takes a liking to Marnie, and as the two grow closer Marnie becomes intoxicated by the life that Luna, and rytuał, can offer her.

But all is not what it seems at rytuał. Luna has a cult-like hold over the all-female staff, and that’s not to mention what happens at their weekly Friday Night Drinks.

As Marnie edges closer to the darkness at the centre of rytuał’s millennial-pink facade, cracks begin to show. Luna is hiding something, but will Marnie uncover the truth – and the role Luna has cast her in – before it’s too late?

Both a darkly funny deconstruction of the beauty industry and a gripping examination of identity, beauty and desire, Rytual asks the question: what if your favourite cult beauty brand … was actually a cult?

Always Home, Always Homesick by Hannah Kent

In a land of ethereal beauty, within a culture soaked in myth, a young woman discovers the story that will change her life.

In 2003, seventeen-year-old Australian exchange student Hannah Kent arrives at Keflavík Airport in the middle of the Icelandic winter.

That night she sleeps off her jet lag and bewilderment in the National Archives of Iceland, unaware that, years later, she will return to the same building to write Burial Rites, the haunting story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, the last woman executed in Iceland. The novel will go on to launch the author's stellar literary career and capture the hearts of readers across the globe.

Always Home, Always Homesick is Hannah Kent's exquisite love letter to a land that has forged a nation of storytellers, her ode to the transcendent power of creativity, and her invitation to us all to join her in the realms of mystery, spirit and wonder.

Broken Brains by Jamila Rizvi & Rosie Waterland

A personal book about physical brain health and mental brain health, and how they coexist in two very different spaces.

At the age of 31 Jamila Rizvi was diagnosed with a rare brain tumour. When she shared her diagnosis with loved ones, good friend Rosie Waterland proposed the tumour eventually be named ‘Jam’s Jerky’ and kept on display in a jar.
While this sensitive proposal was politely declined, there was a reason Jamila had turned to Rosie for support. Rosie knows what it’s like to live with a broken brain. After a childhood of abuse and neglect, she had been dealing with significant trauma symptoms for years.
Jamila and Rosie soon discovered their broken brains had more in common than they could ever have imagined.
In this brave and honest book they share their parallel experiences of being sick, alongside the advice of those who’ve been there before.
Broken Brains offers exactly what both Jamila and Rosie wish they’d had at the height of their illnesses: comfort, solidarity and understanding. Sometimes funny, sometimes brutal, this book is essential reading for anyone who has ever been sick or loved someone who was.

The Remarkable Truth of Alfie Bains by Sarah Clutton

Alfie's mum, Emilia, has been lying to him forever.

It's only been the two of them in Ireland, but when Emilia's appendix explodes, she drops a bombshell: they have a family back in Australia, and she and Alfie are going to meet them.

When Penny Bains opens the door of her Tasmanian farmhouse to a boy with an Irish accent claiming to be the son of her missing daughter, Emilia, her life is turned upside down.

Alfie needs to know who his father is, but the residents of the tiny town of Beggars Rock and his newly found grandmother and great-aunts are all staying silent. As Alfie starts to uncover secrets that his family would prefer to keep buried, the one thing he does discover is that no one is willing to tell him the truth.

Unforgettable, funny, life affirming and deeply moving, The Remarkable Truths of Alfie Bains is an absolute joy.

The Name of The Sister by Gail Jones

A young woman stumbles onto an outback road at night and is lit up in the headlights of an approaching car. Who is she? Nobody knows, and she has lost the ability to speak.

This is how the story of the Unknown Woman begins. Angie, a freelance journalist, joins her childhood friend Bev, the police officer in charge of the case, to try to solve the mystery.

Dozens of people claim to know the speech-less woman. The stories multiply. In an urgent, unexpected finale, more questions arise.

Set in Sydney and the Mars-red landscapes around Broken Hill, Gail Jones’s The Name of the Sister is an elegant and thrilling novel that explores the unreliable terrain between the truth and the stories we tell each other.

Eden by Mark Brandi

Big city. Deadly secrets.

Cities are tough when you've grown up as a country kid. They're even tougher after nine years inside. Tom Blackburn is fresh out of jail and not sure where his future lies. He knows what he wants. But he's pretty sure she doesn't want him.

Tom's left his old life and his old name behind. But his options aren't great. He knows sleeping on the streets is the quickest way back to a cell. And then, his luck turns around. A chance encounter leads to a job and somewhere to stay. A place in the dead centre of Melbourne. Eden, his new boss calls it.

Honest, physical work. Bit of gardening, bit of gravedigging, bit of whatever he's told to do. Fresh air, currawongs, a bed and some peace and quiet. It's the perfect place to save some money and make some plans. A place to keep his head down and stay out of trouble.

But trouble finds him. Serious trouble. He's missed the signs, again. Going back to jail might be the safest option. Unless he can figure some way out of the danger he's in . . .

Melaleuca by Angie Faye Martin

A country town, a brutal murder, a shameful past, a reckoning to come... The injustices of the past and dangers of the present envelop Aboriginal policewoman Renee Taylor, when her unwilling return to the small outback town of her childhood plunges her into the investigation of a brutal murder.

Renee Taylor is planning to stay the minimum amount of time in her remote hometown - only as long as her mum needs her, then she is fleeing back to her real life in Brisbane.

Seconded to the town's sleepy police station, Renee is pretty sure work will hold nothing more exciting than delivering speeding tickets. Then a murdered woman is found down by the creek on the outskirts of town.

Leading the investigation, Renee uncovers a perplexing connection to the disappearance of two young women thirty years earlier. As she delves deeper and the mystery unfurls, intergenerational cruelties, endemic racism, and deep corruption show themselves, even as dark and bitter truths about the town and its inhabitants' past rise up and threaten to overwhelm the present...

Find Me At The Jaffa Gate by Micaela Sahhar

What does the daughter of a Nakba survivor inherit? It is not property or tangible heirlooms, nor the streets and neighbourhoods of a father’s childhood and the deep roots of family who have lived in one place, Jerusalem, for generation upon generation.

Fixing her gaze on moments, places and objects – from the streets of Bethlehem to the Palestinian neighbourhoods of the New Jerusalem – Micaela Sahhar assembles a story of Palestinian diaspora. Find Me at the Jaffa Gate is a book about the gaps and blank spaces that cannot be easily recounted, but which insists on the vibrant reality of chance, fragments and memory to reclaim a place called home.

‘Micaela Sahhar’s Find Me at the Jaffa Gate is one of the most inventive, thought-provoking and captivating chronicles of Palestinian diasporic life I’ve had the pleasure of reading. It is a memoir written by a poet, poetry written by a novelist, literature written by an academic – it is all these things at once, insisting with a gentle yet unwavering confidence in the power of its unique, brilliantly evocative and genre-defying voice. Sahhar’s love for her family, homeland, the details and intimacies of everyday life; for language, history, archives, photographs and the treasured ephemera of a life in diaspora, shine through every line. The result is a book in which every word is deliberate, each line commands attention, each chapter is a world within a world.’ – Randa Abdel-Fattah, academic and writer, author of 11 Words for Love

Adapt by Andrea Clarke

After the global pause in 2020, we returned to a world that feels faster, looser, and less structured – our professional boundaries have been erased, social and cultural norms are shifting rapidly, and at the same time, we're facing profound developments in artificial intelligence. We're facing more change more often, yet we're applying a mindset that is outdated and no longer fit-for-purpose.

Adapt offers a fresh perspective. Andrea Clarke, the award-winning author of Future Fit, argues that rather than retreat from change or resist it, we must engage with it continuously and learn how to anticipate and shape it. This book will teach you practical tools, including how to scan for signals of change to minimise disruption, apply the good advice test to make better decisions, use the 80/20 rule to explore unseen opportunities, and protect your health with the energy curve.

Whether you’re striving to be a better leader, or seeking more control over your life, Adapt will equip you with a new way to master change in an unpredictable world. This book reframes change as a powerful tool for growth, opportunity and meaningful progress.

Miles Franklin Undercover by Kerrie Davies

The little-known years when she created her own brilliant career

After the success and celebrity of her coming of age novel My Brilliant Career, published when Miles Franklin was only 21, she disappeared. This is the story of the decade that made her second career as a fearless advocate for working women.