Collins Booksellers on Lydiard

Join us for an evening with the bestselling author of The Remarkable Truths of Alfie Bains. Sarah Clutton will be in conversation with Renee Price to celebrate her latest release 'The Bookshop of Buried Pasts'. About The Bookshop of Buried Pasts: Phyllida Banks is adored in the tiny village of Brookbank, nestled in the Southern Highlands outside Sydney. Admired for her curiosity and wisdom, her antiquarian bookshop is the hub of the community. So, when Phyllida is suddenly gone, leaving her granddaughter, Lottie, a letter requesting she ‘Find Francis’, friends and neighbours rally as Lottie grapples with her grandmother’s inexplicable actions and her enigmatic past. Uncovering a fortune of unknown origin, Lottie discovers a trail that leads to Cambridgeshire, England, and another village bookshop with eerie similarities to their own. As the decades unravel, she stumbles upon the key to a mystery that has baffled police for fifty years. Several people have gone to great lengths to keep the past buried, and it seems Phyllida is at the heart of everything. Step inside The Bookshop of Buried Pasts — an exhilarating tale of an abandoned boy and the woman who refused to forget him. About Sarah Clutton: Sarah Clutton lives in Australia's first Book Town on Gundungurra and Tharawal country. She has tried her hand at various jobs: research assistant, judge's associate, insurance claims advisor, litigation lawyer, philanthropic foundation manager and ghost-writer. In between freelance writing gigs she is events manager for her local chapter of Rural Australians for Refugees. Her bestselling novel, The Remarkable Truths of Alfie Bains, was published in 2025. The Bookshop of Buried Pasts is her tribute to village-living in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, and to the booksellers and book people who are its beating heart.

Shannon Kelly-White has entertained us with ‘Shannon’s Kitchen’ and has now launched herself as an electrifying new voice in fiction. Join us for an evening with Shannon to celebrate ‘Billie King’ - a blisteringly fast, fresh, funny and hugely entertaining novel of mothers, their children, and one gutsy wild colonial girl who gets caught up in Australia’s last female bushranger’s quest for revenge. Shannon will be in conversation with Renee Price. ABOUT 'BILLIE KING' 1918: Australia's last bushranger, Dulcie James, holds up Anna King's falling-down farmhouse. There's a scrawny unloved infant on the floor, Anna seems more furious than frightened, and it's the bushranger who's left shaken. And the next day, Anna disappears. Twelve years later, Anna's daughter, Billie King, is a girl ready to explode. With a missing mother, the rent in arrears and her alcoholic father's gambling debts to cover, she has no time for school. But when child services threaten to remove Billie from her father, she must decide between continuing her search for her missing mother and keeping what's left of her family together. If she fails to hold onto her father, she'll be taken away and placed in a children's home, but if she doesn't find her missing mother, who will? ABOUT 'SHANNON KELLY-WHITE' The internet has plenty to answer for, and Shannon’s writing career is one of them. Many moons ago, during maternity leave, she created Shannon’s Kitchen—a slightly unhinged corner of the internet that developed something of a cult following. Part food, part storytelling, part “did she really just say that?”, it laid the foundation for four non-fiction books and three Gourmand Awards, including Best Writing. But fiction was always the dream. Inspired by freedom, spirit, and women who push back, Shannon finally pulled her finger out and got on with it. Her debut novel, Billie King, will be published by HarperCollins on 30 June 2026, with a second novel already in the works for 2028.

Join us for an evening with Jaclyn Moriarty to celebrate her incandescent novel. At turns entertaining and illuminating, Time Travel for Beginners explores the moments, big and small, that shape our destiny. Jaclyn will be in conversation with Renee Price. ABOUT TIME TRAVEL FOR BEGINNERS On a bustling road in Sydney lies a nondescript storefront known simply as the Time Travel Agency. Inside, you’ll be welcomed by the smell of freshly brewed coffee, a selection of baked goods . . . and the question, Where in time do you wish to go? The guidelines are simple: you can go whenever you wish into the past, and there’s no fear of altering the present. Have tea with Jane Austen, scream at a Beatles concert, witness the Olympics in ancient Greece. Perhaps a more personal trip? Visit your long-lost grandmother, recapture the heady days of your youth, return to the idyllic time when your teen was a babbling baby—or watch yourself make the one decision that changed everything. Is it a hoax? And if it’s real, what’s the catch? When single mother Anna is offered a job at the agency, she glimpses the possibility of happiness. Meanwhile, Teddy’s a customer hoping to untangle his recently imploded marriage. And Jade, who has a deeply buried secret, despises the agency for offering false hope. ABOUT JACLYN MORIARTY Jaclyn Moriarty is the best-selling author of many novels for children, young adults and adults. She has been the recipient of the NSW Premier’s Literary Award, the Queensland Literary Award, and the Aurealis Award for Fantasy. Her books have been named Boston Globe Honor Books, White Raven selections and Best Books for Young Adults by the American Library Association. Jaclyn grew up in Sydney, Australia with four sisters (including authors Liane and Nicola Moriarty), one brother, two dogs and twelve chickens. She has lived in the US, UK and Canada, but now lives in Sydney again, along with her son, Charlie. She is very fond of chocolate, blueberries and sleep.

Join us for an evening with award winning author Kate Forsyth to celebrate her latest release The Changeling. Kate will be in conversation with Renee Price. ABOUT 'THE CHANGELING' Set against Scotland’s first witch-hunt, a young woman with faery blood must defy two queens to survive love, magic and treachery. On her fourteenth birthday, Caiti NicNeven discovers her true mother is the queen of the Sidhe, the faery folk who dwell beneath Scotland’s hollow hills. Bound by ancient grievance, the faery queen demands Caiti become the instrument of her revenge against the mortal crown stolen a thousand years before. Drawing on a dangerous magic she barely understands, Caiti flees. She finds refuge at the treacherous court of Mary, Queen of Scots. As fear and religious fervour grip the country, Mary is pressured into passing an Anti-Witchcraft Act, placing every woman – and every whispered spell – in peril. Watching from the shadows, the faery queen tightens her hold. When Caiti falls in love with Robbie, the son of a local laird, her mother strikes, cursing him to dance himself to death beneath the faery moon. To save the man she loves, Caiti must cross into the faery realm and confront the mother who would destroy her – and claim a wild, dangerous magic of her own. Inspired by the true story of Scotland’s first witch-hunt, The Changeling is a spellbinding tale of witchcraft, forbidden love and defying fate. ABOUT KATE FORSYTH Kate Forsyth is an award-winning author and oral storyteller who grew up on tales of Scottish history and folklore told by her grandmother and great-aunts. Her books include Psykhe, a feminist reimagining of the ancient Greek myth; Bitter Greens, a retelling of Rapunzel which won the American Library Association award for Best Historical Fiction; and The Witches of Eileanan, a dark romantic fantasy which was named one of the Best First Novels by Locus. Kate has a Doctorate of Creative Arts in fairy tale studies, and runs writing retreats and literary tours in Greece, the Cotswolds and Scotland. She has sold more than 1.5 million books in twenty languages.

Join us for an evening with writer, broadcaster, podcaster and TV presenter, Myf Warfhurst to celebrate the release of her latest book 'Middle Rage'. ABOUT 'MIDDLE RAGE' Life is messy and people are complicated (and sometimes more than a bit bloody annoying), but Myf Warhurst thought she was navigating it all okay. Sure, sometimes she had to smile and stay silent when she saw something that didn't sit right, because rocking the boat wasn't her style. After all, she was a woman who'd grown up thinking it was her job to keep the peace.? But, around the time Myf turned fifty, things shifted. Almost immediately, her usual sunny disposition disappeared into the lost property box, joining other items from her youth like her waistline, temperature regulation and a good night's sleep. Middle Rage set in. And it wasn't pretty. For a while there, all she could feel was angry. She had to work on it. And to save you from some of that angst, in this stunningly honest and completely relatable book she gets deeply personal about her own experience of this complex midlife stage. Maybe channelling her newfound rage about the glaring injustices of the world into something positive will help you, and help her find her sense of humour again (even though she still has no time right now for anyone's shit!). Part confessional, part manifesto,?Middle Rage?is full of Myf Warhurst's humour, warmth and wisdom, with some tips thrown in to help women live?their best middle-aged lives, and recognise when things are not as they should be. Myf asks the real questions:?without the shackles of life's often unnecessary expectations and arbitrary rules, who are we, and what can we hope to become? ABOUT 'MYF WARFHURST' Myf Warhurst is a writer, broadcaster, podcaster and TV presenter, best known and beloved as a team captain on the long-running ABC TV show Spicks and Specks. One of the most recognisable voices in Australian entertainment (Myf lends her voice to the popular ABC Kids show Bluey as Aunt Trixie, no less), she has been a constant presence on national radio stations such as Triple J and Double J, and now fronts her own successful podcast, The Moment. Myf has presented many TV documentaries, including Back Roads and the award-winning Keep on Dancing. She has also appeared on the reality TV shows Who Do You Think You Are? for SBS and I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!, becoming the first woman in South Africa to bungee-jump out of a helicopter (not by choice). She played The Narrator on the last Australian tour of The Rocky Horror Show, and for eight years was the Australian commentator for the most-watched cultural event in the world, the Eurovision Song Contest, with co-host Joel Creasey. Her first book, published in 2022, was the bestselling Time of My Life.