Kate Mildenhall

You will not recognise me, she thinks, when I find you . . . Mim's husband is missing. No one knows where Ben is, but everyone wants to find him - especially The Department. And they should know, the all-seeing government body has fitted the entire population with a universal tracking chip to keep them 'safe'. But suddenly Ben can't be tracked. And Mim is questioned, made to surrender her passport and threatened with the unthinkable - her two children being taken into care at the notorious BestLife. Cornered, Mim risks everything to go on the run to find her husband - and a part of herself, long gone, that is brave enough to tackle the journey ahead. From the stark backroads of the Australian outback to a terrifying sea voyage, Mim is forced to shuck off who she was - mother, daughter, wife, sister - and become the woman she needs to be to save her family and herself. 'Sublime . . . With its superb storytelling and capacity to spark reflection on the way we live, this timely, riveting, warning bell of a book can be confidently recommended.' Books+Publishing 'A shattering lightning bolt of a book.' Karen Viggers, author of The Lightkeeper's Wife 'A clarion call, wrapped in vivid prose, inside a truly thrilling read' Angela Savage, author of Mother of Pearl and Behind the Night Bazaar 'Shook me to my core. I could not put it down' Alice Robinson, author of Anchor Point and The Glad Shout 'Mildenhall has imagined a world as terrifying and visionary as Margaret Atwood's Gilead, with the pace of the best thrillers - and characters I'll never forget' J.P. Pomare, author of Call Me Evie and In the Clearing 'With The Mother Fault Mildenhall has achieved that rare thing - a book that at once tackles the big issues and is an addictive page-turner.' Melanie Cheng, author of Australia Day and Room for a Stranger 'Compelling and deeply human. The Mother Fault is an urgent call from a future which is at once terrifying and familiar.' Kristina Olsson, award-winning author of Shell and Boy, Lost 'Brilliant. A raw, urgent, white-knuckle ride through a world only a heartbeat away' James Bradley, author of Clade and Ghost Species 'Clever, political, pacy and exciting. The Mother Fault is pure diamond-edged propulsive power. Book of the year.' Chris Flynn, author of Mammoth 'An unvarnished, beautifully written, totally authentic tribute to the everyday badassery and bullshit of motherhood, to the ordinary extraordinariness of women. It's also a fast-paced edge-of-your-seat, heart-in-your-mouth adventure with an ending worthy of a Homeland season finale.' Anna Downes, author of The Safe Place

The Mother Fault

Kate and Harriet are best friends, growing up together on an isolated Australian cape in the 1880s. As daughters of the lighthouse keepers, the two girls share everything until a fisherman, McPhail, arrives in their small community. When Kate witnesses the desire that flares between him and Harriet, she is torn by her feelings of envy and longing. But one moment in McPhail's hut will change the course of their lives forever. Inspired by a true story, Skylarkingis a stunning debut novel about friendship, love and loss, one that questions what it is to remember and how tempting it can be to forget.

Skylarking

An epic, kaleidoscopic story of four women connected across time and place by an invisible thread and their determination to shape their own stories, from the acclaimed author of The Mother Fault. One of the lucky few with a job during the Depression, Peggy's just starting out in life. She's a bagging girl at the Angliss meatworks, a place buzzing with life as well as death, where the gun slaughterman Jack has caught her eye - and she his. How is her life connected to Hilda's, almost a hundred years later, locked inside during a plague, or La's, further on again, a singer working shifts in a warehouse as her eggs are frozen and her voice is used by AI bots? Let alone Maz, far removed in time, diving for remnants of a past that must be destroyed? Is it by the river that runs through their stories, eternal yet constantly changing - or by the mysterious Hummingbird Project, and the great question of whether the march of progress can ever be reversed? Propulsive, tender and engrossing, this genre-bending novel is a feast for the heart as well as the mind and senses. For fans of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, Michelle de Kretser's The Life to Come and Jennifer Egan's The Candy House, it confirms Mildenhall as one of the most ambitious and dynamic writers in the country.

The Hummingbird Effect

An epic, kaleidoscopic story of four women connected across time and place by an invisible thread and their determination to shape their own stories, from the acclaimed author of The Mother Fault. Longlisted for the Indie Book Awards 2024 Sydney Morning Herald Best Reads of the Year for 2023 One of the lucky few with a job during the Depression, Peggy’s just starting out in life. She’s a bagging girl at the Angliss meatworks in Footscray, a place buzzing with life as well as death, where the gun slaughterman Jack has caught her eye – and she his. How is her life connected to Hilda’s, almost a hundred years later, locked inside during a plague, or La’s, further on again, a singer working shifts in a warehouse as her eggs are frozen and her voice is used by AI bots? Let alone Maz, far removed in time, diving for remnants of a past that must be destroyed? Is it by the river that runs through their stories, eternal yet constantly changing – or by the mysterious Hummingbird Project, and the great question of whether the march of progress can ever be reversed? Propulsive, tender and engrossing, this genre-bending novel is a feast for the heart as well as the mind and senses. For fans of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, Michelle de Kretser’s The Life to Come and Jennifer Egan’s The Candy House, it confirms Mildenhall as one of the most ambitious and dynamic writers in the country. 'Kate Mildenhall is such an exciting writer to read … This generous, playful novel speaks to themes of climate change, survival and holding space for each other, as well as the enduring power of female friendship.' The Guardian ‘Spellbinding, genre-defying, and powerful in its vision of the future … The Hummingbird Effect is a devastating novel that exposes the ways the future is seeded in the past.’ Australian Book Review

'Skylarking is a beautifully-written love letter to female friendship, full of the passion, envy and confusion of growing up and growing apart' -- Kate Riordan A spellbinding tale of friendship and desire, memory and truth, which questions what it is to remember and how tempting it can be to forget.

Skylarking: Striking fiction rooted in adolescent friendship and desire

They’re good people. Why shouldn’t they get what they deserve? When Lou sees an ad for a long-abandoned mining town up for sale, it doesn’t take her long to convince her sister and their oldest friends to go in on the idyllic property buried in the bush – a place where the four families can hide away on weekends, get back to nature and unstick the kids from their screens. But things start to go wrong before they even arrive for their first camping trip – a rogue deer sends a trailer off the road, a neighbour complains about the fence line and squatters have set up camp down by the river. Soon none of that will matter, though, because by the end of the first night someone will be dead. At first it seems that hiding a body is easier than keeping other sorts of secrets: a lost job, an illegal crop, an outrageous affair, a little embezzlement. But what’s buried has a way of coming to the surface, and even in the bush, it’s hard to remain unseen. White Lotus meets The Slap in a razor-sharp literary thriller about deception and self-deception, and how far people will go to protect what they feel they ought to have. ‘Absolutely brilliant. I wish I had written this book.’ Hayley Scrivenor, author of Dirt Town

The Hiding Place

By the author of The Hummingbird Effect and The Mother Fault Kate and Harriet are best friends, growing up together on an isolated Australian cape in the 1880s. As daughters of the lighthouse keepers, the two girls share everything until a fisherman, McPhail, arrives in their small community. When Kate witnesses the desire that flares between him and Harriet, she is torn by her feelings of envy and longing. But one moment in McPhail's hut will change the course of their lives forever. Inspired by a true story, Skylarking is a stunning debut novel about friendship, love and loss, one that questions what it is to remember and how tempting it can be to forget. 'Skylarking is a strikingly real and deeply moving meditation on adolescent friendship in all its complexities - a heart-wrenching work.' -Olga Lorenzo 'This impressive novel takes an historical case and re-imagines it with such sensitivity and insight that we feel this must be how it truly happened.' -Emily Bitto 'A brave, beautiful and richly textured book that delicately explores the fault lines in love and friendship.' -Lucy Treloar

When Lou sees an ad for a long-abandoned mining town up for sale, it doesn’t take her long to convince her sister and their oldest friends to go in on the idyllic property buried in the bush – a place where the four families can hide away on weekends, get back to nature and unstick the kids from their screens.

But things start to go wrong before they even arrive for their first camping trip – a rogue deer sends a trailer off the road, a neighbour complains about the fence line and squatters have set up camp down by the river. Soon none of that will matter, though, because by the end of the first night someone will be dead.

At first it seems that hiding a body is easier than keeping other sorts of secrets: a lost job, an illegal crop, an outrageous affair, a little embezzlement. But what’s buried has a way of coming to the surface, and even in the bush, it’s hard to remain unseen.

Kate and Harriet are best friends, growing up together on an isolated Australian cape in the 1880s. As daughters of the lighthouse keepers, the two girls share everything until a fisherman, McPhail, arrives in their small community. When Kate witnesses the desire that flares between him and Harriet, she is torn by her feelings of envy and longing. But one moment in McPhail's hut will change the course of their lives forever.

Kate Mildenhall

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