Bio
Odyssey Books is committed to publishing engaging and beautifully written books. Books that stretch the imagination, challenge pre-existing attitudes and beliefs, or take readers to far-flung climes. Books are always a journey. And as our name suggests, we invest in epic journeys, adventurous voyages and intellectual or spiritual quests. Readers are sure to find a book within our range of titles to challenge, inspire and entertain.Authors will discover that we at Odyssey Books understand the synergy that exists between an author and their works. Like all publishers, we invest in books. And we foster that investment through our long-term commitment to our authors. Writers know that the creative journey can be as long and uncertain as it is exciting. We travel alongside all our authors, offering guidance and encouragement along the way. For Odyssey, each new release is a collaboration, and we value highly the thoughts, wishes and dreams of our authors.
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Free Book Giveaways
The Way Home, by Julian Barr (sample)
The gods betray you.
The winds are hunting.
Nowhere is safe.
The journey begins…
The war of the gods has left Aeneas’s country in flames. Though he is little more than a youth, Aeneas must gather the survivors and lead them to a new homeland across the roaring waves. Confronted by twisted prophecies, Aeneas faces the wrath of the immortals to find his own path.
First in a trilogy based on Virgil’s epic poetry, Ashes of Olympus: The Way Home is a tale of love and vengeance in an age of bronze swords and ox-hide shields.
Wanderers No More, by Michelle Saftich (sample)
The war may be over, but the fight to belong is just beginning.
Left homeless, starving, and almost killed by the Second World War, the Saforo family are refugees fleeing Italy for a better life. The shores of Australia are calling to them and they head off, packing dreams of jobs, a home and … soccer.
But from the moment they get off the boat, adapting to the Australian way of life is harder than it seems. Their family doesn’t speak right, eat right or even look right. As they struggle to build a simple life against the backdrop of 1950s racism, they start to wonder if they will be outsiders forever.
A true family affair, Wanderers No More will make you laugh, remind you of your family, and warm your heart.
Port of No Return, by Michelle Saftich (sample)
Contessa and Ettore Saforo awake to a normal day in war-stricken, occupied Italy. By the end of the day, however, their house is in ruins and they must seek shelter and protection wherever they can. But the turbulent politics of 1944 refuses to let them be.
Keeper of the Way, by Patricia Leslie (sample)
After news of grave robbing and murder in Dun Ringall, the ancient stronghold of Clan McKinnon on the Isle of Skye, Rosalie realises it is time to share her family’s secrets. Descendants of the mystical Ethne M’Kynnon, Rosalie tells of a violent rift that occurred centuries earlier, splitting Ethne from her sisters forever and causing relentless anguish and enmity between ancient families.
Meanwhile, Algernon and Clement Benedict have arrived in Sydney searching for the lost relics of their family. They are driven by revenge and a thirst for power, and will take what they can to reinstate their family heritage. Their meddling with ancient magic will have far-reaching effects, as they fail to realise ther role in a far greater quest.
The Stars in the Night, by Clare Rhoden (sample)
Harry Fletcher is a confident young man.
Harry’s sure that he will marry Nora MacTiernan, no matter what their families say. He’s certain that he will always be there to protect Eddie, the boy his father saved from the gutters of Port Adelaide.
Only the War to End All Wars might get in the way of Harry’s plans…
From the beaches of Semaphore to the shores of Gallipoli, the mud of Flanders to the red dust of inland South Australia, this is a story of love, brotherhood, and resilience.
Beyond the Bay, by Rebecca Burns (sample)
Auckland at the turn of the century. A city on the cusp of change.
Isobel, a settler of ten years, waits for her sister to cross the ocean to join her. Separated by distance, disappointments and secrets, the women reunite in a land where the rules of home do not apply. Women push for the vote and the land offers opportunity and a future for those brave enough to take it. But some secrets run too deep, some changes too shocking to embrace. Against this backdrop of uncertainty and promise, Isobel and Esther have to determine what – and who – means most.
In this novel, Rebecca Burns returns to the colonial New Zealand explored in her short story collection, The Settling Earth. Beyond the Bay is a novel of hope, redemption, and the unbreakable bond of family.
The Adventurous Princess, by Erin-Claire Barrow (sample)
What if Beauty stood up to the Beast, the Princess never tried to sleep on the pea (and wouldn’t have noticed it if she had), and the Swan Maiden took her revenge on the hunter who kidnapped her?
The Adventurous Princess and other feminist fairy tales is a retelling of nine traditional fairy tales with a feminist twist.
Fairy tales open up new worlds full of enchantment and adventure, but many of these traditional stories also reinforce rigid gender roles and norms, perpetuate stereotypes, and lack diversity in their characters.
In The Adventurous Princess, the charm, whimsy, and magic of traditional fairy tales remain, but the diverse characters challenge stereotypes about who they should be or how they should act, stand up for themselves, and shape their own futures.
Esme's Wish, by Elizabeth Foster (sample)
When fifteen-year-old Esme Silver objects at her father’s wedding, her protest is dismissed as the actions of a stubborn, selfish teenager. Everyone else has accepted the loss of Esme’s mother, Ariane – so why can’t she?
But Esme is suspicious. She is sure that others are covering up the real reason for her mother’s disappearance – that ‘lost at sea’ is code for something more terrible, something she has a right to know.
After Esme is accidentally swept into the enchanted world of Aeolia, the truth begins to unfold. With her newfound friends, Daniel and Lillian, Esme retraces her mother’s steps in the glittering canal city of Esperance, untangling the threads of Ariane’s double life. But the more Esme discovers about Ariane, the more she questions whether she really knew her at all.
The Tides Between, by Elizabeth Jane Corbett (sample)
In 1841, on the eve of her departure from London, Bridie’s mother demands she forget her dead father and prepare for a sensible, adult life in Port Phillip. Desperate to save her childhood, fifteen-year-old Bridie is determined to smuggle a notebook filled with her father’s fairy tales to the far side of the world.
When Rhys Bevan, a soft-voiced young storyteller and fellow traveller realises Bridie is hiding something, a magical friendship is born. But Rhys has his own secrets and the words written in Bridie’s notebook carry a dark double meaning.
As they inch towards their destination, Rhys’s past returns to haunt him. Bridie grapples with the implications of her dad’s final message. The pair take refuge in fairy tales, little expecting the trouble it will cause.
Cassandra, by Kathryn Gossow (sample)
Is the future set like concrete, or a piece of clay we can mould and change?
On a remote farm in Queensland, Cassie Shultz feels useless. Her perfect brother Alex has an uncanny ability to predict the weather, and the fortunes of the entire family hinge upon his forecasts. However, her own gift for prophecy remains frustratingly obscure. Attempts to help her family usually result in failure.
After meeting with her new genius neighbour Athena, Cassie thinks she has unlocked the secret of her powers. But as her visions grow more vivid, she learns that the cost of honing her gift may be her sanity.
With her family breaking apart, the future hurtles towards Cassie faster than she can comprehend it.
Songlines, by Carolyn Denman (sample)
In the heart of the Wimmera region of Victoria, an ancient gateway to Eden is kept hidden and safe by a creature so powerful that even the moon would obey her commands – at least it would if she had any idea that she wasn’t just a normal girl about to finish high school.
When a mining company begins exploratory sampling near Lainie’s sheep farm, a family secret is revealed that makes her regret not having learnt more about her Indigenous heritage. What she’s told by their farmhand, Harry – an Aboriginal elder – can’t possibly be true, but then the most irritating guy in class, Bane, begins to act even more insanely toward her than ever, until she can no longer deny that something very unusual is going on.
The Forked Path, by T.R. Thompson (sample)
Despite the victory over Cantor Cortis, the dark power still spreads. Nightmare creatures are wiping out villages all along the southern edge of the wild Tangle forest, causing a stream of refugees to flow into the capital of Sontair in the hope of finding protection.
All who helped overthrow the Nine Sisters of Redmondis have been touched by what they experienced and those they lost. Dark visions sap Petron and Daemi’s strength even as they try to heal the rifts within Redmondis and forge a new path for the wielders, crafters and guards who make up its three main schools.
Wilt must enter the Tangle to seek out the source of the power that calls to him. Visions of the past seen through other eyes haunt his days, and he finds it harder and harder to resist the pull of his wraith form.
The Revolutionary's Cousin, by Cindy Davies (sample)
Zahra Ghafoori, an Afghan widow with a troubled past, lives in Tehran, Iran. She is planning to leave Iran for the USA with her fiancé, wealthy architect Karim Konari, and her son Ahmad. The dramatic reappearance of her revolutionary cousin Firzun, whom she believed dead in a bomb blast, changes everything.
Karim’s life takes a different path as he leaves alone for the USA, after Firzan forces Zahra to travel with him to Australia, then abandons her and Ahmad at the airport. Humiliated, alone, and frightened in a country very different to her own, Zahra must overcome many ordeals and try to make friends and a new life. Will Firzun come back for her? And will she ever see Karim again?
Stories to Read by Candlelight, by Patricia Worth (sample)
Stories to Read by Candlelight contains eight stories first published in the 1890s by French author Jean Lorrain, translated into English by Patricia Worth. Jean draws the reader back in time to his provincial childhood when his grandmother’s seamstress would tell him stories that gave him goose bumps and made him jump under the covers. Here he recounts these same stories, or invents new half-lived half-dreamed stories born of objects found in an attic or an old house. The characters have a mythical quality, whether they be fantastical beings who long to be real, like the embroidered Princess Mandosiane, or real people like Madame Gorgibus, accused of being a wicked fairy. The stories fall between legends and fairy tales, a genre favoured by Decadent authors.
Grasping at Water, by Carmel Bendon (sample)
When a young, unidentified woman is pulled alive and well from Sydney Harbour in 2013, the connections to another woman – found in similar circumstances forty years earlier – present psychiatrist Kathryn Brookley with a terrible decision as the events of the present and past begin to mirror each other and the gap between truth and illusion shrinks.
When the young woman goes further and declares that she has lived continuously since coming to ‘understanding’ in the 14th century, her vivid accounts of life, love, childbirth, and loss in the Middle Ages seem so authentic that they test Kathryn’s scientific objectivity to the limit.
The Pale, by Clare Rhoden (sample)
The Outside can be a dangerous place. But so can the inside.
It’s been years since the original cataclysm, but life has been structured, peaceful, and most of all uneventful in the Pale. The humachine citizens welcome the order provided by their ruler, the baleful Regent. However, when one of their own rescues a human boy, Hector, from ravenous ferals on the Outside, their careful systems are turned upside down.
As Hector grows more and more human-strange, the citizens of the Pale grow uneasy. What will happen when the Outside tries to get in?
Iron Lights, by Felicity Banks (sample)
Emmeline Muchamore was respectable once. Her sweetheart, Matilda Newry, certainly put a stop to that. But when Emmeline gains magical insight into a disastrous future battle, she weaponises her wild reputation in order to draw trouble and death away from her adopted home … risking everything and everyone she loves in the process.
Iron Lights is a steam-powered tale of honour, love, magic, adventure, and mechanical spiders.
The Brotherhood of the Dragon, by Phil Hore (sample)
Strange things are happening at Stamford House.
It was not that Mr Fortey was particularly loved, but that he died in such a horrible way, and in the presence of almost the entire household. We must have been only a few feet away, yet no one heard or saw anything. If it could happen to a strapping veteran like the footman, it could happen to any of us.
Phil Hore’s debut novel crackles with thrills and chills as two unlikely allies join forces with two of history’s greatest writers, Arthur Conan Doyle and Bram Stoker, to save England from the ancient Brotherhood of the Dragon and the horrible secret they protect.
Altaica, by Tracy M. Joyce (sample)
Isaura – little is known about her race, but much is whispered. Born to refugees, she grows up enduring racism and superstition within a community that fears her. She has few friends, and those she treasures. Trapped, she longs for escape to a different life.
Escape is only the beginning of her troubles. Having fled an invading army with her friends, Isaura is faced with heinous choices in order to survive. Secrets from her past emerge to torment her and threaten to destroy all she holds dear. Her struggles forge a bond with an ancient power – a power which may transform or consume her.
Harlequin's Riddle, by Rachel Nightingale (sample)
Ten years ago, Mina’s beloved older brother disappeared with a troupe of travelling players, and was never heard from again.
On the eve of Mina’s own departure with a troupe, her father tells her she has a special gift for storytelling, a gift he silenced years before in fear of her ability to call visions into being with her stories.
Mina soon discovers that the travelling players draw their powers from a mysterious place called Tarya, where dreams are transformed into reality. While trying to solve the mystery of her brother’s disappearance, she discovers a dark secret to the players’ onstage antics. Torn between finding her brother or exposing the truth about the players, could her gifts as a storyteller offer a way to solve Harlequin’s riddle?
