Upcoming Australian fiction and non-fiction for 2025, January to June

What will be in Australian bookshops this year? Here's a selection of new titles that will be released in the first half of 2025.
A photo of multiple books all opened to reveal the pages within and lined up to cover the whole frame.

Yes, we know you’ve barely read your to-do pile for 2024 and all of a sudden there is an avalanche of new titles in the offing. Here are just a few of the new Australian novels and non-fiction (including memoir) titles that caught ArtsHub’s attention and are slated to be published in the first half of the new year. Look out for some upcoming 2025 poetry and YA/children titles in a separate post.

Three Boys Gone, Mark Smith (Pan Macmillan Australia, January)
On a school excursion, three boys slip away into perilous sea conditions. Will their teacher try and save them, and thereby endanger her own life? Mark Smith presents a moral dilemma in this psychological thriller.

The Knowing, Madeleine Ryan (Scribe, February)
This book introduces Camille, a young woman dealing with the chaos of working in a florist on Valentine’s Day, and the usual pressures of modern life and a long commute from her country home.

Unlock Padlock Icon

Unlock this content?

Access this content and more

Thuy On is the Reviews and Literary Editor of ArtsHub and an arts journalist, critic and poet who’s written for a range of publications including The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, Sydney Review of Books, The Australian, The Age/SMH and Australian Book Review. She was the Books Editor of The Big Issue for 8 years and a former Melbourne theatre critic correspondent for The Australian. She has three collections of poetry published by the University of Western Australian Press (UWAP): Turbulence (2020), Decadence (2022) and Essence (2025). Threads: @thuy_on123 Instagram: poemsbythuy