A moving novel about storytelling, about truths, and love, from twice Miles Franklin Award winner Alex Miller.

September 1940. England is at war and London has become an ever-fragile place for widowed Livia Ripley and her two young daughters, Polly and Eliza. When Livia meets charismatic publisher Hugo Ballantyne, she is hopeful that her life is about to change for the better. But as clouds gather in the autumn sky, the wail of the siren heralds the arrival of the Luftwaffe. Livia volunteers to be a warden and finds the reality and despair of war a contrast to the comfort of the Balfour Hotel with Hugo. Livia soon discovers a strength she never knew she had, which gives her the power to save those she loves.

I have witnessed a remarkable but true story that just had to be shared. In the spring of 2017, I found myself walking down the aisle of a small New England church to witness my birth mother's marriage to a gentleman whose heart she broke sixty-two years ago when she ended their engagement because she was pregnant with another man's child. One woman's path through a pregnancy shrouded in secrecy, meeting the man of her dreams and the subsequent decisions she makes that thread her life. Amazingly, in her mid-eighties, she was given a second chance of love. Another woman's journey, having been adopted as an infant and raised in a warm, caring atmosphere by a loving family, never envisioning the search for her biological parents would lead down a path to so many discoveries. A heartwarming and compelling story of two families intertwined in the most astonishing and poignant way. Through tragedies and triumphs, coincidences and connections, these two women's paths finally cross again.

A moving novel about storytelling, about truths, and love, from twice Miles Franklin Award winner Alex Miller. 'More than one ghost haunts this tender novel about love in its many guises, condoned and illicit. In his deceptively simple, lucid prose, Alex Miller examines the emotional contradictions inherent in apparent opposites as his central character learns to draw strength and inspiration from unlikely places. Hauntingly beautiful, A Brief Affair will resonate long after its pages are closed.' Sylvia Martin, author of Ink in Her Veins: The Troubled Life of Aileen Palmer From the bustling streets of China, to the ominous Cell 16 in an old asylum building, to the familiar sounds and sight of galahs flying over a Victorian farm, A Brief Affair is a tender love story. On the face of it, Dr Frances Egan is a woman who has it all - a loving family and a fine career - until a brief, perfect affair reveals to her an imaginative dimension to her life that is wholly her own. Fran finds the courage and the inspiration to risk everything and change her direction at the age of forty-two. This newfound understanding of herself is fortified by the discovery of a long-forgotten diary from the asylum and the story it reveals. Written with humour, sensitivity and the wisdom for which Miller's work is famous, this exquisitely compassionate novel explores the interior life and the dangerous navigation of love in all its forms. '...richly satisfying and luminous' Emeritus Professor, Tom Griffiths

Twins Seth and Abby fly into New York to care for their ailing mother Anna. Determined that her children should remember her as something more than an unremarkable Long Island housewife, Anna reveals to them that she once had an affair. Initially shocked, Seth and Abby begin to question just how much of the story can be blamed on Anna's increasingly senile mind, and how much is true.

Have you ever known your life had to change but weren't sure it could? Liam and John are both starting law school, and both need big changes in their personal lives.Liam is a bright young college graduate, and John, eighteen years older, is a burned-out professor pursuing a longtime dream. They are instantly drawn to each other, but can they overcome the challenges posed by the age difference and their previously broken hearts?This sizzling hot May-December tale follows Liam and John as they wind their way through joy, missteps, and false assumptions in search of a life together. It is chock-full of flirtation, romance, angst, adventure, and M/M sex.Approximately 120,000 words.