Author Talk: Petronella McGovern

Join author Petronella McGovern in conversation with B. M. Carroll this September as they discuss McGovern's compelling new novel, The Liars.

A wife burning with resentment. A husband hiding the past. Their teenage daughter crusading for the truth. Who can we trust? The close-knit community of Kinton Bay is shocked when fifteen-year-old Siena Britton makes a grisly discovery near a cave in the national park. Siena believes it's a skull from the town's violent colonial past and posts a video which hits the news headlines. But her parents, Meri and Rollo, think the skull is related to their teenage parties in the Killing Cave back in the 1990s. And a school mate who went missing then. None of them foresees the dangers that the discovery will create for their family. The dangers of past deceits, silences and lies that have never been resolved.

The Liars is a heart-stopping cocktail of family secrets, sinister unsolved killings and a community at war with itself.

Petronella McGovern is fascinated by people - what makes us tick, how we view the world, and the lies we tell others and ourselves. Her debut novel, Six Minutes, was short-listed in the 2020 Ned Kelly Awards by the Australian Crime Writers' Association and The Good Teacher was long-listed in the Sisters-in-Crime Davitt Awards, 2021. The Liars will be published in September 2022.

B. M. Carroll is the author of ten novels, including The Missing Pieces of Sophie McCarthy, Who We Were, and You Had It Coming.