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No Country for Girls

Gold. Theft. Murder. A road trip to die for.

Emma Styles’ white-knuckle debut novel is not one to miss. This evocative, cinematic thriller introduces two of the most exciting protagonists crime fiction has to offer. Nao and Charlie are young women on the run. Bound together by a cruel twist of fate, they take off in a stolen vehicle with a bag full of gold across two thousand kilometres of highway. They must outwit police and outrun their pasts if they are to survive the harsh, desolate landscape of outback Australia.

No Country for Girls is an incredibly pacey, heart-in-mouth read and it’s genuinely like nothing else I’ve ever read. The voice is singular, the journey is remarkable and you will never see the twists coming. As debuts go, you will struggle to find another this accomplished. Emma Styles is a writer to watch with an incredible grasp of plot and characterisation. That’s why this novel was selected by Val McDermid as one of the best debuts of 2022, and it’s why readers have been going wild for it.

See the heat shimmering on the bitumen, feel the jolt of the ute engine, experience the wild dangers of the outback. And fall in love with these characters, who – over the course of one killer road trip – step into their power and take on the forces of patriarchy. You won’t regret it.

Cal Kenny