Showing The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood

Winner of the Stella Prize and the Prime Minister's Literary Award for fiction
Shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award

'Beautiful and savage - think Atwood in the outback.' Paula Hawkins, Observer Books of the Year 2016

Two women awaken from a drugged sleep to find themselves imprisoned in a broken-down property in the middle of a desert. Strangers to each other, they have no idea where they are or how they came to be there with eight other girls, forced to wear strange uniforms, their heads shaved, guarded by two inept yet vicious armed jailers and a 'nurse'.

Doing hard labour under a sweltering sun, the prisoners soon learn what links them: in each girl's past is a sexual scandal with a powerful man. They pray for rescue - but when the food starts running out it becomes clear that the jailers have also become the jailed. The girls can only rescue themselves.