Frogsong by Melissa Manning

When loyalty becomes a burden, how do you learn to let go? Frogsong is a tender and delicate tale of love and addiction from one of Australia’s brightest literary talents and winner of the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for her debut book

Caro and Danny grew up side by side at the waterhole. Bound by love, loss and a promise Caro made to Danny’s mother, their lives are entwined. But as Danny spirals into addiction and self-destruction, Caro is caught between loyalty and the need to save herself.

She becomes haunted by memories, by the stories she told herself of the life they’d have, and by the waterhole that shaped them both. From southern Tasmania to Lisbon’s winding streets, she searches for escape from lost dreams, until a return home forces her to confront what it means to let go.

Frogsong is a lyrical and devastating story of love, addiction and the ghosts that shadow us.

About the Author: Melissa Manning is an Australian writer. Her debut interlinked story collection, Smokehouse, won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction (2022), and was shortlisted for the USQ Steele Rudd Award for a Short Story Collection. Her short fiction and narrative non-fiction has been awarded and published in literary journals and anthologies, including Overland, Meanjin, Southerly, The Big Issue, Award Winning Australian Writing, To Carry Her Home (UK), and Best Small Fictions (USA).

31 Mar 2026
 

Frogsong by Melissa Manning ISBN 9780702269233