Affirm Press has acquired world rights to Rebecca Lim’s new novel, The Graduate, via Annabel Barker Agency.

Rebecca is an Australian writer, illustrator, editor and lawyer and the author of over twenty books, including Tiger Daughter (a Kirkus, Amazon and Booklist Best Book, CBCA Book of the Year, and Victorian Premier’s Literary Award-winner), Two Sparrowhawks in a Lonely Sky (NSW History Award-winner) and the bestselling Mercy.

Rebecca’s work has been twice shortlisted for the NSW Literary Awards and Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award, shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards and ARA Historical Novel Prize, shortlisted multiple times for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, Aurealis Awards and Davitt Awards, longlisted for the David Gemmell Legend Award and the Tasmanian Literary Awards, and has been optioned for film.

Taut, riveting and blackly humorous, Rebecca’s new novel, The Graduate, is a mesmerising legal thriller and a masterfully dark crime debut.

New graduate Fei Fei Chou is an outlier at her prestigious law firm.
She's too quiet.

She wears too much makeup.

She’s only here because the boss has a thing for Asians.
But Fei isn’t here to climb the corporate ladder – she’s here for revenge. Thirty years ago, three schoolgirls were kidnapped and abused by a man who’s never been identified. The information Fei needs to find him is buried somewhere in the firm’s records.
Deliberately placing herself in harm’s way, Fei will uncover a secret history of power and privilege that haunts not only her firm, but the nation itself.

Rebecca said: ‘I am thrilled to be publishing The Graduate with the marvellous crew at Affirm Press, who saw something in this when many other publishers could not see that its underlying messages and themes are entirely consistent with my existing body of work: broadening the idea of what it means to be “Australian” and where “Australian stories” can take us beyond the usual suspects and locations.’

Affirm Press publisher Ruby Ashby-Orr said: ‘From my first read, what caught me about this novel was the voice: assured, deliciously cynical and deeply, darkly funny. What kept me reading was a fascinating mystery, one that built towards a shocking body-slam of an ending. With her first thriller for adults, Rebecca Lim may be focusing on a fresh audience, but the skill and dedication to her craft developed over years of writing is on full display.’

The Graduate will be published by Affirm Press in May 2026.