The Dickens Boy (PB) by Thomas Keneally

$32.99 AUD

Category: Australian Fiction

In the late 1800s, rather than run the risk of his under-achieving sons tarnishing his reputation at home, Charles Dickens sent two of them to Australia. The tenth child of Charles Dickens, Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens, known as Plorn, had consistently proved unable ‘to apply himself ’ to school or lif e. So aged sixteen, he is sent, as his brother Alfred was before him, to Australia. Plorn arrives in Melbourne in late 1868 carrying a terrible secret. He has never read a word of his father’s work. He is sent out to a 2000-square-mile station in remotest New South Wales to learn to become a man, and a gentleman stockman, from the most diverse and toughest of companions. In the outback he becomes enmeshed with Paakantji, colonists, colonial-born, ex-convicts, ex-soldiers, and very few women. Plorn, unexpectedly, encounters the same veneration of his father and familiarity with Dickens’ work in Australia as was rampant in England. Against this backdrop, and featuring cricket tournaments, horse-racing, bushrangers, sheep droving, shifty stock and station agents, frontier wars and first encounters with Australian women, Plorn meets extraordinary people and enjoys wonderful adventures as he works to prove himself. This is Tom Keneally in his most familiar terrain. Taking historical figures and events and reimagining them with verve, compassion and humour. It is a triumph. ...Show more

A Room Made of Leaves (HB) by Kate Grenville

$39.99 AUD

Category: Australian Fiction

Do not believe too quickly... What if Elizabeth Macarthur-wife of the notorious John Macarthur, wool baron in early Sydney-had written a shockingly frank secret memoir? In her introduction Kate Grenville tells, tongue firmly in cheek, of discovering a long-hidden box containing that memoir. What follo ws is a playful dance of possibilities between the real and the invented. Grenville's Elizabeth Macarthur is a passionate woman managing her complicated life-marriage to a ruthless bully, the impulses of her own heart, the search for power in a society that gave her none-with spirit, cunning and sly wit. Her memoir reveals the dark underbelly of the polite world of Jane Austen. It explodes the stereotype of the women of the past- devoted and docile, accepting of their narrow choices. That was their public face-here's what one of them really thought. At the heart of this book is one of the most toxic issues of our times- the seductive appeal of false stories. Beneath the surface of Elizabeth Macarthur's life and the violent colonial world she navigated are secrets and lies with the dangerous power to shape reality. A Room Made of Leaves is the internationally acclaimed author Kate Grenville's first novel in almost a decade. It is historical fiction turned inside out, a stunning sleight of hand that gives the past the piercing immediacy of the present.   ...Show more

The White Girl by Tony Birch

$29.95 AUD

Category: Australian Fiction | Reading Level: 1 Fiction

Odette Brown has lived her whole life on the fringes of a small country town. After her daughter disappeared and left her with her granddaughter Sissy to raise on her own, Odette has managed to stay under the radar of the welfare authorities who are removing fair-skinned Aboriginal children from their f amilies. When a new policeman arrives in town, determined to enforce the law, Odette must risk everything to save Sissy and protect everything she loves. In The White Girl, Miles-Franklin-shortlisted author Tony Birch shines a spotlight on the 1960s and the devastating government policy of taking Indigenous children from their families. ...Show more

Torched by Kimberley Starr

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian Fiction

If my son killed anyone, I’d know. I know him. A small Yarra Valley town has been devastated by a bushfire, and Reefton Primary School principal Phoebe Warton can’t sleep. She’s the single mother of eighteen­yearold Caleb who is accused of starting the fire – on purpose. Twelve people are dead, students from her school among them; only a monster would cause such carnage. But where was her son was that day? No one knows but Caleb, and he’s not talking. Against mounting community rage, Phoebe sets out to clear her son. But every avenue leads back to Caleb. Why did he vanish from his Country Fire Authority shift? Who else was at the abandoned goldmine that day? Why is Caleb refusing to speak? Phoebe will be forced to confront the nature of guilt and redemption, and decide what boundaries she is willing to cross to save the son she loves. Torched is an explosive, haunting and compelling crime novel about mothers and sons and the ties that bind them.   ...Show more

Beneath the Fig Leaves by Olympia Panagiotopoulos

$32.99 AUD

Category: Australian Fiction

 In 1955, in a village in Greece that was marred by war and poverty, Giannoula and Fotios Panagiotopoulos dreamed of providing a better life for their children. Australia, it was rumoured, was a land of opportunity where hard work brought reward. Leaving behind family and friends, they set off to make a new home on the other side of the world. Half a lifetime later, under the shade of a fig tree and in the dappled Melbourne sunlight, Giannoula regales her youngest daughter, Olympia, with stories of her homeland and journey. An evocative exploration of the ties that bind, Beneath the Fig Leaves weaves an irresistible tapestry of family, food and history to stir the heart and senses.   ...Show more

Gulliver's Wife by Lauren Chater

$32.99 AUD

Category: Australian Fiction

Birth. Death. Wonder ... One woman's journey to the edge of love and loyalty from the bestselling author of The Lace Weaver London, 1702. When her husband is lost at sea, Mary Burton Gulliver, midwife and herbalist, is forced to rebuild her life without him. But three years later when Lemuel Gulliver is brought home, fevered and communicating only in riddles, her ordered world is turned upside down. In a climate of suspicion, poverty and violence, Mary is caught in a crossfire of superstition and fear driven by her husband's outlandish claims of the wonders he has seen, and it is up to her to navigate a passage to safety for herself and her daughter, and the vulnerable women in her care. But when a fellow sailor, a dangerous man with nothing to lose, appears to hold sway over her husband, Mary's world descends deeper into chaos, and she must set out on her own journey to discover the truth of Gulliver's travels ... and the landscape of her own heart. Praise for The Lace Weaver 'A beautifully written and utterly compelling story of love and war ... exquisite as the lace the women of the story weave' Kate Forsyth 'I was captivated from the first page' Natasha Lester 'Full of hope and heartache' Books+Publishing ...Show more

Kokomo by Victoria Hannan

$32.99 AUD

Category: Australian Fiction

A stunning debut novel from the winner of the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript 'Hannan's Kokomo is a sharply observed novel of one woman's facade and how it falls; an undoing that is both ordinary and compelling. This debut heralds an exciting new Australian voice with a story of estrangement from kin, friendship, love, self and country - one that will be familiar to many, and surprising, for it is often a shock to see one's reflection.' - Anna Krien, author of NIGHT GAMES and ACT OF GRACE When Mina receives an urgent call from her best friend back in Melbourne, her world is turned upside down. Her reclusive mother, Elaine, has left the house for the first time in twelve years. Mina drops everything to fly home, only to discover that Elaine will not talk about her sudden return to the world, nor why she's spent so much time hiding from it. Their reunion leaves Mina raking through pieces of their painful past in a bid to uncover the truth. Both tender and fierce, heartbreaking and funny, Kokomo is a story about how secrets and love have the power to bring us together and tear us apart. ...Show more

MUTE

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian Fiction

Night Lessons in Little Jerusalem by Rick Held

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian Fiction

The hero of this book was not a saint, nor even a tzadik - the nearest Jewish equivalent - but he was a hero. Someone who risked his own life to make a difference to the life of another. Were his motives selfless? No. He was after all flesh and blood. A man. And a very young one. But life is not black a nd white. Heroes are not without their flaws. This is his story. Tholdi is a romantic. A musical prodigy whose brilliant future is extinguished when the horror unfolding across Europe arrives at his door. One day he's captivated by the beautiful, mysterious Lyuba who he meets on his sixteenth birthday; the next he wakes to the terrors of war as the Nazi-allied Romanians attack his town of Czernowitz. A ghetto is built to imprison the town's Jews before herding them onto trains bound for the concentration camps of Transnistria. With each passing day, Tholdi and his parents await their turn. And then Fate intervenes, giving them all a reprieve. At the weaving mill Tholdi secures work that spares him. He is elated. Until he discovers the two brothers who run the mill are Nazi collaborators hiding a terrible secret: the threat of transportation remains. When Tholdi sees one of the brothers with Lyuba, he glimpses a way to save himself and his family. But the stakes of his gamble are high. Will Lyuba be the key to their survival, or will Tholdi's infatuation with her become a dangerous obsession that guarantees their death? NIGHT LESSONS IN LITTLE JERUSALEM is an unforgettable debut novel of war, family and love. ...Show more

The Loudness of Unsaid Things by Hilde Hinton

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian Fiction

 If you loved BOY SWALLOWS UNIVERSE and LOST AND FOUND, you will love this debut novel. A stunning story about family, loneliness and isolation that will make you laugh, cry and be a bit kinder to those who are lost. 'My heart grew, then broke, then mended itself. A wise, funny, brave novel and a story that you will never want to forget.' Favel Parrett An unforgettable story of loneliness, isolation and finding your way. Heart-wrenching, wise and wryly funny, this novel will make you kinder to those who are lost. Miss Kaye works at The Institute. A place for the damaged, the outliers, the not-quite rights. Everyone has different strategies to deal with the residents. Some bark orders. Some negotiate tirelessly. Miss Kaye found that simply being herself was mostly the right thing to do. Susie was seven when she realised she'd had her fill of character building. She'd lie between her Holly Hobbie sheets thinking how slowly birthdays come around, but how quickly change happened. One minute her Dad was saying that the family needed to move back to the city and then, SHAZAM, they were there. Her mum didn't move to the new house with them. And Susie hated going to see her mum at the mind hospital. She never knew who her mum would be. Or who would be there. As the years passed, there were so many things Susie wanted to say but never could. Miss Kaye will teach Susie that the loudness of unsaid things can be music - and together they will learn that living can be more than surviving.   ...Show more

Cutting the Cord - She was the Perfect Terrorist, Then She Wanted Out by Molt, Natasha

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian Fiction

Amira Knox is an assassin. Her targets: affluent Europeans. Her commander: the Authenticity Movement. Her weakness: emotion. Amira has been loyal to the secret terrorist group the Authenticity Movement for as long as she can remember. Adopted by the leader of the movement as an infant, Amira was trained to be the ultimate weapon. But when her brother goes mysteriously missing and her father seems to be keeping secrets from her, she begins to doubt the Movement’s purpose and her own identity.Then there’s Lukas, the handsome German personal protection agent. Can Amira trust him, or does he have a secret agenda of his own? Caught in a web of deception and betrayal, Amira realises she has to get out of the Movement. Fast. But how do you escape a terrorist cult when the leader – your father – wants you dead? ...Show more

HRT: Husband Replacement Therapy by Kathy Lette

$32.99 AUD

Category: Australian Fiction

Ruby is generous, sunny and funny - which is why all her friends, family and colleagues have turned up to celebrate her 50th birthday. But with a few too many glasses of champers under her belt, Ruby's speech doesn't go exactly to plan. Instead of the witty and warm words guests are expecting, Ruby take s her moment in the spotlight to reveal what she really thinks of them. Shocking them all, she also accuses her husband, Harry, of having an affair, and reads to the audience the evidence she found on his phone that very morning. And, saving the best till last, Ruby lambasts her calculatingly cruel mother for spending her life playing her three daughters against each other. It's blisteringly brutal. As the stunned gathering gawk at Ruby, the birthday girl concludes her bravura monologue with the throwaway comment that she has terminal cancer. She has cashed out her life savings and plans on taking her two sisters cruising until she dies. Only, do they really want to go with her? And, was it her medical results she read?     ...Show more