Children
Alfred’s War
Alfred’s War is a powerful story that unmasks the lack of recognition given to Australian Indigenous servicemen who returned from the WWI battlelines.
Alfred was just a young man when he was injured and shipped home from France. Neither honoured as a returned soldier or offered government support afforded to non-Indigenous servicemen, Alfred took up a solitary life walking the back roads billy tied to his swag, finding work where he could.
Alfred was a forgotten soldier. Although he had fought bravely in the Great War, as an Aboriginal man he wasn’t classed as a citizen of his own country.
Yet Alfred always remembered his friends in the trenches and the mateship they had shared. Sometimes he could still hear the never-ending gunfire in his head and the whispers of diggers praying. Every year on ANZAC Day, Alfred walked to the nearest town, where he would quietly stand behind the people gathered and pay homage to his fallen mates. Rachel Bin Salleh’s poignant narrative opens our hearts to the sacrifice and contribution that Indigenous people have made to Australias war efforts, the true extent of which is only now being revealed.
Black Cockatoo
Black Cockatoo is a vignette that follows Mia, a young Aboriginal girl as she explores the fragile connections of family and culture. She feels powerless to change the things she sees around her… until one day she rescues her totem animal, the dirran black cockatoo, and soon discovers her own inner strength. Black Cockatoo is a wonderful small tale on the power of standing up for yourself, culture and ever-present family ties. Teachers’ notes available here
At the Beach I See
This delightful book for Early Childhood will mesmerise young children and older readers. The black linework and colourful wash backgrounds work beautifully with the lyrical text. Together they introduce extraordinary creatures and birds that we can discover and observe around our Australian coastline. ‘Dancing jellyfish’, ‘scuttling crabs’, ‘beautiful shells’, ‘tangled seaweed’ and a ‘soaring kite’ evoke the wonder of our beaches and the treasures to be found.
Our Last Trip to the Market
What a fabulous morning to go to the market. That busker is dressed as a clown! And there’s fruit and a baker. There are people on bikes. Annabelle, please put that down… This boisterous family excursion is full of warmth, humour and delicious mischief.
Mikah’s Big Move
Mikah monkey was born cheeky and full of energy. He was also born deaf. Even though he cannot hear, this little monkey has some special skills that help him to communicate. Can you guess what they are? When Mikah learns his family is moving, he is scared and doesn’t want to go. He likes things the way they are, his routine is great! But are things as bad as Mikah thinks or does he just need a dose of bravery to make it through his latest challenge?
Cinnamon Stevens – Crime Buster
Becki vanished from our Year 7 camp last night. Went missing. Completely disappeared. It’s up to me, Cinnamon Stevens, to solve the mystery. Only one small prob. Becki and I shared a tent and I have absolutely no idea what’s happened to her. (Note to self: May need to improve powers of observation if serious about becoming a super sleuth crime buster!)
Young Adults
If I Tell You
What if the secret is more damaging than the lie? I never planned on falling in love in Two Creeks, but since when has life ever followed a plan? The day I fell for Phoenix Stone, there was no warning. She shattered the world I knew. This is a story about being seventeen and growing up in rural Australia.
Falling in love for the first time, following your dreams and disappointing your parents. Being brave enough to live your life, even when life is terrifying. In fear there is bravery you can either cling to the edge or have the courage to jump. But what do you do when you’re left spiralling through the freefall? Be proud. Be seen. Live life fearlessly.
Stone Girl
An unspeakable event changes everything for twelve-year-old Sophie. No more Mum, school or bed of her own. She’s made a ward of the state and grows up in a volatile world where kids make their own rules, adults don’t count and the only constant is change. Until one day she meets Gwen, Matty and Spiral. Spiral is the most furious, beautiful boy Sophie has ever known. And as their bond tightens she finally begins to confront what happened in her past.
The Beast’s Heart
I am neither monster nor man – yet I am both. I am the Beast. The day I was cursed to this wretched existence was the day I was saved – although it did not feel so at the time. My redemption sprung from contemptible roots; I am not proud of what I did the day her father happened upon my crumbling, isolated chateau.
But if loneliness breeds desperation then I was desperate indeed, and I did what I felt I must. My shameful behaviour was unjustly rewarded. My Isabeau. She opened my eyes, my mind and my heart. She taught me how to be human again. And now I might lose her forever. Lose yourself in this gorgeously rich and magical retelling of The Beauty and the Beast that finally lays bare the Beast’s heart.
Into the Abyss: Vault of Verona
How is this happening? How can I possibly be in a time 600 years before my own? Harriet Hunter is living the life of an everyday teenager. In her final year of high school, Harriet is under pressure to balance friends, family, study and life. But all is not as it seems, and Harriet soon finds herself sucked back into a centuries old story – to the time of the fictional Montagues and Capulets. But are they imaginary – or simply the ancestors who came before us?
Unrequited
Seventeen-year-old Kat Hartland loathes Unrequited, the world’s biggest boy band. She’s 100 per cent immune to ‘perfect’ singer Angus Marsden and his unfailingly predictable lyrics. Show her the anti-fan club … she wants to be its president! Just give her a proper musician. Or maybe the seriously hot med student who rescued her on the train. Ideal formal partner, right? Ideal everything … But when Kat comes face to face with Angus Marsden himself, things start to get complicated. Throw in a deranged female singer, an enraged fandom, final exams, a part in a musical and a mum who just doesn’t get it.
Short Stories
Planet Bastard Vol. 1
Planet Bastard Vol. 1 is a shared-universe anthology featuring some of the best emerging writers in Australia. The first volume is packed with fourteen stories, containing unforgettable heroes and villains entwined by one common thread: they’re stuck on the last habitable planet, which is slowly dying.
A thousand years after an event of catastrophic scale sent all remaining lifeforms flocking to Katecht, a frantic and long-fought war nears its end.
The rebel group known as the Iconoclast has struck a fatal blow to the reigning Confederacy. The world has been thrown into chaos. The Confederacy is vulnerable, but alive. And ripples are spreading through the nations.
This is where it all begins.
Women of a Certain Age
Fifteen very different life stories by women from all walks of life. From a woman who does not expect to live until puberty to teenagers with secret inner lives; from women who strive to belong to women who cannot wait to get away; from women surprised by the arrival of menopause to women embracing the unexpected freedoms of old age. Fifteen voices tell life stories of celebration, affirmation and survival about what it is like to be a woman on the other side of 40, 50, 60, 70.
Wave After Wave
Wave After Wave is a collection of writing from the Indian Ocean. Emerging from a mentoring project run by the Centre for Stories, these short stories and poems touch on themes of belonging, heritage, loss, identity and home. Wave After Wave presents a number of new voices to offer a different perspective on our part of the world.
Underground #28 Invitation
Issue 28 marks 10 years of Underground Writers and to celebrate we’ve printed a special little edition of the zine. Featuring the works of emerging Australian authors Esme Lee Wilmot, Jasmin Seabrook-Benson, Jewel Swe, Geoffrey Aitken and Nicole Hodgson, the … Read More
YOUth&I: Issue 1
YOUth&I is a collection of literary and artistic works from young intersex people.
To be intersex-born with variations in sex characteristics-is not to be any one thing. To live with an intersex body means to navigate a world not designed for you. At best, you must constantly face assumptions about your body and assumptions about your identity, as well as scepticism and inappropriate healthcare. At worst, you experience a complete disregard for your bodily autonomy and integrity, medical abuse, distrust and fear, and lies about your body and history.
Here is a community of young intersex people. Here is YOUth&I.
Once: A selection of short short stories
Big ideas in small spaces. Funny, ironic, thoughtful and sharp, these stories of extreme brevity will have you thinking, laughing and ultimately hooked on this exciting genre. From new independent publisher Night Parrot Press comes the best and freshest in Western Australian flash, micro and hybrid fiction. Fifty-eight brilliant and intense stories, all under 500 words!
Pigface and Other Stories: Margaret River Press Short Story Competition 2018
In the 2018 Margaret River Story Competition anthology, we take a voyeuristic glimpse into the lives of diverse characters – young and old, unsavoury and righteous, ordinary and bizarre.
Although seemingly unconnected, these stories are linked through the commonalities of the universal human experience. Tightly woven stories exploring the familiar threads of grief, regret and disillusionment are told in sometimes poignant, sometimes humourous – yet always illuminating – ways. The short stories in this collection will make you laugh, make you cry, and, hopefully, they will open your eyes to the world around you.
The Worry Front: Short Fiction Collection
Through a multitude of distinct voices, Gildfind’s startling tales explore the absurd, macabre, surreal and too-real whilst wrestling with the irrevocable acts, immutable facts, and relentless uncertainties that lie at the dark heart of every life.
Meet Me at the Intersection
Meet Me at the Intersection is an anthology of short fiction, memoir and poetry by authors who are First Nations, People of Colour, LGBTIQA+ or living with disability. The focus of the anthology is on Australian life as seen through each author’s unique, and seldom heard, perspective.
Portable Curiosities
A young girl sees ghosts from her third eye, located where her belly button should be. A one-dimensional yellow man steps out of a cinema screen, hoping to lead a three-dimensional life. A journalist goes on assignment to report the latest food trend, which turns ice-cream eating into an extreme sport.
In Portable Curiosities, Julie Koh re-imagines our world with a dark, satirical twist. These twelve stories combine absurd humour with searing critiques on contemporary society – the rampant consumerism, the casual misogyny, the insidious fear of those who are different. Brilliantly clever and brimming with heart, this unforgettable collection is the work of a significant new talent.
Trick of the Light
An art teacher sends four of her students on a guerrilla mission. A young runner struggles to make sense of his best friend’s death. A health-food company adopts a farcical promotional strategy. A factory worker spends her days applying radioactive paint to watches, while dreaming of a future with her new suitor. With a keen eye for detail and rich emotional insight, Laura Elvery reveals the fears and fantasies of everyday people searching for meaning. Ranging from tender poignancy to wry humour, Trick of the Light is the beguiling debut collection from one of Australia’s rising stars.
Barking Dogs
If you took a bird’s-eye view of Mount Barker, you’d see ordinary Australians living on their ordinary suburban blocks in an ordinary regional town. Get closer. Peer through a window.
You might see Nathan Long, obsessively recording the incessant bark of a neighbourhood dog, or the Wheeler family sitting down for a meal and trying to come to terms with a shocking discovery. If you listen, you may hear tales of fathers and their wayward sons, of widows who can’t forgive themselves, of children longed for and lost, of thwarted lust and of pure, incorruptible love.
Within the shadows is an unspeakable crime. Rebekah Clarkson has created a compelling, slow-burning portrait of a town in the midst of major change as it makes the painful transformation from rural idyll to aspirational suburbia. What looked like redemption is now profound loss. What seemed spiteful can now be forgiven. A novel in stories, Barking Dogs is an assured debut from one of Australia’s most respected storytellers.
Poetry
The Fremantle Press Anthology of Western Australian Poetry
The Fremantle Press Anthology of Western Australian Poetry is a comprehensive survey of the state’s poets from the 19th century to today. Featuring work from 134 poets, and including the work of many WA Indigenous poets, this watershed anthology brings together the poems that have contributed to and defined the ways that Western Australians see themselves.
How To Be Held
To be held is to be embraced. Not only by the bodies or cities around you, but also by yourself. Maddie Godfrey’s debut poetry collection is an ode to resilience, vulnerability and tenderness. Using personal experiences the author explores gender politics, body positivity, trauma and self-preservation. How To Be Held aches with an intimate familiarity, like a diary entry which you cannot remember writing but still recognise yourself within. These poems are strong in the softest way.
Read Underground Writers’ review here
Limelight
Limelight is a unique collection of slam poetry paired with inspirational writing techniques. With over 30 original poems in different forms, the book features the viral video sensation ‘Australian Air’, which has been viewed 3.5 million times via Facebook. Solli’s work tackles current social concerns for his generation, such as sustainability and social equality, all the while amplifying his uplifting message of hope.
Meet Me at the Intersection
Meet Me at the Intersection is an anthology of short fiction, memoir and poetry by authors who are First Nations, People of Colour, LGBTIQA+ or living with disability. The focus of the anthology is on Australian life as seen through each author’s unique, and seldom heard, perspective.
Wave After Wave
Wave After Wave is a collection of writing from the Indian Ocean. Emerging from a mentoring project run by the Centre for Stories, these short stories and poems touch on themes of belonging, heritage, loss, identity and home. Wave After Wave presents a number of new voices to offer a different perspective on our part of the world.
Underground #28 Invitation
Issue 28 marks 10 years of Underground Writers and to celebrate we’ve printed a special little edition of the zine. Featuring the works of emerging Australian authors Esme Lee Wilmot, Jasmin Seabrook-Benson, Jewel Swe, Geoffrey Aitken and Nicole Hodgson, the … Read More
Non-Fiction
YOUth&I: Issue 1
YOUth&I is a collection of literary and artistic works from young intersex people.
To be intersex-born with variations in sex characteristics-is not to be any one thing. To live with an intersex body means to navigate a world not designed for you. At best, you must constantly face assumptions about your body and assumptions about your identity, as well as scepticism and inappropriate healthcare. At worst, you experience a complete disregard for your bodily autonomy and integrity, medical abuse, distrust and fear, and lies about your body and history.
Here is a community of young intersex people. Here is YOUth&I.
Simply Ing
Removed from her loving parents under government policy at the age of five, Ing was placed in a mission and denied her heritage. Her name was changed to Helen, and she needed all her strength to survive. When Ing’s parents died, she had the responsibility of her younger brother and sister. Returning to her community on a nearby reserve when the mission closed, Ing learnt what it meant to be Noongar after being brought up as a whitefella. Her family taught her culture and language. Ing has lived through many family tragedies. Her honest experiences reflect her indomitable spirit and give insight into the lives of Aboriginal people.
A Wife’s Heart: The Untold Story of Bertha and Henry Lawson
Henry Lawson is a revered cultural icon, but despite his literary success he descended into poverty and an early death. While many blamed his wife for his decline, Bertha Lawson alleged in April 1903 that Henry was habitually drunk and … Read More
The Rapids: Ways of Looking at Mania
The Rapids creative and courageous is an extraordinary personal memoir peppered with film and literary criticism, as well as family history. With reflections on artists such as Carrie Fisher, Kanye West, Robert Lowell, Delmore Schwartz, Paul Thomas Anderson and Spalding Gray, Twyford-Moore also looks at the condition in our digital world, where someone’s manic episode can unfold live in real time, watched by millions.
His own story, told unflinchingly, is shocking and sometimes blackly comic. It gives the book an edge that is not always comfortable but full of insight and empathy. Smart, lively and well-researched, The Rapids manages to be both a wild ride and introspective at once, exploring a condition that touches thousands of people, directly or indirectly.
Eggshell Skull
A well-established legal doctrine that a defendant must ‘take their victim as they find them’.
If a single punch kills someone because of their thin skull, that victim’s weakness cannot mitigate the seriousness of the crime. But what if it also works the other way? What if a defendant on trial for sexual crimes has to accept his ‘victim’ as she comes: a strong, determined accuser who knows the legal system, who will not back down until justice is done?
Bri Lee began her first day of work at the Queensland District Court as a bright-eyed judge’s associate. Two years later she was back as the complainant in her own case. This is the story of Bri’s journey through the Australian legal system; first as the daughter of a policeman, then as a law student, and finally as a judge’s associate in both metropolitan and regional Queensland-where justice can look very different, especially for women.
The injustice Bri witnessed, mourned and raged over every day finally forced her to confront her own personal history, one she’d vowed never to tell. And this is how, after years of struggle, she found herself on the other side of the courtroom, telling her story. Bri Lee has written a fierce and eloquent memoir that addresses both her own reckoning with the past as well as with the stories around her, to speak the truth with wit, empathy and unflinching courage. Eggshell Skull is a haunting appraisal of modern Australia from a new and essential voice.
In Danger: A Memoir of Family and Hope
When Josepha Dietrich was 21, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Four years after her mother’s death, the disease reared up in Josie’s own cells, this time more aggressively. She was 35, and her high-needs baby son was not yet one. As the daughter of a woman who had sought out alternatives to conventional medicine, Josie used her own knowledge and her mother’s experience to find solutions for herself. Later she also used this experience to help her son rise up out of his profoundly autistic state. In Danger is Josie’s journey through life with breast cancer from inside the experience, capturing her energy and force-of-nature personality. She reflects on the literary works that inspired her, from cancer literature to other medical memoirs, works that helped her to explore disease and the human condition, and shed light on its darker aspects. At its heart, this moving memoir delves deep into how it feels when everything you love is in danger.
The Anxiety Book
Since journalist Elisa Black wrote an article about her lifelong struggle with anxiety in March 2015, it has been read by hundreds of thousands of people. Clearly, what Elisa had to say found a readership far bigger than she could have expected – and with millions of Australians suffering from anxiety, it’s little wonder.
There is far more to Elisa’s story, though, than one article can cover. In this book, weaving memoir with science, Elisa uses the stages of her own life to relate to stages in everyone’s lives and the types of anxiety that may be experienced during each phase. She includes the latest in research and other scientific information about anxiety, its causes and treatment. Elisa’s story will inspire fellow anxiety sufferers to believe that there is a way to manage their condition and live more freely. From her own experience she also offers hope that anxiety does not have to dominate a life, or even dent it – it can be managed and conquered.
Fiction
The Wounded Sinner
Matthew’s father, Archie, is dying and he spends three weeks out of four caring for him in The Wounded Sinner, his grand, decaying family home. Whilst Matthew is away, Jeanie stays and works as a teacher and looks after their five children. On a hot desolate day in the West Australian hinterland, Matthew’s car finally breaks down. Vince, whose own family is falling apart in unanticipated ways, stops to pick him up and, in amongst the chaos of their lives, an unlikely friendship is formed.
Once: A selection of short short stories
Big ideas in small spaces. Funny, ironic, thoughtful and sharp, these stories of extreme brevity will have you thinking, laughing and ultimately hooked on this exciting genre. From new independent publisher Night Parrot Press comes the best and freshest in Western Australian flash, micro and hybrid fiction. Fifty-eight brilliant and intense stories, all under 500 words!
Wraith
James can fly, though his landings need some work. However, that’s the least of his problems when he crash lands into a city in the clouds. Soon James is drawn into a race against time to find the SAFFIRE, a new technology designed to save the city from the effects of climate change. Finding his way home seems impossible but with the help of Aureole, a young girl determined to save her city, James just might be able to fly away and help save the city in the process.
Ridgeview Station
Many of Peter and Kelsie Dalton’s friends thought they were crazy when they bought Ridgeview Station. But five years on, their hard work, help from Kelsie’s parents, and record rainfall have them in high spirits as the summer muster approaches.
Realising they’re going to need more help this season, Peter rings around the neighbouring stations to try and find a good worker. After a glowing recommendation, Alexi arrives to give them a hand – and is not at all what they’d expected …
Into the World
1791. In the midst of the French Revolution, unwed mother Marie-Louise Girardin takes one last look at her baby son before entrusting him to her friend, the revolutionary Olympe de Gouges. She must escape, and only the most daring plan will bring her both the anonymity she needs and the independence to return one day for her son.
Marie-Louise disguises herself as a man and joins a voyage of exploration employed as a steward on the Recherche, one of two ships commissioned to journey to the Great Southern Ocean to find the missing explorer La Perouse.
Protecting her identity throughout, Marie-Louise forms friendships among the eccentric naturalists. But tensions rise between the royalist officers and the revolutionaries, and Marie-Louise’s position becomes precarious when she discovers someone on board knows the secrets of her past. When the expedition docks in Java, chaos erupts as they learn of King Louis XVI’s execution and are imprisoned by the Dutch. Marie-Louise seems certain to be unmasked. Will she ever return to France and be reunited with her child? Inspired by a true story, Into the World is a compelling novel of the amazing life of Marie-Louise Girardin battling perilous seas, her own self-doubt, and finding unforeseen loves on a journey to reclaim her child.
Afternoons with Harvey Beam
Confirming his suspicions that you can successfully run away from your problems and a dysfunctional family, talk-show host Harvey Beam got out of his regional hometown as soon as he could. Beam creates a stellar radio career in the city, and builds a life that bears no resemblance to the one he left behind.
But as things start to unravel at work and at home, Beam is called back to Shorton by the imminent death of his father. There he finds everything is still waiting for him just as he left it. Maybe, though, Harvey Beam is not the same angry young man who ran away. And maybe the arrival of a single, wonderful stranger will mean that instead of going back, Harvey can finally move on.
The Everlasting Sunday
During the freezing English winter of 1962, seventeen-year-old Radford is sent to Goodwin Manor, a home for boys who have been ‘found by trouble’. Drawn immediately to the charismatic West, Radford soon discovers that each one of them has something to hide.
Life at the Manor offers a refuge of sorts, but unexpected arrivals threaten the world the boys have built. Will their friendship be enough when trouble finds them again? At once both beautiful and brutal, The Everlasting Sunday is a haunting debut novel about growing up, growing wild and what it takes to survive.
If I Tell You
What if the secret is more damaging than the lie? I never planned on falling in love in Two Creeks, but since when has life ever followed a plan? The day I fell for Phoenix Stone, there was no warning. She shattered the world I knew. This is a story about being seventeen and growing up in rural Australia.
Falling in love for the first time, following your dreams and disappointing your parents. Being brave enough to live your life, even when life is terrifying. In fear there is bravery you can either cling to the edge or have the courage to jump. But what do you do when you’re left spiralling through the freefall? Be proud. Be seen. Live life fearlessly.
Stone Girl
An unspeakable event changes everything for twelve-year-old Sophie. No more Mum, school or bed of her own. She’s made a ward of the state and grows up in a volatile world where kids make their own rules, adults don’t count and the only constant is change. Until one day she meets Gwen, Matty and Spiral. Spiral is the most furious, beautiful boy Sophie has ever known. And as their bond tightens she finally begins to confront what happened in her past.
All Fall Down
When a bridge in the small outback town of Mululuk mysteriously collapses, the town is cut off from the world, and its citizens from each other.
The Secrets at Ocean’s Edge
Every family has secrets that bind them together. A heart-rending story of a guesthouse keeper and his wife who attempt to start over, from devastatingly talented debut author Kali Napier. 1932. Ernie and Lily Hass, and their daughter, Girlie, have lost almost everything in the Depression; all they have keeping their small family together are their secrets. Abandoning their failing wheat farm and small-town gossip, they make a new start on the west coast of Australia where they begin to build a summer guesthouse.
But forming new alliances with the locals isn’t easy. Into the Hasses’ new life wanders Lily’s shell-shocked brother, Tommy, after three harrowing years on the road following his incarceration. Tommy is seeking answers that will cut to the heart of who Ernie, Lily and Girlie really are. Inspired by the author’s own family history, The Secrets at Ocean’s Edge is a haunting, memorable and moving tale of one family’s search for belonging. Kali Napier breathes a fever-pitch intensity into the story of these emotionally fragile characters as their secrets are revealed with tragic consequences.
The Stolen Button
“Hush!” the gypsy cried. “There’s nothing to fear. I’ll take your button in return for your passage home. A navel’s neither an ear to hear nor an eye to see. More a tip than a fee, don’t you agree?” In a golden oasis, lived a Good Mother who raised a Wicked Daughter. A truly, terrible girl. Just the sort to fall for the gypsy’s trick.
The Hope Fault
Iris’s family – her ex-husband with his new wife and baby; her son, and her best friend’s daughter – gather to pack up their holiday house.
They are there for one last time, one last weekend, and one last party – but in the course of this weekend, their connections will be affirmed, and their frailties and secrets revealed – to the reader at least, if not to each other.
The Hope Fault is a novel about extended family- about steps and exes and fairy godmothers; about parents and partners who are missing, and the people who replace them.
Planet Bastard Vol. 1
Planet Bastard Vol. 1 is a shared-universe anthology featuring some of the best emerging writers in Australia. The first volume is packed with fourteen stories, containing unforgettable heroes and villains entwined by one common thread: they’re stuck on the last habitable planet, which is slowly dying.
A thousand years after an event of catastrophic scale sent all remaining lifeforms flocking to Katecht, a frantic and long-fought war nears its end.
The rebel group known as the Iconoclast has struck a fatal blow to the reigning Confederacy. The world has been thrown into chaos. The Confederacy is vulnerable, but alive. And ripples are spreading through the nations.
This is where it all begins.
Troppo
Troppo’s a story about black magic, big waves and mad Aussie expats. Set in Sumatra, it’s told from the perspective of Penny, a young surfer who’s landed a job managing a resort for the notorious Aussie Shane.
Penny is drifting, partying, hanging out – a thousand miles away from claustrophobic Perth and her career-minded boyfriend.
But things take a dangerous turn when Penny learns about Shane’s reputation as a troublemaker. Caught up in the hostility directed at Shane, and flirting and surfing with the hell-man Matt, Penny soon finds herself swept into a world where two very different cultures will collide.
The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart
After her family suffers a tragedy, nine-year-old Alice Hart is forced to leave her idyllic seaside home. She is taken in by her grandmother, June, a flower farmer who raises Alice on the language of Australian native flowers, a way to say the things that are too hard to speak. Under the watchful eye of June and the women who run the farm, Alice settles, but grows up increasingly frustrated by how little she knows of her family’s story. In her early twenties, Alice’s life is thrown into upheaval again when she suffers devastating betrayal and loss.
Desperate to outrun grief, Alice flees to the dramatically beautiful central Australian desert. In this otherworldly landscape Alice thinks she has found solace, until she meets a charismatic and ultimately dangerous man. Spanning two decades, set between sugar cane fields by the sea, a native Australian flower farm, and a celestial crater in the central desert, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart follows Alice’s unforgettable journey, as she learns that the most powerful story she will ever possess is her own.’Lush, powerful … This is an engrossing novel imbued with passion and reverence for the Australian natural world, with a cast of characters that inspire affection in the reader even as they make mistakes.
The Earth Does Not Get Fat
She looked like someone who has had a hard life and no money to take care of herself, like a broken woman at the end of the world, dead on her feet, skin slapped over her bones like white paint, old white paint, slightly yellow.
Her shoulders and collarbones were sticking out of her skin like like nothing. There is nothing I know that is as awful as her bones poking out of her dirty yellow chicken-skin.
Chelsea doesn’t attend school much any more. She is carer for her mother who is sinking further into depression after a trauma, and her Grandad who has slipped into full-blown dementia.
Her father is long gone; others are shadowy memories, intangible like dreams. Barely known ghosts make for strange company. Then a parcel arrives, and in it are questions about her mother and her past self, their shared histories, and the people and place from which they’ve run. The Earth Does Not Get Fat is a powerful and gut-wrenching debut about intense suffering and love fierce, searing love.
In at the Deep End
A quick-witted, contemporary romance about losing your cool.What woman doesn’t love a real-life hero? Harriet Scott, for one. The fiercely independent daughter of famous adventurers, she grew up travelling the world on the environmental flagship The Watch. So when Harriet’s ship sinks in Antarctica and she has to be rescued by Commander Per Amundsen, an infuriatingly capable Norwegian naval officer and living breathing action hero, her world is turned upside down.
Like their namesakes, the original Scott and Amundsen who competed to reach the South Pole first, Per and Harriet have different ways of doing things. Per thinks Harriet is an accident waiting to happen; Harriet thinks Per is a control freak. But when Harriet realises that Per is the only one who can help her fund the new ship she desperately wants, she is forced to cooperate with him.Per refuses to assist unless Harriet allows him to teach her to swim. But there is more to Harriet’s terrible fear of water than meets the eye. Can Harriet face her fears and come to terms with the trauma and loss of her past? And will she begin to appreciate that some risks are well worth takingand that polar opposites can, in fact, attract?
Mine
You wake up alone after an emergency caesarean, desperate to see your child. And when you are shown the small infant in the nursery, a terrible thought takes root- this baby is not your baby. No one believes you. Not the nurses, your father or even your own husband.
They say you’re confused and delusional. Dangerous. But you’re a doctor – you know how easily mistakes can be made. It’s up to you to find your real child, your miracle baby, before it’s too late. With everyone against you, is it safe to trust your instincts? Or are memories from your past clouding your judgement? This can’t all be in your head . . . can it?
April in Paris, 1921
Meet the glamorous, witty and charming Kiki Button: socialite, private detective and spy. We all have secrets – it’s just that Kiki has more than most … Sparkling, witty and engaging crime fiction – one for fans of Phryne Fisher and Julian Fellowes It’s 1921, and after two years at home in Australia, Katherine King Button has had enough.
Her rich parents have ordered her to get married, but after serving as a nurse during the horrors of the Great War, she has vowed never to take orders again. She flees her parents and the prison of their expectations for the place of friendship and freedom: Paris.
Paris in 1921 is the city of freedom, the place where she can remake herself as Kiki Button, gossip columnist extraordinaire, partying with the rich and famous, the bohemian and bold, the suspicious and strange. But on the modelling dais, Picasso gives her a job: to find his wife’s portrait, which has gone mysteriously missing. That same night, her old spymaster from the war contacts her – she has to find a double agent or face jail. Through parties, whisky and informants, Kiki has to use every ounce of her determination, her wit and her wiles to save herself, the man she adores, and the life she has come to love – in just one week.
The Sisters’ Song
As children, Ida loves looking after her younger sister, Nora, but when their beloved father dies in 1926, everything changes. The two young girls move in with their grandmother who is particularly encouraging of Nora’s musical talent. Nora eventually follows her dream of a brilliant musical career, while Ida takes a job as a nanny and their lives become quite separate.
The two sisters are reunited when Nora’s life takes an unwelcome direction and she finds herself, embittered and resentful, isolated in the Tasmanian bush with a husband and children. Ida longs passionately for a family and when she marries Len, a reliable and good man, she hopes to soon become a mother. Over time, it becomes clear that this is never likely to happen.
In Ida’s eyes, it seems that Nora possesses everything in life that could possibly matter yet she values none of it. Set in rural Tasmania over a span of seventy years, the strengths and flaws of motherhood are revealed through the mercurial relationship of these two very different sisters. The Sisters’ Song speaks of dreams, children and family, all entwined with a musical thread that binds them together.
The Apology
A gripping psychological drama about family, betrayal and the limits of forgiveness
Oriental Vagabonds: A Tale of a Far East Tramp
The eve of World War 2. Hitler is finalising plans for the conquest of Europe and flexing his muscles in Spain, while the Japanese are poised to invade China, and eyeing off the resources of the East Indies and Indochina to fuel their war machine.
Dangerous times, but there are still profits to be made by men like hard-bitten Skipper Bill Rowden and his vagabond crew, as they work their aging tramp steamer around the treacherous waters of the Far East. Uncharted reefs, tropical storms, corrupt officials, smuggling and piracy are all in a day’s work to Rowden and his crew, which includes an embittered hard drinking aristocrat, a knife wielding Welshman and a hot-headed, hard-fisted Australian.
Read Underground Writers’ review of this book here.
