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Outback teacher

Shelly Gare
A charming story of a young woman who faces challenges and finds joy teaching in outback schools. The year is 1956. Sally Gare is twenty. She’s just out of teachers’ college, and has been sent to work at a two-teacher school more than 3000 kilometres from Perth. With the head teacher away, she starts out alone with a class of forty-five Aboriginal children, ranging in age from five years to thirteen. Thus begins the career of a remarkable teacher and a life-changing adventure in remote Australia.

Outback Teacher is the story of the challenges and delights of teaching in outback schools in the 1950s and 1960s. Sally’s interaction with her students and the local Aboriginal communities is affectionate and heart-warming, although it isn’t without its misunderstandings. But the tensions aren’t just confined to the school and the local community. Some of the characters with whom Sally shares her less than comfortable housing are as eccentric and as curiously interesting as any escapee to the outback.

Full of warmth, humour and kindness, this generous book reminds us how bush people have always found their own solutions to the problems isolation throws at them. But most importantly, and in the most personal way, it confirms how inspiring and passionate teachers can change lives.

A dolphin called Jock

Melody Horrill
The compelling, heart-warming story of how a traumatised young woman found peace through her friendship with an injured dolphin called Jock. When Melody Horrill arrived as a student at the University of South Australia she was a troubled and lost young woman, hiding behind a carefully crafted exterior. She had experienced a childhood of emotional and physical trauma mainly at the hands of her violent father that was as damaging as it was brutal.

One day Melody volunteered to help her university lecturer monitor pods of river dolphins that lived in the waters of Port Adelaide. There for the first time she encountered Jock, a solitary dolphin with a maimed fin, who lived apart from the highly social pods. Melody was to form a bond with Jock that gave her the key to freeing herself from the demons of her own past, and their extraordinary friendship was the start of a long-term mission to try to save the river dolphins.

Beautifully written and filled with insight and compassion, Melody’s memoir details her life-changing relationship with the river dolphins, and how Jock helped her to heal.

Conviction

Frank Chalmers
A town ruled by fear. A cop who won’t be broken. A pulse-pounding debut thriller that pulls no punches.

A STUNNING NEW VOICE IN CRIME FICTION

Queensland in 1976 churns with corruption. When Detective Ray Windsor defies it, he is exiled deep into the state’s west. It’s easy out there to feel alien in your own country.

Royalton is a town on its knees, stricken by drought, riven by prejudice, and plagued by crimes left largely uninvestigated by the local police chief, Kennedy, and his elusive boss.

Mutual dislike between Kennedy and Ray gradually turns ugly as Ray and his new partner, Arshag, uncover a pattern of crimes that no one seems concerned about solving. But when two girls from local immigrant families are found dead and another disappears, Ray and Arshag are forced to take the law into their own hands. Not knowing who to trust, nor how deep the corruption runs, how long will it be before their lives are also threatened?

A spare and uncompromising crime thriller that pulls no punches.

Stagecoach to Serenity

Steven Gray
When Walter Watters—aka “Wattie”—finds out that the hiding place of gold from a major robbery is known to another, he’s instantly on the trail. As the sheriff of a small town, he knows that he has to uphold the law. But the two million dollars in solid gold is a tempting sum.

Soon he has to go into an area known as The Wilderness, riding through the monsoon with his companions to where their prize awaits. But can he trust them? Worse than that, he is being tracked by a ruthless ex-convict called Kurzwell, who was one of the original robbers. Now it is a race against time by both groups of men. Only one group can win the prize, but only one has a ruthless killer at their helm. With time and weather against them, Wattie and his companions face death far from home in a desperate struggle against man and nature.

The hunted four

Alex Frew
When Walter Watters—aka “Wattie”—finds out that the hiding place of gold from a major robbery is known to another, he’s instantly on the trail. As the sheriff of a small town, he knows that he has to uphold the law. But the two million dollars in solid gold is a tempting sum.

Soon he has to go into an area known as The Wilderness, riding through the monsoon with his companions to where their prize awaits. But can he trust them? Worse than that, he is being tracked by a ruthless ex-convict called Kurzwell, who was one of the original robbers. Now it is a race against time by both groups of men. Only one group can win the prize, but only one has a ruthless killer at their helm. With time and weather against them, Wattie and his companions face death far from home in a desperate struggle against man and nature.

The crooked M killings

Frank Ellis Evans
Marshal Reuben Kane is charged with finding the men who have spread terror and violence in an unprecedented bank robbing spree. It’s a routine, albeit dangerous, assignment. Routine, that is, until Reuben discovers Sal McIntyre, badly beaten and left to die by the men he is hunting.

Near to her is the body of her murdered husband. Reuben postpones his search in order to nurse the woman back to health, but from the moment she regains consciousness, vengeance is the only thing on her mind. Sal’s hatred is all-consuming and, against his better judgement, Reuben finds himself drawn into her ill-conceived plot to kill the men who murdered her husband. Reuben sets out to bring them to justice. But Sal McIntyre wants revenge—at any cost.

A song for the dark times

(Inspector Rebus #23)

Ian Rankin
“He’s gone…”

When his daughter Samantha calls in the dead of night, John Rebus knows it’s not good news. Her husband has been missing for two days.

Rebus fears the worst – and knows from his lifetime in the police that his daughter will be the prime suspect.

He wasn’t the best father – the job always came first – but now his daughter needs him more than ever. But is he going as a father or a detective?

As he leaves at dawn to drive to the windswept coast – and a small town with big secrets – he wonders whether this might be the first time in his life where the truth is the one thing he doesn’t want to find…

Island of mists

Evelyn Orange
Arasay – remote Scottish island, wildlife haven, and home to Jenna’s ancestors. When she arrives to help out her great aunt in the bookshop, she’s running from her past and hiding from the world. What she isn’t expecting is to meet an attractive wildlife photographer even before she sets foot on the island.

But Jake too is using Arasay to escape from previous trauma. As Jenna embraces island life and becomes closer to Jake and his family, there are secrets lurking in the mists that could threaten their future happiness.

The quiet side of passion

(Isabel Dalhousie #12)

Alexander McCall Smith
The new novel from the bestselling Alexander McCall Smith about Isabel Dalhousie–philosopher, moral sleuth, mother, wife–in which Isabel is called upon to help when a paternity question presents more than meets the eye.

Isabel finds herself befriended by Patricia, a single mother whose son, Basil, goes to school with Isabel’s son. Isabel discovers that Basil is the product of an affair Patricia had with a well-known Edinburgh organist, also named Basil, who was, rumor has it, initially reluctant to contribute financially to the child’s upkeep. Though Isabel doesn’t really like Patricia, she tries to be civil and supportive, but when she sees Patricia in the company of an unscrupulous man who may be a wanted criminal, her suspicions are aroused and she begins to investigate the paternity of Basil Jr.

When Isabel takes her suspicions to Basil Sr., she finds that, although he is paying child support and wishes he could have more of a relationship with Basil Jr., Patricia has no interest in Basil Sr. taking a more hands-on role in Basil Jr.’s parenting, even as she continues to accept his financial support. Should Isabel help someone who doesn’t want to be helped?

As Isabel navigates this ethically-complex situation, she is also dealing with her niece, Cat, who has taken up with a brawny and opinionated tattoo shop clerk? Isabel considers herself open-minded, but has Cat pushed it too far this time? As ever, Isabel must use her kindness and keen intelligence to determine the right course of action.

Bletchley secrets

-complete and unabridged

Dawn Knox
1940: A cold upbringing with parents who unfairly blame her for a family tragedy has robbed Jess of all self-worth and confidence.

Escaping to join the WAAF, she’s stationed at RAF Holsmere, until a seemingly unimportant competition leads to her recruitment into the secret world of code-breaking at Bletchley Park.

Love, however, eludes her: the men she chooses are totally unsuitable – until she meets Daniel. But there is so much which separates them. Can they ever find happiness together?

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