Author Archive | admin

Fiona McCallum
While very pretty, the tiny town of Melrose isn’t where Erica thought she’d be at almost fifty. And working in a funeral home and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, while navigating her grief as a recent widow, is not how she thought her life would look either. But she’s committed to her lovely new boss, Walter, who gave her a chance when she so desperately needed it.

Erica’s friends and daughters back in Adelaide cheer her on as she discovers a genuine love for her new job, forms friendships and immerses herself in the local community. But why is she being plagued with fresh bouts of anxiety and flashes of partial memories of her brother Mark who died when she was eleven? Why is there so much about him she doesn’t know and can’t remember? And why does it feel like it’s more about her than him?

But she has to put it all aside when, despite being happy and settled, Erica is suddenly called upon to step up and face her deepest fear. If she can, what will she discover about herself and her past? And what will it mean for her future?

Lauren Chater
Jo Baaker, a textiles historian and Dutch ex-pat is drawn back to the island where she was born to investigate the provenance of a 17th century silk dress. Retrieved by local divers from a sunken shipwreck, the dress offers tantalising clues about the way people lived and died during Holland’s famous Golden Age.

Jo’s research leads her to Anna Tesseltje, a poor Amsterdam laundress turned ladies’ companion who served the enigmatic artist Catharina van Shurman. The two women were said to share a powerful bond, so why did Anna abandon Catharina at the height of her misfortune?

Jo is convinced the truth lies hidden between the folds of this extraordinary dress. But as she delves deeper into Anna’s history, troubling details about her own past begin to emerge.

On the small Dutch island of Texel where fortunes are lost and secrets lie buried for centuries, Jo will finally discover the truth about herself and the woman who wore the Winter Dress.

G.M. Glanville
Will the consequences of a turbulent and misguided childhood ruin Marion Kent’s life, or those closest to her?

After a string of vengeful acts, someone wants justice, and someone will pay the ultimate price for the past, but who will it be?

Peter Grose
The bombing of Darwin by the Japanese on 19 February 1942 was the first wartime assault on Australian soil. The Japanese dropped more bombs on Darwin, killed more civilians in Darwin and sank more ships in Darwin than Pearl Harbor.

Three months later, on 31 May 1942, three Japanese midget submarines crept into Sydney Harbour and caused an unforgettable night of mayhem, high farce, chaos and courage. The war was no longer confined to distant deserts and jungles. It had well and truly come to Australia.

Absorbing, spirited and fast-paced, 1942: the year the war came to Australia tells the story of the under-armed and unprepared soldiers and civilians who faced their toughest test on home soil.

Grantlee Kieza
When Ned Kelly and his band of young tearaways ambushed and killed three brave policemen in a remote mountain camp in 1878, they sparked the biggest and most expensive manhunt Australia had seen. The desperate search would end when Kelly and his gang, wearing suits of armour, tried to derail a train before waging their final bloody gun battle with police in the small Victorian town of Glenrowan.

In the 20 months between those shootouts and aided by a network of informers, hundreds of lawmen, soldiers, undercover agents and a team of Aboriginal trackers combed rugged mountains in freezing conditions in search of the outlaws. The police officers were brave, poorly paid and often ailing, some nearing retirement and others young with small children, but they risked death and illness in the hope of finding the men who had killed their comrades.

The hunt for the Kelly gang became a fierce battle of egos between senior police as they prepared for the final shootout with Australia’s most infamous bushrangers, a gun battle that etched Ned Kelly’s physical toughness and defiance of authority into Australian folklore. By the author of the critically acclaimed Mrs Kelly, as well as other bestsellers such as Banks, Monash and Banjo, The Kelly Hunters is a fascinating and compelling account of the other side of the legendary Kelly story.

Peter Fitzsimons
Sir Hubert Wilkins is one of the most remarkable Australians who ever lived. The son of pioneer pastoralists in South Australia, Hubert studied engineering before moving on to photography, then sailing for England and a job producing films with the Gaumont Film Co. Brave and bold, he became a polar expeditioner, a brilliant war photographer, a spy in the Soviet Union, a pioneering aviator-navigator, a death-defying submariner – all while being an explorer and chronicler of the planet and its life forms that would do Vasco da Gama and Sir David Attenborough proud.

As a WW1 photographer he was twice awarded the Military Cross for bravery under fire, the only Australian photographer in any war to be decorated. He went on expedition with Sir Ernest Shackleton, led a groundbreaking natural history study in Australia and was knighted in 1928 for his aviation exploits, but many more astounding achievements would follow. Wilkins’ quest for knowledge and polar explorations were lifelong passions and his missions to polar regions aboard the submarine Nautilus the stuff of legend.

With masterful storytelling skill, Peter FitzSimons illuminates the life of Hubert Wilkins and his incredible achievements. Thrills and spills, derring-do, new worlds discovered – this is the most unforgettable tale of the most extraordinary life lived by any Australian.

Lisa Curry
Triple Olympian and wellness entrepreneur Lisa Curry has lived her life in the public eye for six decades. In this very personal memoir, she shares the untold story of being Lisa. A swimming prodigy who became one of Australia’s first fitness entrepreneurs, Lisa Curry swam to Olympic fame in the ’80s and ’90s. With celerity and celebrity, she became in equal parts the darling of women’s magazines and tabloid fodder, until, at 58, a family tragedy nearly consumed her. From the golden girl of Australian swimming to a ‘super mum’ and now a proud grannie, Lisa Curry has a powerful story to tell of endurance and enduring.

In 1972, ten-year-old Lisa escaped the heat of a hot and muggy Brisbane day in the local pool when she was spotted by Dawn Fraser’s legendary swim coach, Harry Gallagher. Within two years of joining his swim squad, Lisa would be one of the fastest swimmers of her age in the world.

Over the next 23 years, Lisa honed her natural talent with a legendary work ethic and a punishing training ritual of 5 am starts. Countless hours of long, unbroken swimming of up to 60km a week in solitary union with the black lines of the pool would take Lisa to three Olympic Games: Moscow 1980, Los Angeles 1984, and Barcelona 1992; three Commonwealth Games; and two World Championships. By the time Lisa called time on her sporting career, she had become the only Australian to hold Commonwealth and Australian records in every stroke except backstroke, and from 50 to 400 metres, a feat that has not been repeated to this day.

In this funny, heartbreaking but always life-affirming memoir, Lisa Curry reflects on a life well lived and the experiences that shaped her: swimming, family, marriage, divorce, and love found again. It is a powerful story of resilience, of highs and lows, and of starting out and starting again.

Sally Warriner
Not Just the Wife of the General Manager is a rollicking memoir of one woman’s life on outback cattle stations, and an homage to the many unsung women like her. It was the 1980s and Sally Warriner was in her early 20s when she returned from a backpacking sojourn and hitchhiked to Australia’s far north. But instead of moving back to Canberra as planned, she stayed. After marrying a cattle station manager, Sally lived and worked with him on various stations until she was 50, injecting herself into the lives of the characters who inhabited these isolated places.

With wit and sass, Sally tells the story of how she was so much more than just a wife of a station manager (despite what the blokes of the top end thought). Among other things, she was a nurse (dealing with local accidents, assisting the Flying Doctor service and making emergency 400 km round trips through the outback with sick children), a mother (bringing up several children, not all her own), a travel agent, a social secretary, a host and an organiser (including of Kerry Packer’s New Year’s Eve parties).

Indira Naidoo
After her younger sister died suddenly, broadcaster Indira Naidoo’s world was shattered. Turning to her urban landscape for solace, Indira found herself drawn to a fig tree overlooking Sydney harbour. A connection began to build between the two – one with a fractured heart, the other a centurion offering quiet companionship while asking nothing in return.

As Indira grappled with her heartbreak, an unnoticed universe of infinite beauty revealed itself: pale vanilla clouds pirouetting across the sky, resilient weeds pushing through cracks in the footpath, the magical biodiversity of tiny puddles. With the help of a posse of urban guides, she began to explore how nature – whatever bits of nature are within reach – can heal us during life’s darker chapters, whether nursing a broken heart or an anxious mind.

The Space Between the Stars is a heart-rending, at times funny, and uplifting tribute to love and our innate need to connect to the natural world, a celebration of the reassuring cycle of renewal that sustains and nourishes us all.