The willow tree warf

Leonie Kelsall
A charming new rural romance from the best-selling author of The River Gum Cottage. Samantha, owner of Settlers Bridge cafe Ploughs and Pies, is short on confidence and big on regrets. Married young to fill the void left by an unhappy childhood, she still works in the same small town where she grew up, too filled with self-doubt and insecurity to ever risk spreading her wings. Yet will the end of her abusive marriage force her to start anew?

City restaurateur Pierce di Angelis knows what it is to have his career and family ripped away. However, a chance encounter with the intriguing Samantha ignites his passion, and together they concoct a plan for a destination restaurant.

But, with their personalities like oil and water, will old hurts and hidden truths destroy the new business before it’s afloat?

The Berlin traitor

A.W. Hammond
July, 1945. The war in Europe is finally over. But Auguste Duchene, who survived occupied Paris at great personal cost, cannot escape his past. He finds himself helping the Allies to pursue a Gestapo war criminal through the ravaged and dangerous streets of Berlin.

Duchene soon learns, however, that, although one global conflict may have ended, another is beginning, and he is in a deadly race against the Russians as they hunt the same man. And, once again, at the heart of all he does, are his extraordinary wife Sabine and his beloved daughter Marienne.

With its vivid evocation of the post-war hardship and desperation of Germany’s capital, The Berlin Traitor pits a man of principle, who hates war and all it stands for, against relentless nationalism and self-interest. Tense, terrifying and compelling, full of twists and turns, this riveting page-turner is a worthy successor to The Paris Collaborator .

The night travellers

Amanda Correa
Four generations of women experience love, loss, war and hope from the rise of Nazism to the Cuban Revolution and, finally, the fall of the Berlin Wall in this sweeping novel from the internationally bestselling author of The German Girl.

Berlin, 1931: Ally Keller, a talented young poet, is alone and scared when she gives birth to a mixed-race daughter she names Lilith. As the Nazis rise to power, Ally knows she must keep her baby in the shadows to protect her against Hitler’s deadly ideology of Aryan purity. But as she grows, it becomes more and more difficult to keep Lilith hidden, so Ally sets in motion a dangerous and desperate plan to send her daughter across the ocean to safety.

Havana, 1958: Now an adult, Lilith has few memories of her mother or her childhood in Germany. Besides, she’s too excited for her future with her beloved Martin, a Cuban pilot with strong ties to the Batista government. But as the flames of revolution ignite, Lilith and her newborn daughter, Nadine, find themselves at a terrifying crossroads.

Berlin, 1988: Nadine has spent her entire life avoiding the truth about her own family’s history. It takes her daughter, Luna, to convince her to uncover the truth about the choices her mother and grandmother made to ensure the survival of their children. And it will fall to Luna to come to terms with a shocking betrayal that changes everything she thought she knew about her family’s past.

The prize

Kim E. Anderson
When two artists enter the 1943 Archibald Prize, a scandal erupts that grips not only the art world, but the nation. A poignant love story with shattering consequences, inspired by real-life events. ‘Is that what you want to do? Peer into my soul and capture my flaws, for all to see?’

As World War II draws to a close, Australian society is still deeply conservative. Homosexuality is illegal and the scourge of Modernism is infecting Australian art. When William Dobell paints a portrait of lover and fellow artist Joshua Smith, he is awarded Australia’s most prestigious art prize. A protest is lodged by Dobell’s competitors who claim the painting is a caricature. Both artist and sitter soon find themselves in the glare of the spotlight when a court case to determine the matter turns into a public spectacle.

Bill and Joshua’s relationship is put under pressure and at risk of being exposed as they are caught in a world where they must choose between love and art: between acceptance and exile.

My friend Ann Frank

Hannah Pick-Goslar
In 1933, Hannah Pick-Goslar and her family fled Nazi Germany to live in Amsterdam, where she struck up a close friendship with her next-door neighbor, an outspoken and fun-loving young girl named Anne Frank. For several years, the inseparable pair enjoyed a carefree childhood of games, sleepovers, and treats with the other children in their neighborhood of Rivierenbuurt. But in 1942, Hannah and Anne’s lives abruptly changed forever. As the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam progressed, Anne and the Frank family seemingly vanished, leaving behind unmade beds and dishes in the sink—but no trace of Anne’s precious diary. Torn from her dear friend without warning, Hannah spent the next two years tormented by questions about Anne’s fate, wondering if she had, by some miracle, managed to escape danger.

In this long‑awaited memoir, Hannah shares the story of her childhood during the Holocaust, from the introduction of anti-Jewish laws in Amsterdam to the gradual disappearance of classmates and, eventually, the Frank family, to Hannah and her family’s imprisonment in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. As Hannah chronicles the experiences of her own life during and after the war, she provides a searing look at what countless children endured at the hands of the Nazi regime, as well as an intimate, never‑before‑seen portrait of the most recognizable victim of the Holocaust. Culminating in an astonishing fateful reunion, My Friend Anne Frank is the profoundly moving story of childhood and friendship during one of the darkest periods in the world’s history.

The flying vet

Ameliah Scott
The inspiring story of the intrepid Dr Ameliah Scott, the Flying Vet extraordinaire. Ameliah isn’t your average vet – flying solo over a staggering territory of 200,000 square kilometres of red dirt and bush to tend to animals of all shapes and sizes, she’s a rare combination of female flying vet and fifth generation farmer in remote Australia. She brings much needed solace, care and reassurance to remote farming communities in the heart of the country, while also raising her own young family.

With charm, honesty and wit, Ameliah tells stories from a life on the road and the skies, from attending the School of the Air and becoming a vet, to operating her mobile service in some of the most remote parts of the country. Her story spreads as far as her clients are scattered across the outback, from far western New South Wales to northern Victoria, from the southwest of Queensland to eastern South Australia, treating valuable stock animals and beloved pets, and providing a precious lifeline for their owners.

Funny, moving and uplifting, Ameliah tells us about the diverse community she serves and the animals she treats, and celebrates the bush and the people of the outback – and Ameliah’s passion for animal welfare. From treating animals in distress, wrangling hot blooded goats to gelding biting horses and treating pregnant and calving cattle, Ameliah also battles the changing conditions of the bush, and the scourge of feral animals and plagues – all while navigating vast distances from the air, and raising her own young family on her own 120,000-acre cattle and sheep farm.

Convict orphans

Lucy Frost
Many thousands of abandoned children were treated as free labour in late 19th century Australia, yet their stories have been hidden until now, even to their descendants. Lucy Frost’s painstaking research has uncovered what really happened to the convict orphans. All families have their secrets, and a convict ancestor or an illegitimate birth were shames that families once buried deep. Among the best-hidden stories in Australia’s history are those of convict orphans.

Agnes arrived on a convict transport aged four, and was abandoned when her mother needed to escape an abusive husband. After their mother died and their father deserted his children, Maria and Eliza Marriner were taken into state care too. Cut off from family, behind the walls of the imposing sandstone buildings of the Queen’s Orphan Schools, they were among hundreds of young children entrusted to the much-feared Matron Smyth.

At the age of twelve, the children left the orphanage to work without pay on farms and in homes-some of them places where no child should ever have been sent. Although colonists called it white slavery, the authorities turned a blind eye to what was really happening.

There are stories of abuse and abandonment, and also of great generosity and kindness from individuals who rescued and supported children. Some children managed to build happy lives for themselves, but many could not navigate a system stacked against them. There are disturbing parallels between the Queen’s Orphan Schools in Hobart and other children’s institutions in Australia into the 21st century.

Women of the land

Liz Harfull
Making your living from the land in Australia is not for the faint-hearted. Isolation, hard physical work, long hours and the vagaries of drought, floods and fire make it a challenging environment for any farmer. But how do you cope when you are a woman in what is traditionally a man?s world?
Women of the Land brings together the heart-warming stories of eight rural women spread across Australia who run their own farms, capturing their ways of life, their personal struggles and their remarkable achievements.

Often juggling the demands of raising a family, they have overcome tragedy, personal fears, physical exhaustion and more than a little scepticism to build vibrant futures that sustain them and their families.
Despite their diverse backgrounds, they all share several things in common ? genuine humility, a passion for farming, and a deep, spiritual connection to the land which sustains them.
This is the inspiring story of eight rural women and their remarkable everyday lives.

Either side of midnight

Benjamim Stevenson
An electrifying thriller with a mind-bending premise: One million viewers witness a popular TV presenter commit suicide live on air – yet his twin brother is convinced it was murder. How can it be murder when the victim pulled the trigger?

At 9.01 pm, TV presenter Sam Midford delivers the monologue for his popular current affairs show Mr Midnight. He seems nervous and the crew are convinced he’s about to propose to his girlfriend live on air.

Instead, he pulls out a gun and shoots himself in the head.

Sam’s grief-stricken brother Harry is convinced his brother was murdered. But how can that be, when one million viewers witnessed Sam pull the trigger?

Only Jack Quick, a disgraced television producer in the last days of a prison sentence, is desperate enough to take Harry’s money to investigate.

But as Jack starts digging, he finds a mystery more complex than he first assumed. And if he’s not careful, he’ll find out first-hand that there’s more than one way to kill someone . . .

The stranger diaries

Elly Griffiths
Clare Cassidy is no stranger to murder. A high school English teacher specializing in the Gothic writer R. M. Holland, she teaches a course on it every year. But when one of Clare’s colleagues and closest friends is found dead, with a line from R. M. Holland’s most famous story, “The Stranger,” left by her body, Clare is horrified to see her life collide with the storylines of her favourite literature.

To make matters worse, the police suspect the killer is someone Clare knows. Unsure whom to trust, she turns to her closest confidant, her diary, the only outlet she has for her darkest suspicions and fears about the case. Then one day she notices something odd. Writing that isn’t hers, left on the page of an old diary: “Hallo, Clare. You don’t know me.”

Clare becomes more certain than ever: “The Stranger” has come to terrifying life. But can the ending be rewritten in time?

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