Jim Molan
What are Australia’s options in confronting a rising and belligerent China? For the first time in nearly 80 years, war on our doorstop is not just possible, it is likely. Former army major general and Liberal Party senator Jim Molan has fought wars, reviewed intelligence, participated in government and conducted business in hotspots across the world, making him an expert in evaluating risk and reward in perilous military situations.

In this sober assessment, Molan brings to bear his experience to look at the present and growing danger of China’s rise, not just to Taiwan, Japan and other countries in the immediate region but to the geopolitical balance of power as it has existed since the end of World War II. He examines what China’s end game is, how war might start, what war with China would look like and, importantly, what Australia’s best interests and options are. Acknowledging the increasing awareness across the country of a regional war, he stresses how important it is to prepare for the right war, not the war we would prefer to fight, or the one we think might never happen.

Grantlee Kieza
The extraordinary life of the Gallipoli veteran and WWI Flying Corp gunner who founded Qantas and gave Australia its wings. Hudson Fysh was a decorated World War I hero who not only founded Australia’s national airline, Qantas, but steered it for almost half a century from its humble beginnings with two rickety biplanes to the age of the jumbo jets. More than anyone, Fysh shaped the way that Australians saw the world.

A sickly boy traumatised by his parents’ broken marriage, Fysh was a poor student, but the courage and determination he developed playing sport propelled him through his toughest challenges and became the foundations of this great Australian life.

One of Australia’s celebrated Light Horsemen at Gallipoli, Fysh went on to fly death-defying missions for Lawrence of Arabia with the Australian Flying Corps and battle Germans in deadly dogfights in the skies over Palestine. On his return from the Great War, Fysh launched his bush airline, the Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Ltd (Qantas), with the help of a wartime pilot friend and some western Queensland graziers. After flying the first scheduled Qantas passenger flight in 1922, he ushered in the Flying Doctor Service that still assists remote communities and the first Qantas international airmail services, which revolutionised Australian communications. Fysh went on to guide Qantas through the dark days of the Great Depression, the perilous years of World War II, when the airline flew dangerous missions for the Allies, and into the great boom in international tourism that followed with the jet age, giving millions of Australians their first experience of international travel.

Julia Hollander
Singing has always been there for us, at the root of what it is to be a human being. Through personal anecdote and scientific fact-finding, this book celebrates the way song inspires and heals us, from the cradle to the grave, and in the process does for singing what The Well-Gardened Mind did for nature, and what Why We Eat did for our diets.

As a singing therapist, teacher and performer, Julia Hollander is in a unique position to consider singing’s importance to our wellbeing, charting its extraordinary influence on all aspects of our spiritual, emotional and physical lives.

Why do parents feel compelled to sing to their newborns, and how does it help their development? What is it about song that brings communities together in harmony but also in protest? How come an activity that helps to embed languages and maths formulae can also be used to rehabilitate Long Covid sufferers? And what magic is at work when people who have lost the power to speak are still able to sing?

By delving into her own life experiences, and calling on those of her fellow singers, the author seeks to answer these questions, underpinning her findings with the latest scientific research.

In so many walks of life, people of all ages and backgrounds are waking up to the joys of singing, its power to give hope and connection in a fragmented world. Song-making is available in an increasingly broad range of social and therapeutic contexts, prescribed by doctors and community services. This book offers explanations for why this should be, and inspiration to anyone who loves to sing.

Jan William Smith
A true and moving story of love, war, courage and indomitable spirit…
One day the tall, gaunt father came to the house with the new wife and called the puzzled seven-year-old to him. She had never seen him before… ‘I am your father and you will call me Father, and this is your new mother and you will call her Mother,’ he said. Then he went away again, leaving little Bell with confusion in her mind and emptiness in her heart.

In Mackie and Jack, the author travels with Mary ‘Bell’ Todd on a journey to remember a lonely childhood, a wartime marriage and what it took for her to succeed as a woman alone in a man’s world of livestock breeding in Australia. Empowered by inner strength and resilience, she confronted her challenges and overcame them.
In 1942-1944, Mary’s husband, Squadron Leader Jack Todd faced challenges of another kind. Armed with bombs, depth charges and mines, the Catalinas of 11 and 20 Squadrons, Royal Australian Air Force, took the war directly to the Japanese by reaching out from Cairns in flights across the Pacific. From these squadrons alone, 187 men did not return.
Jack Todd piloted the ill-fated mission of Catalina A24.34. Jack’s story is one of courage, leadership and valour in a war against an enemy that showed no mercy.
An outstanding account of Australian war history and that of a woman who brushed aside those who stood in her way.

Dinah Jefferies
An island of secrets. A runaway. And a promise…

A rebellious daughter

1925. Among the ancient honey-coloured walls of the tiny island of Malta, strangers slip into the shadows and anyone can buy a new name. Rosalie Delacroix flees Paris for a dancer’s job in the bohemian clubs deep in its winding streets.

A sister with a secret

1944. Running from the brutality of war in France, Florence Baudin faces a new life. But her estranged mother makes a desperate request: to find her vanished sister, who went missing years before.

A rift over generations
Betrayals and secrets, lies and silence hang between the sisters. A faded last letter from Rosalie is Florence’s only clue, the war an immovable barrier – and time is running out…

Ellanor Shearer
The master of the Providence plantation in Barbados gathers his slaves and announces the king has decreed an end to slavery. As of the following day, the Emancipation Act of 1834 will come into effect. The cries of joy fall silent when he announces that they are no longer his slaves; they are now his apprentices. No one can leave. They must work for him for another six years. Freedom is just another name for the life they have always lived. So Rachel runs.

Away from Providence, she begins a desperate search to find her children–the five who survived birth and were sold. Are any of them still alive? Rachel has to know. The grueling, dangerous journey takes her from Barbados then, by river, deep into the forest of British Guiana and finally across the sea to Trinidad. She is driven on by the certainty that a mother cannot be truly free without knowing what has become of her children, even if the answer is more than she can bear. These are the stories of Mary Grace, Micah, Thomas Augustus, Cherry Jane and Mercy. But above all this is the story of Rachel and the extraordinary lengths to which a mother will go to find her children…and her freedom.

S.R. White
One outback town. Two puzzling murders. Fifty suspects. In Unamurra, a drought-scarred, one-pub town deep in the outback, two men are savagely murdered a month apart – their bodies elaborately arranged like angels.

With no witnesses, no obvious motives and no apparent connections between the killings, how can lone police officer Detective Dana Russo – flown in from hundreds of kilometres away – possibly solve such a baffling, brutal case?

Met with silence and suspicion from locals who live by their own set of rules, Dana must take over a stalled investigation with only a week to make progress.

But with a murderer hiding in plain sight, and the parched days rapidly passing, Dana is determined to uncover the shocking secrets of this forgotten town – a place where anyone could be a killer.

Simon Scarrow
BERLIN. JANUARY 1940.

After Germany’s invasion of Poland, the world is holding its breath and hoping for peace. At home, the Nazi Party’s hold on power is absolute. One freezing night, an SS doctor and his wife return from an evening mingling with their fellow Nazis at the concert hall. By the time the sun rises, the doctor will be lying lifeless in a pool of blood.

Was it murder or suicide? Criminal Inspector Horst Schenke is told that under no circumstances should he investigate. The doctor’s widow, however, is convinced her husband was the target of a hit. But why would anyone murder an apparently obscure doctor? Compelled to dig deeper, Schenke learns of the mysterious death of a child. The cases seem unconnected, but soon chilling links begin to emerge that point to a terrifying secret.

Even in times of war, under a ruthless regime, there are places in hell no man should ever enter. And Schenke fears he may not return alive . . .

Bill Sutcliffe
Overcoming a childhood of abuse and neglect, Bill Sutcliffe’s unselfish life proves that one goodhearted person can make a difference to many. ‘A wound is very precious because it lets the light in. It can either make or break you. Bill Sutcliffe is a wonderful example of how healing this light can be.’ Reverend Bill Crews

Bill Sutcliffe is an ordinary man with an extraordinary story to tell. Coming from a childhood of poverty and abuse, Bill is a remarkable example of how seemingly insurmountable obstacles can be overcome with faith and a belief that anything is possible and achievable.