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Skinner of Skinner's Horse: a fictional portrait
By Philip Mason. 1979
Reluctant heroes
By Helen Evans. 2011
Reluctant Heroes is a historical novel. It is not only about Bill and his mates, but about his family in…
Australia. Russell and his mates earn money by rabbit trapping; they dig air raid trenches at school; they play tricks on the teachers; they find ways to talk to the girls although the sexes are separated by an invisible line in the playground. The times are different today, but young people face many of the same challenges.Amongst women
By John McGahern. 1990
Moran is an old Republican whose life was forever transformed by his days of glory as a guerilla leader in…
the war of Independence. Now, in old age, Moran is still fighting - with his family, his friends, even himself.One thousand chestnut trees: a novel Of Korea
By Mira Stout. 1997
Anna, an artist in Manhattan, finding herself hemmed in by life, leaves for the Orient to uncover her family's elusive…
history. Her departure stirs up vivid, shocking memories of her mother, of her gilded childhood in Korea and of her grandfather's noble clan's fall from power.Wanting
By Richard Flanagan. 2008
Bass Strait 1839. A young Aboriginal girl, Mathinna, runs through the wet wallaby grass of a wild island at the…
edge of the world to get help for her dying father. Eighteen years later in Manchester, the great novelist Charles Dickens is a sensation, starring in a play that more and more resembles the frozen landscape of his own inner life. The most celebrated explorer of the age, Sir John Franklin, and his wife, Lady Jane, adopt Mathinna as an experiment to prove that the savage can be civilised - only to discover that within the most civilised can lurk the most savage. When Sir John disappears into the blue ice of the Arctic whilst seeking the fabled Northwest Passage, Lady Jane enlists Dickens' aid to put an end to the scandalous suggestions that Sir John's expedition ended in cannibalism.True history of the Kelly gang
By Peter Carey. 2000
Exploration of the life and times of Australia's most enduring folk legend, Ned Kelly and his gang. Using Ned Kelly…
himself as the powerful narrator of this novel, written for a daughter he will never see, this is a heart-rending story of a young boy growing up in grinding poverty and of a young man defiantly resisting the wealth and power of those who wish to destroy him. It is a novel evocative of time and place and of the class-ridden society that was colonial Victoria in the 1870s.Australia felix (The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney #1)
By Henry Handel Richardson. 1998
The first volume of the story of Richard Mahony, a medical graduate of Edinburgh University who emigrates to Ballarat during…
the gold rush. Mahony, despite finding initial contentment with his wife, Mary, becomes increasingly dissatisfied with his ordered life. His restlessness is not understood by Mary, who has to endure the constant shattering of her security as Richard desperately attempts to free himself; his attempts finally plunge them into poverty. In the figure of Richard Mahony, Richardson captures the soul of the emigrant, ever restless, ever searching for some equilibrium, yet never really able to settle anywhere. Richard's search, though, is also the more universal one for a meaning that will validate and give purpose to his existence.The way home (The Fortunes of Richard Mahony #2)
By Henry Handel Richardson. 1992
The second volume of the story of Richard Mahony, a medical graduate of Edinburgh University who emigrates to Ballarat during…
the gold rush. The three parts of this novel trace his turbulent life in Australia including his marriage to Mary, the making of his fortune, its subsequent loss and his final decline into madness. An epic work filled with pathos.An act of courage (Matthew Hervey #7)
By Allan Mallinson. 2005
While Hervey plans his escape from the Spanish, his memories turn to 1812, when as a young cornet he was…
part of Wellington's victorious army as it pushed its way north through Spain towards the Pyrenees. But first, the British had to storm the fortress where he is imprisoned now: Badajos - a fortress of huge strategic importance - where French resistance was at its most fierce and most bloody...The daughter of Victory Lights
By Kerri Turner. 2020
1945: After the thrill and danger of volunteering in an all-female searchlight regiment protecting Londoners from German bombers overhead, Evelyn…
Bell is secretly dismayed to be sent back her rigid domestic life when the war is over. But then she comes across a secret night-time show, hidden from the law on a boat in the middle of the Thames. Entranced by the risque and lively performance, she grabs the opportunity to join the misfit crew and escape her dreary future. At first the Victory travels from port to port to raucous applause, but as the shows get bigger and bigger, so too does the risks the performers are driven to take, as well as the growing emotional complications among the crew. Until one desperate night ...1963: Lucy, an unloved and unwanted little girl, is rescued by a mysterious stranger who says he knows her mother. On the Isle of Wight, Lucy is welcomed into an eclectic family of ex-performers. She is showered with kindness and love, but gradually it becomes clear that there are secrets they refuse to share. Who is Evelyn Bell?Eureka run
By Bruce Venables. 2017
London 1852: Following a disastrous duel, John Farrington has lost everything – his army commission, his reputation, and the love…
of his life. When he becomes the target of a powerful, vengeful family he is forced to run, boarding a ship bound for Australia. Hong Kong 1853: Master Feng, operatic impresario accused of treason, flees with his star performer, 'The Emperor’s Nightingale'. Fate places them aboard a Yankee clipper ship to the great continent in the south. Melbourne 1853: From humble beginnings, Cate Shearley is determined to make a prosperous life for herself and her son Jack, and has built up an enviable business as proprietor of the Golden Sheaf Hotel and Shearley’s Variety Theatre. When her shows have the crowds flocking in, Cate realises there is even more money to be made entertaining the gold-rich miners of Ballarat. But as Shearley’s Travelling Variety Show sets off for the goldfields, two in the troupe have ruthless enemies in pursuit. And their world will explode at the Eureka diggings, where the fuse of revolution has already been lit...The blue rose
By Kate Forsyth. 2019
Viviane de Faitaud has grown up alone at her family's chateau, for her father, the Marquis de Valaine, lives at…
the court of Louis XVI in Versailles. After a hailstorm destroys the chateau's orchards, gardens and fields, an ambitious young Welshman, David Stronach, accepts the commission to plan new gardens. However, the love that blossoms between them is doomed: Viviane is betrothed to a duke, and David is forced to leave the property. In the aftermath, Viviane enters an unhappy marriage and moves to Versailles, while David embarks upon a mission to China to procure the secrets of tea-growing. There, he is inspired by the story of the Blue Rose, a fable of impossible love. Can he and Viviane - a world apart - ever hope to rekindle what they had together?The Queen's tiger (Captain Ian Steele #2)
By Peter Watt. 2019
It is 1857. Colonial India is a simmering volcano of nationalism about to erupt. Army surgeon Peter Campbell and his…
wife Alice, in India on their honeymoon, have no idea that they are about to be swept up in the chaos. Ian Steele, known to all as Captain Samuel Forbes, is fighting for Queen and country in Persia. A world away, the real Samuel Forbes is planning to return to London - with potentially disastrous consequences for Samuel and Ian both. Then Ian is posted to India, but not before a brief return to England and a reunion with the woman he loves. In India he renews his friendship with Peter Campbell, and discovers that Alice has taken on a most unlikely role. Together they face the enemy and the terrible deprivations and savagery of war - and then Ian receives news from London that crushes all his hopes...Rebel daughters
By Darry Fraser. 2020
Daughter of the Murray by Darry Fraser - 1890s, River Murray, Northern Victoria. Living with her foster family on the…
banks of the River Murray, Georgina Calthorpe is dreading the return of their son, Dane MacHenry. She knows he will direct his fury about the declining state of the crumbling homestead at her. Proven right, Georgina flees, but when Dane learns she has stolen his prized stallion, he gives chase. As their fates become intertwined with a businessman keeping a dark secret who offers Georgina apparent security in marriage, none of them could imagine the toll the changing social landscape will have. Will Georgina's path lead her into grave danger, or will she survive and fulfil her destiny? The Girl From Eureka by Cheryl Adnams - 1854, Ballarat,Victoria. Gold miner Indy Wallace wants nothing more than to find enough gold to give her mother an easier life. Falling for British Army Lieutenant Will Marsh, who has been posted to Ballarat to protect the Crown gold, was never part of the plan - in the eyes of immigrant miners, soldiers are the enemy. As Will and Indy's attraction grows, the unrest between miners and the military reaches breaking point, testing the pair's loyalties. Can their love survive their battle of ideals? And will any of them survive the battle of the Eureka Stockade?Ordinary matter
By Laura Elvery. 2020
In 1895, Alfred Nobel rewrote his will and left his fortune made in dynamite and munitions to generations of thinkers.…
Since 1901 women have been honoured with Nobel Prizes for their scientific research twenty times, including Marie Curie twice. Spanning more than a century and ranging across the world, this inventive story collection is inspired by these women whose work has altered history and saved millions of lives. From a transformative visit to the Grand Canyon to a baby washing up on a Queensland beach, a climate protest during a Paris heatwave to Stockholm on the eve of the 1977 Nobel Prize ceremony, these stories interrogate the nature of inspiration and discovery, motherhood and sacrifice, illness and legacy. Sometimes the extraordinary pivots on the ordinary.Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray: river of dreams
By Anita Heiss. 2021
Gundagai, 1852. The powerful Murrumbidgee River surges through town leaving death and destruction in its wake. It is a stark…
reminder that while the river can give life, it can just as easily take it away.Wagadhaany is one of the lucky ones. She survives. But is her life now better than the fate she escaped? Forced to move away from her miyagan, she walks through each day with no trace of dance in her step, her broken heart forever calling her back home to Gundagai.When she meets Wiradyuri stockman Yindyamarra, Wagadhaany's heart slowly begins to heal. But still, she dreams of a better life, away from the degradation of being owned. She longs to set out along the river of her ancestors, in search of lost family and country. Can she find the courage to defy the White man's law? And if she does, will it bring hope ... or heartache?Set on timeless Wiradyuri country, where the life-giving waters of the rivers can make or break dreams, and based on devastating true events, Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray (River of Dreams) is an epic story of love, loss and belonging.The beachcomber's wife
By Adrian Mitchell. 2016
It should have been a paradise, but paradise is what you lose, it is what you might have had. An…
elderly woman who has lived for many years on a tropical island off the Queensland coast with her beachcomber husband waits for help from the mainland. For three harrowing days, alone. He has died, his body lies in their cabin just up from the beach, and while she awaits help she reviews her reclusive life there, of nearly 25 years with him. She is a woman with a glint in her mind's eye. The Beachcomber's Wife draws upon the published writings of E.J. Banfield, who lived an isolated life with his wife Bertha on Dunk Island through the first decades of the twentieth century. He made very little reference to her in his work (Confessions of a Beachcomber and others). This account imagines what it might have been like from her point of view. It follows Banfield's practice, of fact cemented with fiction.Benevolence
By Julie Janson. 2020
For perhaps the first time in novel form, Benevolence presents an important era in Australia's history from an Aboriginal perspective.…
Benevolence is told from the perspective of Darug woman, Muraging (Mary James), born around 1813. Mary's was one of the earliest Darug generations to experience the impact of British colonisation. At an early age Muraging is given over to the Parramatta Native School by her Darug father. From here she embarks on a journey of discovery and a search for a safe place to make her home. The novel spans the years 1816-35 and is set around the Hawkesbury River area, the home of the Darug people, Parramatta and Sydney. The author interweaves historical events and characters - she shatters stereotypes and puts a human face to this Aboriginal perspective.Death leaves the station
By Alexander Thorpe. 2020
A nameless friar turns up at Halfwell Station at the same time that Ana, the adopted daughter of the station…
owners, discovers a body in the desert during her midnight walk. But when Ana returns to look for it, the body is gone. This story brings the cosy country-house intrigue of crime fiction's golden age to the Australian wheatbelt, and was written for fans of classic mystery and crime fiction.Imperium (Cicero #1)
By Robert Harris. 2006
When Tiro, the confidential secretary of a Roman senator, opens the door to a terrified stranger on a cold November…
morning, he sets in motion a chain of events which will eventually propel his master into one of the most famous courtroom dramas in history. The stranger is a Sicilian, a victim of the island's corrupt Roman governor, Verres. The senator is Cicero, a brilliant young lawyer and spellbinding orator, determined to attain Imperium - supreme power in the state.