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Sensational rumours of the murder of three small children by their stepmother ignite the passions of Perth citizens in 1909. Shocked by horrific descriptions of how she poisoned the children, they demand her execution as one voice. [click to continue…]

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Flock

Francis Sprigge and Lilian Powys, two strangers escaping their past, move to the Blue Mountains together, following their dreams of creativity and love. But as Francis pursues his gift for designing exquisite wallpaper, Lilian finds that the ordinary life she craves remains frustratingly beyond reach. Despite her adoring husband and spirited young daughter Adelaide, Lilian cannot outrun her demons, and cracks soon appear in the family’s harmonious veneer.  [click to continue…]

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Managing Death

It’s not easy being Death. For starters, people keep dying. And then, they keep getting up again.

Steven de Selby got promoted. This makes the increasing number of stirrers (and the disturbing rumors of a zombie god rising sometime soon) his problem. [click to continue…]

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Navy Divers

In cold, murky water, working by touch alone, they can defuse a mine powerful enough to sink a battleship. Under the burning Afghan sun, they can dismantle a Taliban roadside bomb. Welcome to the world of the Royal Australian Navy clearance divers.

Bomb and mine disposal is but one of their roles. As covert swimmers they can infiltrate enemy waters. As boarding parties they are on the anti-piracy frontline. [click to continue…]

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Whispering Death

Hal Challis is in trouble at home and abroad: carpeted by the boss for speaking out about police budget cuts; missing his lover, Ellen Destry, who is overseas on a study tour.

But there’s plenty to keep his mind off his problems. A rapist in a police uniform stalks Challis’s Peninsula beat, there is a serial armed robber headed in his direction and a home invasion that’s a little too close to home. [click to continue…]

Goldie Alexander’s ‘Notes from a Bush Hideaway’ consists of twenty-two short pieces set on the south coast of Australia. In these Notes, Goldie describes some of the local flora, fauna and human activities. [click to continue…]

Cuba, 1959: In the final year of Errol Flynn’s life, he found time for one last adventure. The dashing star of many Hollywood films had always longed to be a real hero. Fidel Castro was the genuine article, and now he was looking for fame. What each man had the other wanted, and as revolution raged around them, the stage was set for an explosive encounter.  [click to continue…]

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The Donald Friend Diaries

At age fourteen, Donald Friend declared: ‘Have done quite a lot of painting lately, and have made up my mind that I shall be an artist. And I shall be famous!’ Friend achieved his aim. He also left behind more than two million words of brilliant, intimate diary entries—one of the greatest acts of autobiography in Australian history. [click to continue…]

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The Second Father

From Brisbane’s sleazy Sin Triangle to drug busts in the wild far north, former undercover cop Domenico ‘Mick’ Cacciola tells his incredible tale of underworld crime and police corruption. After joining the Queensland Police Force in the 1960s, Mick risked his life infiltrating illegal gambling dens. [click to continue…]

The Vintage and the Gleaning is set in a winemaking town in the north-east of Victoria, close to the Murray River. Smithy is a retired shearer turned vineyard worker who has recently been forced to give up drinking after a lifetime of alcoholism. In his new sobriety he is contemplating the world in which he lives and the man he has been and become with a new understanding. Assaulted by long forgotten memories, Smithy is forced to take stock of his own past.  [click to continue…]

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The Precipice

Thea Farmer, a reclusive and difficult retired school principal, lives in isolation with her dog in the Blue Mountains. Her distinguished career ended under a cloud over a decade earlier, following a scandal involving a much younger male teacher. After losing her savings in the financial crash, she is forced to sell the dream house [...]

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Made in Queensland

In 1859, Queensland formally separated from New South Wales and became an independent colony.  Since then it has grown into a dynamic state renowned for its extraordinary, diverse landscapes, wealth of intellectual and physical resources and a population that appreciates its unique lifestyle. 

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I Am David

David’s entire twelve-year life has been spent in a grisly prison camp in Eastern Europe. He knows nothing of the outside world. But when he is given the chance to escape, he seizes it. With his vengeful enemies hot on his heels, David struggles to cope in this strange new world, where his only resources [...]

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A Prescription for Change

In A Prescription for Change: The Terry White Story, veteran journalist Tony Koch colourfully charts the drive, integrity and family support that have guided White through a fascinating life in business and politics. Growing up in a poor family, Terry White showed ambition from a young age, enrolling himself in a private school – initially [...]

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A Voice of Reason

Can civilisation survive the 21st century? Professor Ian Lowe, author, pre-eminent scientist and president of the Australian Conservation Foundation, thinks we have a chance – but we have to act now, and not just on global warming. 

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Australian Tragic

Australian Tragic is about a nation that began its life as a stage for misfortune – and ever since has struggled to outgrow its birthright. These are gripping tales that take us into the heart of this country: tales of genuine catastrophe, of grand chances gone astray, of fools and their plans pathetically undone, of heartbreaking [...]

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Pygmonia

A recent chapter in the history wars has returned a colonial-era mystery to the limelight: the existence of several tribes of Pygmy Aboriginal peoples in the Cairns and Yarrabah Peninsula regions in Queensland. Despite a general belief in their extinction, their descendants still live around Cairns, as archaeologist Peter McAllister found on a recent research [...]

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The Ballad of Blind Tom

‘Blind Tom stood before the immense and cultured audience in all of his magnificence, a very Hercules in stature. The enormous building was packed to the doors and outside was a seething, struggling and perspiring mob of people, begging for even standing room, but several thousand disappointed people were turned away unable even to get [...]

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Mercy, Mater & Me

Observations of a life over 60 years reveal what it ws like to leave Ireland, arrive in Australia in 1947 as a Sister of Mercy, train as a nurse – and end up as Administrator of Brisbane’s Mater Hospital. 

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The Sparrows of Edward Street

IT’S 1948 AND HANORA SPARROW and her teenage daughters, Aria and Rosy, have fallen on tough times.  With little more than the suitcases they carry and a few pounds between them, they must move to a housing commission camp on the outskirts of Sydney.

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