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…]
adult fiction general
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…]
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…]
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 she had built for her old age and live on in her dilapidated cottage opposite. Initially resentful and hostile towards Frank and Ellice, the young couple who buy the new house, Thea develops a flirtatious friendship with Frank, and then a grudging affinity with his twelve-year-old niece, Kim, who lives with them. [click to continue…]
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. [click to continue…]
It is 1919. The Great War has ended, but the Spanish flu epidemic is raging across Australia. Schools are closed, state borders are guarded by armed men and train travel is severely restricted. There are rumours it is the end of the world. [click to continue…]
Omega Park is a housing commission estate on the fringes of Queensland’s Gold Coast. Dingo Patterson and Jacob Box are growing up and trying to survive. [click to continue…]
Sarah Gordon knows what she wants: the family homestead, Wangallon. When it comes to working the homestead she’s a natural but as a woman, it’s not her birthright. Even when her beloved brother, Cameron James, first born and heir, is killed in a tragic accident, nobody looks to Sarah to inherit. [click to continue…]
‘The denuded earth of the iron-ore loading yards, the huge jetties thrusting their way out into the clear blue sea, [click to continue…]
At seven, she discovers that love isn’t necessarily forever.
At twenty one, she finds love but it escapes her. [click to continue…]
