Five very different women come together in the Northern Territory of the 1970s by an exceptional new Australian author.In 1978 the Northern Territory has begun to self-govern. Cyclone Tracy is a recent memory and telephones not yet a fixture on the cattle stations dominating the rugged outback. Life is hard and people are isolated. But they find ways to connect.Sybil is the matriarch of Fairvale Station, run by her husband, Joe. Their eldest son, Lachlan, was Joe's designated successor but he has left the Territory - for good. It is up to their second son, Ben, to take his brother's place. But that doesn't stop Sybil grieving the absence of her child. With her oldest friend, Rita, now living in Alice Springs and working for the Royal Flying Doctor Service, and Ben's English wife, Kate, finding it difficult to adjust to life at Fairvale, Sybil comes up with a way to give them all companionship and purpose: they all love to read, and she forms a book club.Mother-of-three Sallyanne is invited to join them. Sallyanne dreams of a life far removed from the dusty town of Katherine where she lives with her difficult husband, Mick. Completing the group is Della, who left Texas for Australia looking for adventure and work on the land.If you loved The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society, The Little Coffee Shop Of Kabul and The Thorn Birds you will devour this story of five different women united by one need: to overcome the vast distances of Australia's Top End with friendship, tears, laughter, books and love.

    Three days. Can one weekend away change your life? The unputdownable new drama by one of Australia’s most beloved storytellers.Coming together for a writing workshop with bestselling author Jan Goldstein, four strangers converge upon a luxury forest retreat. But along with their notepads and laptops, each of the participants has brought some emotional baggage.Beth is a solo parent and busy career woman haunted by a tragic car accident. Simone, the youngest at 26, is a successful Instagram star but she’s hiding behind a facade. Jamie is the only man. He’s a handsome personal trainer – but he looks out of place with a pen in his hand. Finally, Alice is a wife and mum recovering from postnatal depression. She and Jamie soon realise they are not such perfect strangers after all.Only one thing is for sure: on this creative getaway, nothing will go according to script.

    Greed. Revenge. And a desperate search for answers ... Against the stunning backdrop of the Great Barrier Reef, two women in different eras discover how their hearts and fortunes are swayed by the secrets of the sea.2019: Bethany Kristensen faces her toughest challenge to date, skippering the family charter business. With rivals doing their utmost to undercut her prices and reputation, the Kristensens' operation hangs by a thread. Winning the tender for a new scientific research program headed out to the farthest edge of the reef is her last chance to keep the business going. But when rumour and vandalism turn to outright sabotage, things take a drastic turn...1934: Stella Booth flees a future of domestic drudgery in small-town outback Queensland, heading for employment and an independent life in Mackay. But fate has other plans and an accident en route sends her life spinning in a most unexpected direction...Linked by a family mystery, decades apart, Bethany and Stella will both need to dig deeper than ever before they forge their place among the turbulent seas of the reef.Australian author Annie Seaton applies her passion for conservation of our iconic landscape to a compelling mystery and family saga of belonging.

    she stole his heart. Central Highlands of Victoria, 1861Jack the Devil's reputation precedes him. The most notorious bushranger on the Central Highlands, nothing throws him off his game ... until he holds up Prudence Stanforth and her grandmother. Jack can't help but be captivated by the feisty Pru, with her sweeping red hair and complete lack of fear.Weeks later, Pru crosses paths with the respectable businessman Jack Fairweather, and it's not long before she recognises him as the bushranger who stole her beloved necklace. His price for the locket's return is her silence ... and a kiss. A kiss that sparks something inside them both.When Pru discovers her grandmother has been keeping a devastating secret, running away with Jack the Devil is the perfect escape for her broken heart. The dangerous nature of his less-than-salubrious occupation is a poetic contradiction to her sheltered upbringing and only fuels their passion. Until that danger becomes a reality. Between the return of dark elements from Jack's past and authorities intent on his capture, Jack and Pru must fight for their future together ... or risk losing everything.A rollicking historical tale about following your heart, finding home in unexpected places - and bushrangers - for readers of Darry Fraser and Alison Stuart.

    One for lovers of Kate Morton, Belinda Alexandra, Fiona McIntosh and Lucy Foley. Failed fashion designer Sylvie Dearlove is coming home to England - broke, ashamed and in disgrace - only to be told her parents are finally selling their once-grand, now crumbling country house, Bledesford, the ancestral home of the Dearlove family for countless generations. Sylvie has spent her whole life trying to escape being a Dearlove, and the pressure of belonging to a family of such headstrong, charismatic and successful women. Beset by self-doubt, she starts helping her parents prepare Bledesford for sale, when she finds in a forgotten attic a thrilling cache of old steamer trunks and tea chests full of elaborate dresses and accessories acquired from across the globe by five generations of fashionable Dearlove women. Sifting through the past, she also stumbles across a secret which has been hidden - in plain sight - for decades, a secret that will change the way she thinks about herself, her family, and her future.Romantic, warm, and glamorous, moving from Edwardian England to the London Blitz to present day London, Dressing the Dearloves is a story of corrosiveness of family secrets, the insecurities that can sabotage our best efforts, and the seductive power of dressing up.

    A tribute to the Rural Fire Service and the work they selflessly do.Recently divorced mother-of-two Samantha Murphy agrees to house-sit for her parents for a few weeks-but when the house involves several hundred acres of farming and livestock, it's a little more involved than the usual job. Sam left the family farm years ago for a more exciting, glamorous life on the Sunshine Coast, but now that her kids have grown up and moved out, she's at a crossroads.Jack Cameron was in love with Sam when they were teenagers, and she broke his heart when she left town at eighteen. Their lives moved along similar paths-both marrying, having families and getting divorced-but in very different locations. Now that Sam is back, they begin to realise that there are unresolved feelings between them.As catastrophic fires roar destructively through the local farming community, Sam has no choice but to evacuate her parents' farm. But worse is still to come: Jack is reported missing and Sam is forced to prepare for the worst news.A heartwarming story of second chances, of loss and rebuilding, and of finally coming home.

    Erin Travers is running away from her life and taking her two sons with her to a small town on the ruggedly beautiful Eyre Peninsula. The close-knit township is full of happy childhood memories for Erin, but she is bringing a whole lot of baggage with her. When the peaceful community is disrupted by theft and arson, everyone has different ideas about who is responsible. In a small town where lives are tangled too closely together, old grudges flare, fingers are pointed and secrets are unmasked.

    A wise, sharply observed celebration of the life-changing power of female friendships. Eve has been a partner in a Wallaby Bay fishing fleet as long as she can remember. Now they want her to sell - but what would her life be without work? She lives alone, her role on the town committee has been spiked by malicious gossip and she is incapacitated after surgery. For the first time in her life she feels weak, vulnerable - old.When her troubled god-daughter Julia arrives at Wallaby Bay, she seems to offer Eve a reprieve from her own concerns. But there is no such thing as plain sailing. Eve has another house guest, the abrasive Lucy, who is helping her recuperate and does not look kindly on Julia's desire for Eve's attention.But Lucy, too, has demons to battle and as each woman struggles to overcome their loss of place in the world, they start to realise that there may be more that holds them together, than keeps them apart.But will these birds of feather truly be able to reinvent what family means? Or will the secrets and hurts of the past shatter their precarious hold on their new lives ... and each other?PRAISE'A moving, feel-good, warm read about strong, loving women - the exact book we all need right now.' Mamamia

    This year, Angela surprises herself—she tells the truth....The Gillespies are far from the perfect family that Angela has made them out to be. Her husband is coping badly with retirement. Her thirty-two-year-old twins are having career meltdowns. Her third daughter, badly in debt, can’t stop crying. And her ten-year-old son spends more time talking to his imaginary friend than to real ones.Without Angela, the family would fall apart. But when a bump on the head leaves Angela with temporary amnesia, the Gillespies pull together—and pull themselves together—in wonderfully surprising ways....

    Coming home was never going to be easy ...With a failed marriage behind her, and her career dreams in tatters, Sarah returns home to Lord Howe Island to run the family store. Paradise to most, Lord Howe is the last place Sarah wants to be, trapped on an island with her two ex-best friends, Floss and Jules.Floss has the life she always wanted: married to her high school sweetheart, Andy, with five gorgeous children. But something is missing from her marriage. And now she has a secret that threatens to tear her happy family apart, and the only person she can talk to is the woman who pushed her away.For Jules, forgetting the past is impossible. Her four-year-old daughter is an everyday reminder of the friendships she has lost. But when a discovery turns her life upside down, she knows this is an opportunity to set things right.This summer, can these women overcome the pain of the past and find their way back to the friendship they once had?

    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 risqu� 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 do 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?PRAISE FOR KERRI TURNER'Beautiful, daring, deceptive and surprising.' The Australian Women's Weekly'An impressive debut ... one of the strengths of the novel is the tapestry it creates of everyday life in an era of great turbulence.' Queensland Times

    Determined to solve the mystery of her birth and the reason why she was bequeathed the hotel Belle runs into difficulties with the townsfolk and their desire to keep their secrets safe.Sixty years later Sophie Matheson is on a quest to find Belle and her family after discovering the wedding dress. The Sweet Wattle Creek Centenary brings more challenges when her past catches up and she must fight for all that matters to her. Who were Belle and Martha and what links their lives together?

    She must prove to Anders Sæterdal, her trapping partner who makes no secret of his disdain, that a woman is fit for the task. Over the course of a Svalbard winter, Wanny and Sæterdal will confront polar bears, traverse glaciers, withstand blizzards and the dangers of sea ice, and hike miles to trap Arctic fox, all in the frigid darkness of the four-month polar night. For Wanny, the darkness hides her own deceptions that, if exposed, speak to the untenable sacrifice of a 1930s woman longing to fulfil a dream. Alongside the raw, confronting nature of the trappers’ work, is the story of a young blue Arctic fox, itself a hunter, who must eke out a living and navigate the trappers’ world if it is to survive its first Arctic winter.

    Her ex has found love again, her children have their own lives, and it’s beginning to feel like her only comfort comes from her dog and her job as a taxidermist. So when Flick gets an offer to work in New Orleans for a few months, she’s drawn to the chance to make a fresh start.Zoe is ready to start a family with her husband, but when he betrays her, she’s left shattered and desperate for a change of scenery. Joining her mother on the other side of the world to drown her sorrows seems the perfect solution.Although both mother and daughter are wary of risking their hearts to love again, Theo, a jazz bar owner, and Jack, a local ghost hunter, offer fun, friendship and distraction. But all is not as it seems in New Orleans…A chance meeting with Aurelia, a reclusive artist who surprises them with lessons from her life, prompts Flick and Zoe to reassess what they want too. Can all three women learn from the past in order to embrace their future?An uplifting novel about three women joyously learning to move on after heartbreak by the bestselling author of The Patterson Girls and Flying The Nest.

    That is, until Art's wife Grace, a battle-hardened nurse, gets to work on them all with her no-nonsense wisdom.Told with Kim Kelly's inimitable wit and warmth, Sunshine is a very Australian tale of home, hope and healing, of the power of growing life and love, and discovering that we are each other's greatest gifts.Praise for Kim Kelly'colourful, evocative and energetic' - Sydney Morning Herald'Kelly is a masterful creator of character and voice' - Julian Leatherdale'Why can't more people write like this?' - The Age