Their journey takes an unexpected turn, however, and Arabella finds herself in the desert - all alone. Her fate might have been sealed if not for a group of Aborigines that take her to Marree, a small town in the outback, cut off from the rest of the world. While her parents believe her dead, Arabella is all on her own...

    But on the ship bound for Australia, she meets Dr. Tristan Faulkner, who awakens her heart to desire--and dares her to want more. Surrounded by a primitive aboriginal culture, Hallie fights to carve a future from the exotic wilds.

    Determined not to forgo her dream of breeding the perfect racehorse, Lilibeth ignores propriety and sets out to restore the family’s flagging fortunes.When Captain Tom and his mismatched band of bushrangers stumble across a mob of the best horses they’ve ever seen, and the daughter of the famed Dungarven horse stud, they know their fortunes have changed. Their catch is worth a king’s ransom. All they have to do is hold her for seven days. How hard can it be to control the pampered daughter of a colonial upstart?

     Cynthia Freeman, New York Times bestselling authorSet in the untamed landscape of mid-nineteenth century Australia, The Dreaming is a rich and potent tale of hidden passion and broken taboo from acclaimed novelist Barbara Wood.Australia, 1871 Following her mother s sudden death, Joanna Drury sets sail from India and arrives in Melbourne to claim the property left to her by her mother and to trace the mysteries of her family s past.From her first steps on shore, Joanna becomes entangled with a lost boy who leads her to the fascinating Hugh Westbrook. She agrees to look after the child, Adam, in exchange for Hugh s help in finding her inheritance. But she falls deeply in love with Hugh and with life at his sheep station, Merinda.When strange nightmares begin to plague her the same that tormented her mother Joanna starts to notice the Aborigines strange reaction to her. Delving into Australia s past, she searches out the tragic events that have marked her family s destiny and her own life, events that happened long ago in the time the Aborigines call the Dreaming .Full of intriguing historical detail, Wood s compelling story brings the clash of immigrant and Aboriginal cultures to stunning life, capturing the danger, mystery, and romance of an emerging country.

    When, in 1942, the family are threatened with eviction, Martha Cole and her small son, Jem, flee the house, while Martha's husband, Sam, and their eight-year-old daughter, Romy, barricade themselves inside Middlemere. When Sam brandishes a shotgun, the police are called in, and Romy sees her father shot dead. Years later, Martha Cole has remarried and she and her family are living in much-reduced circumstances. Romy, now almost nineteen, is quick, clever and single-minded. She has never forgotten - or forgiven - the violence and injustice of the Coles' eviction, and schemes to restore the family fortunes.

    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?

    This is 1920 and a woman has rights - she might still be too young to vote, but she's not going to be treated like a chattel. But she's reckoned without the brother-in-law she's always despised, who brutally shatters her comfortable world, so she has no choice but to sail to Australia. When Michael Winterbourne, a Cumbrian lead miner wakes up with a hangover after his engagement celebrations, he has no idea he is about to be the cause of a terrible tragedy that will change his life and destroy his family. When Michael and Elizabeth meet on the SS Historic, bound for Sydney, they are reluctant emigrants from England. They may start to hope their troubles are over, but they'll find they're only just beginning. A Greater World is set in the early 1920s, a period of transition between the old pre-World War One way of life and the post-War, with the coming economic Depression, major social change and the evolving role of women in society.

    and the magic of a place called Zanana.KATE, a strong-willed heiress determined to defy Edwardian convention, but she must pay the ultimate price to keep the home she loves so much...ODETTE, an independant and idealistic young jounalist caught in a fierce battle to save Zanana from ruthless developers...Years apart yet inextricably linked by Zanana, the magnificent mansion they both love, these two striking women prove they are not afraid to fight for what they believe in.• From turn-of-the century India to contempory Sydney, The Last Rose of Summer is an epic story of love, possession and intrigue.

    for the first time, a post-WWII story of the war brides who crossed the seas by the thousands to face their unknown futures.1946. World War II has ended and all over the world, young women are beginning to fulfill the promises made to the men they wed in wartime. In Sydney, Australia, four women join 650 other war brides on an extraordinary voyage to England—aboard HMS Victoria, which still carries not just arms and aircraft but a thousand naval officers. Rules are strictly enforced, from the aircraft carrier’s captain down to the lowliest young deckhand. But the men and the brides will find their lives intertwined despite the Navy’s ironclad sanctions. And for Frances Mackenzie, the complicated young woman whose past comes back to haunt her far from home, the journey will change her life in ways she never could have predicted—forever.

    And it is here, on a cliff edge, that she first meets a young girl, Aurora, who will profoundly change her life. Mysteriously drawn to Aurora, Grania discovers that the histories of their families are strangely and deeply entwined . . .From a bittersweet romance in wartime London to a troubled relationship in contemporary New York, from devotion to a foundling child to forgotten memories of a lost brother, the Ryans and the Lisles, past and present, have been entangled for a century. Ultimately, it will be Aurora whose intuition and remarkable spirit help break the spell and unlock the chains of the past.Haunting, uplifting and deeply moving, Aurora's story tells of the triumph of hope over loss.

    But money and prestige cannot protect Kelly and her loved ones from tragedy. A gripping family saga blockbuster set in the Australian outback and London's high society from the 1930s to the 1970s. Perfect for fans of Penny Vincenzi and Barbara Taylor Bradford. From early beginnings as the illegitimate daughter of a housekeeper, Kelly Anderson is transformed into a sophisticated society hostess. Her journey from poverty and shame to wealth and prestige is an eventful one, with many twists and turns. It is a life full of love, passion, ambition and family loyalty. Kelly makes many sacrifices for the men in her life, but her most important role is as mother to three very different young women. Though not her daughters by birth, her ties to Laura, Julia and Kate are thicker than blood. Can Kelly save them from heartbreak and scandal? Shall each find her own place in what is still a man's world? And is there to be lasting happiness and love for Kelly? Or will dark forces and shocking events destroy all that she loves and has fought for?

    She must travel to Australia to find out the truth about her birth.

    What she finds is a dusty main street lined with ramshackle buildings.That is until she walks through the doors of Mr Chen's Emporium, a veritable Aladdin's cave, and her life changes forever. Though banned from the store by her dour clergyman father, Amy is entranced by its handsome owner, Charles Chen ...In present-day Millbrooke, recently widowed artist Angie Wallace has rented the Old Manse where Amy once lived. When her landlord produces an antique trunk containing Amy's intriguingly diverse keepsakes - both Oriental and European - Angie resolves to learn more about this mysterious girl from the past.And it's not long before the lives of two very different women, born a century apart, become connected in the most poignant and timeless ways.

    An intelligent, moral take on a highly topical issue - this will take Thomas Keneally to a new level, gaining him a new generation of fans

    J. Robinson comes a family saga amidst the backdrop of the Civil War and a deadly hurricane, rising floodwaters in the Big Easy, or Crescent City, as a plantation on River Road in Vacherie, Louisiana, is threatened. Will Hurricane Katrina destroy what the Civil War spared? Margaret Jane Turnrow first laid eyes on River Oaks Plantation amid lush foliage and oak trees dripping with Spanish moss when she returned from her honeymoon as a petite hazel-eyed fifteen-year-old bride to the antebellum mansion. She immediately fell in love with the house and grounds and beautifying the garden with plants. Her first task involved lining the oak drive with azaleas. Determined to have the best plantation gardens, she soon recreated formal ones designed from precious memories of France, Italy, and England she'd toured on her honeymoon. Before the Civil War, she imported plants, and gardening became her passion. During the war, it was her only one. The fertile Louisiana soil loved and nursed her plants as much as she did, and they grew like the cotton and sugarcane. Pale as a magnolia blossom, she sparkled like the sun reflecting off Lake Pontchartrain when she flashed pearly white teeth with her camellia red smile, but small white hands tucked demurely into the folds of her gown as she sat quietly during elegant dinners, concealed her true vivacious spirit. The war would change the shy woman-child as it ravaged through her life and took its toll on the home and family life she came to know and love with all of her heart. Before the Civil War, dashing Danny Paul Turnrow stood six-foot-two-inches, as tall and elegant as the white-columned plantation home he'd purchased on the banks of the Mississippi River. He led a charmed life as a charismatic cotton baron known as one of the richest men on River Road. River Oaks boasted over thirty-five-hundred acres of fertile Louisiana soil, mostly planted in cotton with the exception of some sugarcane along the Mississippi River banks and his wife's gardens. He returned from the war a different man, as broken as the pillared splendor of the South. Surrounded by cypress swamps and sugarcane fields on the river's end and white blankets of cotton edging the dirt roads, River Oaks Plantation still stood, but the grand life he'd led turned to one of backbreaking toil. He no longer stood so tall and proud with an aching back hunched over Louisiana cotton fields. With the future uncertain, fear lurks in his heart and soul and clouds his mind. What will sustain his marriage through the loss? Can they defend what's most precious to them and maintain River Oaks as a working plantation? The manor home is the only legacy he has left and the only life he has ever known. Will he lose it? Years later, Amaryllis Camilla O'Brien is stranded alone with two dogs on the top floor of an antebellum plantation in Vacherie, Louisiana, as a deadly hurricane rips and roars through the city and raging floodwaters threaten to devour the old home. She discovers a yellowed diary. Will family secrets drown in the flood with her? Will the diary matter? She's determined to save it and the dogs, or die trying. Has her grandmother left her a sinking ship? Noah Gautreaux, the plantation manager, took vehicles to higher ground and is supposed to return, but will he make it in time to save Amaryllis and his pet girls? The old house withstood the floods of 1973, 1983, and 1993. He doesn't think he has to worry about it floating off down the Mississippi River, but as excessive rain and wind continue to batter the area and the water continues to rise when the levee breaches, he realizes there's a first time for everything and this could be it for the white-columned beauty of ages past.