Her dreams of a fulfilling life after art college didn't include cleaning up after bored school children and being a doormat for her yuppie boyfriend. What she really wants is to be more like her friend Meg - at least she has turned her art training into a lucrative job in computer design, not to mention having a doting husband and a gorgeous baby son to complete the package.But when Ally's grandfather and sole relative dies, she returns to the Southern Highland home of her childhood where she must confront painful issues from her past that her safe life in the city has allowed her to ignore. Meanwhile, Meg is not as happy as Ally imagines. Dissatisfied with her picture-perfect life, a restless Meg longs to inject more passion and spontaneity into her days - but at what cost to her family's happiness?

    From this simple scenario Patrick White unfurls a monumental exploration of the tides of love and hate, comedy and tragedy, impotence and longing that fester within family relationships.

    Here is a story that resonates long after reading.’ — Andrea Goldsmith‘I was captivated by this honest, beautiful story that fuses love and art with the most profound challenges of motherhood. Written with extraordinary emotional wisdom and intelligence.’ — Liz ByrskiCamille is a nurse specialising in supporting families through the difficult decision to donate the organs of their dying loved ones. Camille’s mother is a gifted but uncompromising transplant surgeon determined to make it in a man’s world until her own life falls apart. And Camille herself is a mother to Addie – five years old, critically ill and in desperate need of the very organs her mother and grandmother work with.

    An award-winning work, Cloudstreet exemplifies the brilliant ability of fiction to captivate and inspire. Struggling to rebuild their lives after being touched by disaster, the Pickle family, who've inherited a big house called Cloudstreet in a suburb of Perth, take in the God-fearing Lambs as tenants. The Lambs have suffered their own catastrophes, and determined to survive, they open up a grocery on the ground floor. From 1944 to 1964, the shared experiences of the two overpopulated clans -- running the gamut from drunkenness, adultery, and death to resurrection, marriage, and birth -- bond them to each other and to the bustling, haunted house in ways no one could have anticipated.

    At 7, she discovers that love isn't necessarily forever.At 21, she finds love but it escapes her.At 35, she learns that love can be dangerous.By 49, she realises that the greatest love of all comes from the heart.As her life's milestones come and go, you will recognise yourself in her: her loves, her mistakes, and her belief that she doesn't deserve more.Australian author Tasma Walton's debut novel is a moving and confronting fable about the power of the human heart, the worthiness of its desires and the often dire consequences of ignoring them.

    Moments that make us who we are. But what if they don't unfold the way they're supposed to...?What if you get on the wrong bus, or don't speak to the right person at a party, or stay in a job that isn't for you? Will you miss your one chance at happiness? Or will happiness find you eventually, when the moment is right?Meet Matthew and Myrtle. They have never really felt like they fitted - in life or with anyone else. But they are meant to be together - if only they can find each other.A powerful and emotional story about missed chances, interwoven lives and the moments that define us.

    Rowan’s brother Albert, the natural heir to the farm, has died and Rowan’s dad’s health is failing. Although he longs to, there is no way that Rowan can refuse his mother’s request as she prepares the farm for sale.This is the story of the final harvest – the story of a young man in a place he doesn’t want to be, being given one last chance to make peace before the past, and those he has loved, disappear.

    When a Maori family moves into number 14, the local cranks assume they are Middle Eastern terrorists hell-bent on destroying the Australian way of life. Rumour has it that they plan to turn their house to face Mecca.This sets off an extraordinary chain of events that embroils the entire neighbourhood as well as cynical media figures, bumbling anti-terrorist police, and a gang of white supremacists with a radical plan to wake up the country and ‘preserve Australian values’. At the centre of it all is Gordon, a retired widower, who just wants a bit of peace and quiet.Deadly Kerfuffle is a smart, riveting and incredibly funny novel inspired by actual letters to the editor in a local newspaper. Through biting satire and a cast of unforgettable characters, it’s an insight into the kind of paranoia that could only ever blossom in the quietest and safest of places.

    Not being happy all the time makes them stressed out of their tights. Carol practises uninhibited sex which ends with her panty liner stuck to the bottom of someone's shoe. Donnie, after a mystery bite in a third world country, thinks he's incubating a nest of spiders up his bum. Daphne gets fat. She makes soup all the time and wonders if Woolworth's sell a hose pipe to fit a Vauxhall Vectra. Pierce is a poet; a fat balding womaniser who's only steady relationship is with a cup at the sperm bank. He's the only one not on anti-depressants, and he's the hero.

    . .but he was also manipulative and controlling, especially to those he loved.  His death begins to unravel deep secrets and shocking desires among the people he cared about the most. . . His daughter, Kristine, feels that with her father’s death she is finally free.  His best friend and business partner, Lamar, feels that now can finally have what he has longed for all these years: Kristine.  His protégé, Cole, the boxing champion and rising star, married a woman Bishop never approved of and may have been right about.  Rayne, the blues singer and ex-junkie relied on Bishop to keep her clean and is now slipping down a dark path without him.  And Rhonda, Lamar’s wife, is determined to ignore what has been unfolding in front of her if it means that her predictable life will go unchanged.  And then a newcomer steps onto the scene and threatens to turn everything upside down. Five very different people whose lives are only connected by Bishop suddenly find themselves up close and personal as desires, dreams and passions collide.

    When fortune deserts Jai and his carefully ordered life spins inexorably out of control, Jai stands on the brink of ruin. Only a delayed monsoon can save Jai’s biggest project from disaster, but there are millions across the land praying for the exact opposite. Reason seems to have its limits - the weather defies all prediction, let alone control. Will Jai relinquish the beliefs of a lifetime? Will he reconcile with the awful ambiguity about his past? Will he be able to save his crumbling marriage?

    He was a womaniser, a heavy drinker and a bon viveur, but to them he became a saviour. This is the extraordinary story of Oskar Schindler, who risked his life to protect Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland and who was transformed by the war into a man with a mission, a compassionate angel of mercy.

    It begins in the early part of the 20th century, when Paddy Cleary moves his wife, Fiona, and their seven children to Drogheda, the vast Australian sheep station owned by his autocratic and childless older sister; and it ends more than half a century later, when the only survivor of the third generation, the brilliant actress Justine O'Neill, sets a course of life and love halfway around the world from her roots.The central figures in this enthralling story are the indomitable Meggie, the only Cleary daughter, and the one man she truly loves, the stunningly handsome and ambitious priest Ralph de Bricassart. Ralph's course moves him a long way indeed, from a remote Outback parish to the halls of the Vatican; and Meggie's except for a brief and miserable marriage elsewhere, is fixed to the Drogheda that is part of her bones - but distance does not dim their feelings though it shapes their lives.Wonderful characters people this book; strong and gentle, Paddy, hiding a private memory; dutiful Fiona, holding back love because it once betrayed her, violent, tormented Frank, and the other hardworking Cleary sons who give the boundless lands of Drogheda the energy and devotion most men save for women; Meggie; Ralph; and Meggie's children, Justine and Dane. And the land itself; stark, relentless in its demands, brilliant in its flowering, prey to gigantic cycles of drought and flood, rich when nature is bountiful, surreal like no other place on earth.Alternate Cover Edition ISBN 0380018179 (ISBN13: 9780380018178)

    Although she's had her ups and downs, life is good now: she lives with her twin brother, Onyx, and another friend in an artsy community in Cincinnati and is pursuing a master's degree in psychology. An avid reader, Ophelia likes everything to be orderly, including her job at a nearby bookstore. But when a good-looking stranger ends up in her apartment-invited to crash on their couch by her brother-her life begins to change forever.Brax Smith arrives to Cincinnati with nothing other than his van, having left Florida to start a new life, escaping the memories of losing his mother to cancer and dealing with his drunk father. A recovering alcoholic himself, Brax meets two guys at a group session in an eclectic area of Cincinnati when he gets to town. He feels grateful to have a place to stay but also comes face-to-face with the sister of one of his new friends, who is less than excited to have an additional roommate. Can he win her over, despite the fact that she has no interest in being his friend?In this novel, the lives of two struggling people collide and take them on a roller-coaster journey of good times and bad, ultimately leading to true love, devotion, and tragedy.

    The unbridled enthusiasm of their flamboyant grandmother Lola was the glue that held them together. As adults, though, the women haven't spoken in years - ever since Bett's fiance deserted her to marry the younger Carrie. Now Lola is turning eighty and she is determined to reunite the girls for a blowout bash. And no one ever says no to Lola.Bett, who fled to London after the scandal of losing her fiance, is hesitant to face her sisters and her hometown - especially since she has yet to find another man. Sophisticated Anna, the eldest sister, isn't too keen on the prospect either, though she's secretly grateful for any excuse to leave her crumbling marriage behind in Sydney. And Carrie, who remained in Clare Valley, is perhaps the most apprehensive. Her marriage - the nominal cause of the sisters' estrangement - is also on the rocks. Was she wrong to have followed her heart and run off with Bett's fiance?When Lola shares her special request, that the girls stage a musical she has written, their short visit becomes a much longer commitment. As they are forced to spend more time together, the sisters must confront the pain that lingers between them. Preconceptions and misunderstandings are slowly put aside and the three find themselves gradually, irresistibly enveloping one another once again - until an unexpected turn of events changes everything in ways none of them could have ever imagined. . . .Layering the lighthearted antics of small-town life with a heartbreaking story of loyalty lost and found, The Alphabet Sisters is an unforgettable story of two generations of women who learn that being true to themselves means being true to one another.