Book picks similar to
Cold Coast by Robyn Mundy


historical-fiction
australian-author
literary-fiction
australia

Small Blessings


Emily Brewin - 2019
    Her violent ex-boyfriend, Joel, is out of jail and she's determined he won't find her or their eleven-year-old son.For Isobel Hutchins, the cost of success is beginning to prove too high. Her impressive career and comfortable lifestyle can't protect her from the news her mother is dying or the need to face her past.When tragedy strikes, Rosie and Isobel are thrown together despite their differences. In this difficult space, they draw strength from each other and form an unlikely friendship that may just see them through.Small Blessings is a poignant and uplifting tale of secrets, motherhood, innocence and heartache, and ultimately what we're willing to do for love.

Sweet Wattle Creek


Kaye Dobbie - 2015
    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?

The Charleston Scandal


Pamela Hart - 2020
    Cast in a West End play opposite another young hopeful, Canadian Zeke Gardiner, she dances blithely into the heady lifestyle of English high society and the London theatre set, from Noel Coward to Fred Astaire and his sister, Adele.When Kit is photographed dancing the Charleston alongside the Prince of Wales, she finds herself at the centre of a major scandal, sending the Palace into damage control and Kit to her aristocratic English relatives - and into the arms of the hedonistic Lord Henry Carleton. Amid the excesses of the Roaring Twenties, both Zeke and Kit are faced with temptations - and make choices that will alter the course of their lives forever.Readers of Natasha Lester's A KISS FROM MR FITZGERALD will love THE CHARLESTON SCANDAL. Bestselling author Pamela Hart's energetic, masterful storytelling will have you glued right until the end.

When the Night Comes


Favel Parrett - 2014
    But, for Isla and her brother, their mother's sadness and the cold, damp greyness of Hobart's stone streets seeps into everything.Then, one morning, Isla sees a red ship. That colour lights her day. And when a sailor from the ship befriends her mother, he shares his stories with them all - of Antarctica, his home in Denmark and life onboard. Like the snow white petrels that survive in the harshest coldest place, this lonely girl at the bottom of the world will learn that it is possible to go anywhere, be anything. But she will also find out that it is just as easy to lose it all.For Isla, those two long summers will change everything.Favel Parrett delivers an evocative and gently told story about the power fear and kindness have to change lives.

The House of Second Chances


Esther Campion - 2019
    After a trip home from Australia, Ellen is keen to bring the neglected home back to its former glory and enlists the help of her dear friend and one of Ireland's top interior designers, Colette Barry.Aidan is already begrudging the work on the house he has avoided for nearly twenty years. The last thing the builder needs is an interior designer who seems to do nothing but complicate his life. With their own personal heartaches to overcome, will Aidan and Colette find the courage to give the house and themselves a second chance?

Locust Summer


David Allan-Petale - 2021
    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.

Islands


Peggy Frew - 2019
    We fell out. We made a mess. We draped ourselves in blame and disappointment and lurched around, bumping into each other. Some of us wailed and shouted; some of us barely made a sound. None of us was listening, or paying attention. And in the middle of it all you, very quietly, were gone. Helen and John are too preoccupied with making a mess of their marriage to notice the quiet ways in which their daughters are suffering. Junie grows up brittle and defensive, Anna difficult and rebellious. When fifteen-year-old Anna fails to come home one night, her mother's not too worried; Anna's taken off before but always returned. Helen waits three days to report her disappearance. But this time Anna doesn't come back ... A spellbinding novel in the tradition of Helen Garner, Charlotte Wood and Georgia Blain, Islands is a riveting and brilliant portrait of a family in crisis by the breathtakingly talented author of House of Sticks and Hope Farm.

The Long Weekend


Fiona Palmer - 2021
    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.

The Railwayman's Wife


Ashley Hay - 2013
    But in Thirroul, in 1948, she’s not the only person trying to chase dreams through books. There’s Roy McKinnon, who found poetry in the mess of war, but who has now lost his words and his hope. There’s Frank Draper, trapped by the guilt of those his medical treatment and care failed on their first day of freedom. All three struggle to find their own peace, and their own new story.But along with the firming of this triangle of friendship and a sense of lives inching towards renewal come other extremities—and misunderstandings. In the end, love and freedom can have unexpected ways of expressing themselves.The Railwayman’s Wife explores the power of beginnings and endings, and how hard it can sometimes be to tell them apart. Most of all, it celebrates love in all its forms, and the beauty of discovering that loving someone can be as extraordinary as being loved yourself.

Something Like This


Karly Lane - 2020
    It was a tough transition from his army days to civilian life, and he's looking forward to settling into a solitary life.Tilly Hollis is working two jobs to save for her dream career: running an equine therapy program. Tilly loves her horses more than anything, and after losing her husband and business partner just a few years earlier, she's determined to make it work on her own.When Jason walks into the cafe where Tilly works, they're immediately drawn to one another. But can they overcome their pasts to find a future together?

Return to Roseglen


Helene Young - 2018
    On her remote North Queensland cattle station, Ivy Dunmore is facing the end of her days. Increasingly frail, all she holds dear is threatened not just by crippling drought, but by jealousy and greed – and that’s from within her own family.Can Felicity, who's battling her own crisis as her fiftieth birthday approaches, protect her mother and reunite her family under the homestead's faded iron roof? Or will sibling rivalries erupt and long-held secrets from the past break a family in crisis?

Those Hamilton Sisters


Averil Kenny - 2021
    That was until she ran away, twenty years ago, under a cloud of shame. It's now 1955 and following their mother's death, the Hamilton sisters - Sonnet, Fable and little Novella Plum - have returned to Noah Vale to live near their aunt and uncle.Sonnet, twenty years old and legal guardian to her siblings, has never stepped foot in Noah Vale, yet has been the talk of the town for decades. Fable, at twelve-years-old, is a talented artist and lovelier than even her heartbreaking mother had been. And three year old Plum is just a little girl who's lost her mother and been taken away from the only home she's ever known.As the years pass, the three sisters settle into their new life, working in the town, going to school and swimming in the perfect waterfalls nearby. But suspicion and judgment continue to follow the Hamilton sisters wherever they go. In a small town where everyone thinks they know everything about each other, it's hard to escape the past. And when Fable falls in love with Noah Vale's golden boy, is history destined to repeat itself?Those Hamilton Sisters is a warm, captivating and irresistible story of love, family, secrets and finding your place in the world. For readers of Lucinda Riley and Kate Morton.

The Sunken Road


Garry Disher - 1996
    At once the story of a region, a town and people, it is also the story of Anna Tolley - "leggy, wilful and auburn-haired, always answering back" - who lives through momentous changes and earns the envy, love and hatred of those around her.

Rush Oh!


Shirley Barrett - 2015
    But when the handsome John Beck-a former Methodist preacher turned novice whaler with a mysterious past-arrives at the Davidson's door pleading to join her father's crews, suddenly Mary's world is upended.As her family struggles to survive the scarcity of whales and the vagaries of weather, and as she navigates sibling rivalries and an all-consuming first love for the newcomer John, nineteen-year-old Mary will soon discover a darker side to these men who hunt the seas, and the truth of her place among them. Swinging from Mary's own hopes and disappointments to the challenges that have beset her family's whaling operation, RUSH OH! is an enchanting blend of fact and fiction that's as much the story of its gutsy narrator's coming-of-age as it is the celebration of an extraordinary episode in history.

The Bushranger's Wife


Cheryl Adnams - 2019
    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.