Six short stories from Australia's master storyteller Judy Nunn.The Long Weekend Tracy, Eve, Jet, Mel and Danielle are looking forward – if a little nervously - to their upcoming digital detox. No phones, no laptops – just a quiet weekend in a remote mountain shack. What could go wrong? The Wardrobe When journalist Nancy buys a rundown terrace house she knows nothing about the previous owner - until a discovery in an old wardrobe reveals the lives, loves and losses in the world of Emily Roper. The Otto Bin Empire: Clive's Story To the homeless men and women who gather near the docks, the newly arrived Clive cuts an enigmatic figure. 'I'm just a bloke going through a period of adjustment,' he tells himself, 'I'll be back on my feet soon . . .' Changes As she celebrates her sixty-fifth birthday, actor turned film producer Jackie looks back on her seven decades – and all the many changes in her life. Not...

Discovery. Desire. Deception. A wondrously imagined tale of two female botanists, separated by more than a century, in a race to discover a life-saving flower . . .In Victorian England, headstrong adventuress Elizabeth takes up her late father's quest for a rare, miraculous plant. She faces a perilous sea voyage, unforeseen dangers and treachery that threatens her entire family.In present-day Australia, Anna finds a mysterious metal box containing a sketchbook of dazzling watercolours, a photograph inscribed 'Spring 1886' and a small bag of seeds. It sets her on a path far from her safe, carefully ordered life, and on a journey that will force her to face her own demons.In this spellbinding botanical odyssey of discovery, desire and deception, Kayte Nunn has so exquisitely researched nineteenth-century Cornwall and Chile you can almost smell the fragrance of the flowers, the touch of the flora on your fingertips . . .

A cache of unsent love letters from the 1950s is found in a suitcase on a remote island in this mysterious love story in the tradition of the novels by Kate Morton and Elizabeth Gilbert.1951. Esther Durrant, a young mother, is committed to an isolated mental asylum by her husband. Run by a pioneering psychiatrist, the hospital is at first Esther's prison but soon surprisingly becomes her refuge. 2018. Free-spirited marine scientist Rachel Parker embarks on a research posting in the Isles of Scilly, off the Cornish coast. When a violent storm forces her to take shelter on a far-flung island, she discovers a collection of hidden love letters. Captivated by their passion and tenderness, Rachel determines to track down the intended recipient. But she has no idea of the far-reaching consequences her decision will bring.Meanwhile, in London, Eve is helping her grandmother, a renowned mountaineer,...

Edgar Award nominee stuns in this heartrending tale set in a Swaziland boarding school where two girls of different castes bond over a shared copy of Jane Eyre.Adele Joubert loves being one of the popular girls at Keziah Christian Academy. She knows the upcoming semester at school is going to be great with her best friend Delia at her side. Then Delia dumps her for a new girl with more money, and Adele is forced to share a room with Lottie, the school pariah, who doesn't pray and defies teachers' orders. But as they share a copy of Jane Eyre, Lottie's gruff exterior and honesty grow on Adele, and Lottie learns to be a little sweeter. Together, they take on bullies and protect each other from the vindictive and prejudiced teachers. Then a boy goes missing on campus and Adele and Lottie must rely on each other to solve the mystery and maybe learn the true meaning of friendship.

Discovery. Desire. Deception. A wondrously imagined tale of two female botanists, separated by more than a century, in a race to discover a life-saving flower . . .In Victorian England, headstrong adventuress Elizabeth takes up her late father's quest for a rare, miraculous plant. She faces a perilous sea voyage, unforeseen dangers and treachery that threatens her entire family.In present-day Australia, Anna finds a mysterious metal box containing a sketchbook of dazzling watercolours, a photograph inscribed 'Spring 1886' and a small bag of seeds. It sets her on a path far from her safe, carefully ordered life, and on a journey that will force her to face her own demons.In this spellbinding botanical odyssey of discovery, desire and deception, Kayte Nunn has so exquisitely researched nineteenth-century Cornwall and Chile you can almost smell the fragrance of the flowers, the touch of the flora on your fingertips . . .

From LA Times Book Prize Award Winner and Edgar Award Nominee Malla Nunn comes a stunning portrait of a family divided and the bonds that knit our communities.When Amandla wakes up on her fifteenth birthday she knows it's going to be one of her mother's difficult days. Her mother has had another vision. If Amandla wears a blue sheet her mother has loosely stitched as a dress and styles her normally braided hair in a halo around her head, Amandla's father will come home. Amandla's mother, Annalisa, always speaks of her father as if he was the prince of a fairytale, but in truth he's been gone since before Amandla was born and even Annalisa's memory of him is hazy. In fact many of Annalisa's memories from before Amandla was born are hazy. It's just one of the many reasons people in Sugar Town give Annalisa and Amandla strange looks—that and the fact her mother is white and Amandla is brown.But when Amandla finds a mysterious address in the bottom of her mother's...

What if memories never die? An evocative Australian YA novel about family, place, and how history has a way of weaving itself into our present.What if memories never die?When fifteen-year-old Will is sent away to stay with his grandparents in rural New South Wales, he finds the isolated farm strangely familiar; except the memories he's channelling are not his own. But whose are they? And why does his grandfather share the same haunting link?As two stories unfold, nearly 200 years apart, two boys exiled to what feels like the end of the earth struggle to find their identities and voices in the face of abandonment and tragedy.A page-turning YA novel that explores the darker moments of our convict past and how they resonate today.

Career campaigner Fraser Neal continually clashed with local businessmen, most recently over the council's selling publicly-owned social housing in the Docklands to private developers and displacing vulnerable residents. Until he's found dead in an alley behind Tennessee Fried Chicken's wheelie bins. Neal was also a police informant – or so he said. DS Max Lomax of Special Operations says he wasn't. No one believes him.Max's reluctant inquiries into Fraser's murder take him through the rundown estates, church soup kitchens and graffitied shopfronts of southeast London. He's unaware that his investigation is linked to Johnny Nunn, a former boxer living on the streets, who has given everything to the search for his missing daughter. For five years Johnny has been consumed by a vision of finding his girl and bringing her home, but now he allows himself to be drawn into another family's tragedy.Johnny knows the only beaten man is the one who's stopped fighting.The killers may not.

  The stories of three fascinating women weave seamlessly together in this atmospheric book set against the sumptuous backdrop of the eighteenth-century silk trade . . . . . a mystery that is so compelling. Weaving. Healing . Haunting. The spellbinding story of a mysterious boarding school sheltering a centuries-old secret . . . . Australian history teacher Thea Rust arrives at an exclusive boarding school in the British countryside only to find that she is to look after the first intake of girls in its 150-year history. She is to stay with them in Silk House, a building with a long and troubled past. In the late 1700s, Rowan Caswell leaves her village to work in the home of an English silk merchant. She is thrust into a new and dangerous world where her talent for herbs and healing soon attracts attention.In London, Mary-Louise Stephenson lives amid the clatter of the weaving trade and dreams of becoming a silk designer, a job that is the domain of men. A length of fabric she weaves with a pattern of deadly flowers will have far-reaching consequences for all who dwell in the silk house. Intoxicating, haunting and inspired by the author's background, THE SILK HOUSE is an exceptional gothic mystery.

When something is taken away, it can make what's left all the sweeter – in winemaking, they call it the 'angels' share'.Mattie Cameron thinks she's got it all figured out: an impressive career in London, a gorgeous boyfriend and brilliant friends. But after a freak skiing accident leaves her with serious injuries, a broken heart and a job she can no longer do, moving back to Australia to recuperate at her brother Mark's winery in the Shingle Valley seems like the only option.Meanwhile, Mark is preoccupied with a catastrophic threat to the future of the valley and his partner, Rose, is juggling the demands of her burgeoning restaurant and being a stepmother, all the while secretly longing for a child of her own. As Mattie's injuries heal, she begins to wonder where her future might lie, especially when she finds herself struggling with her growing feelings for winemaker Charlie Drummond – who happens to be engaged to someone.Featuring the...

This ebook also includes an extract from Judy Nunn's new novel, Sanctuary.For eight years now Oskar the Pole has been a widower. As a homeless vagrant, pushing a supermarket trolley through the streets of life, he cuts a lonely figure.But Oskar has a talent. He can play chess, and he can play it well.Every afternoon, at the giant chessboard in the park, Oskar becomes a star, a master, the undefeated champion . . .The second of Judy Nunn's captivating short stories featuring the homeless men and women who gather around the plastic bins near the docks, is a heart-warming tale of friendship and community.

Set in Tasmania, Tiger Men is another brilliant work of historical fiction from master storyteller Judy Nunn. Van Diemen's Land was an island of stark contrasts; a harsh penal colony, an English idyll for its landed gentry, and an island so rich in natural resources it was a profiteer's paradise. Its capital Hobart Town had its contrasts too; the wealthy elite in their sandstone mansions, the exploited poor in the notorious slum known as Wapping, and the criminals and villains who haunted the dockside taverns and brothels of Sullivan's Cove. Hobart Town was no place for the meek. Tiger Men is the story of Silas Stanford, a wealthy Englishman; Mick O'Callaghan an Irishman on the run; and Jefferson Powell, an idealistic American political prisoner. It is also the story of the strong, proud women who loved them, and of the children they bore who rose to power in the cut-throat world of international trade. Tiger Men is the sweeping tale of three families who lived through Tasmania's golden era and witnessed the birth of the Commonwealth of Australia, only to watch its young men consumed by the fires and horror of the First World War. **

Hill Street - such a respectable address in a respectable suburb of West Hobart - the perfect place of residence for Professor Jameson and his wife and sons. But the neighbours are becoming concerned. Eileen Jameson and the boys haven't been seen for quite some time...When a gruesome discovery points the finger, quite literally, at the Professor's house, Inspector Max Carruthers and Detective Sergeant Lucas Matthews come knocking at the door. It's a day they will never forget ...

TERRITORY is the story of Henrietta Southern, a young Englishwoman who trades her war-torn homeland for a place of wild tropical storms and searing heat, crocodile-infested rivers and barren red wilderness. Six months after the bombing of Darwin, she joins her new husband, Spitfire pilot Terence Galloway, for a new life on his Northern Territory cattle station. It is also the story of their sons. Of Malcolm and Kit, two brothers who grow up in the harsh but beautiful environment, and share a baptism of fire as young men in the jungles of Vietnam. And what of the Dutch East Indies treasure ship which foundered off Western Australia in 1629? How is the Galloway family's destiny linked with Batavia's horrific tale of mutiny and murder ...? From the blazing inferno that was Darwin on 19 February 1942 to the devastation of Cyclone Tracy, from the red desert to the tropical shore, TERRITORY is a mile-a-minute read from one of Australia's best loved writers.

During the darkest days of the Cold War, in the remote wilderness of a South Australian desert, the future of an infant nation is being decided ... without its people's knowledge. A British airbase in the middle of nowhere; an atomic weapons testing ground; an army of raw youth led by powerful, ambitious men - a cocktail for disaster. Such is Maralinga in the spring of 1956. MARALINGA is the story of British Lieutenant Daniel Gardiner, who accepts a twelve-month posting to the wilds of South Australia on a promise of rapid promotion; Harold Dartleigh, Deputy Director of MI6 and his undercover operative Gideon Melbray; Australian Army Colonel Nick Stratton and the enigmatic Petraeus Mitchell, bushman and anthropologist. They all find themselves in a violent and unforgiving landscape, infected with the unique madness and excitement that only nuclear testing creates. MARALINGA is also a story of love; a love so strong that it draws the adventurous young English journalist...

He's willing to risk it all...is she? Stella Jane Scout has never met a cowboy as handsome as Joiner Temple. Or as aggravating. His Thoroughbred Argentinian stallion and professional polo player pedigree don't impress her one bit. At heart, he's still a footloose cowboy from Kilgore, and a reckless one at that. But her father hired him as a ranch hand for her riding school, so she'll have to rein in Joiner's wild streak and teach him to put safety first. At the same time, Joiner seems determined to bring out Stella's long-buried free spirit. If she can give him a place to call home, maybe he can teach her how to live.

Australian actress Samantha Lindsay is thrilled when she scores her first lead movie role in the Hollywood epic Torpedo Junction, playing a character based on World War II heroine 'Mamma Tack'. But as filming begins on Vanuatu, uncanny parallels between history and fiction emerge. Just who was the real Mamma Tack? And what mysterious forces are at play? The answers reveal not only bygone secrets but Sam's own destiny. In another era, Jane Thackeray travels from England to the far distant islands of the New Hebrides. Ensnared in the turmoil of war, Jane witnesses the devastating effect human conflict has upon an innocent race of people. There she meets Charles 'Wolf' Baker, a charismatic fighter pilot, and Jean-Francois Marat, a powerful plantation owner - and soon their lives are entwined in a maelstrom of love and hate ... From the dark days of Dunkirk to the vicious fighting that was Guadalcanal, from the sedate beauty of the English Channel ports to a tropical paradise,...

The Otto Bin Empire: Clive's Story is a tellingly poignant short story from bestselling author Judy Nunn. Also includes an extract from her new novel, Spirits of the Ghan. To the members of the Otto Bin Empire - the homeless men and women who gather around the plastic bins near the docks - Clive is an enigmatic addition to their ranks. Intelligent, healthy and always well presented, even Clive struggles to understand why he finds himself at the bottom of the barrel. How did it happen? 'I'm just a bloke going through a period of adjustment,' he tells himself, 'I'll be back on my feet soon.' But as the weeks turn into months Clive slowly adjusts to his circumstances. He finds tolerance, acceptance and friendship and slowly begins to see humanity in its purest light. He finally realises that dignity, self-respect and honour are to be found in abundance in the Otto Bin Empire . and who knows? Perhaps even love.

It had to be a mistake. Tara Elliott's grandmother had bequeathed the family office building to Tara—jointly? Her co-manager was Sam Kennesaw, the abrasive but still-handsome man who'd broken Tara's tender teenage heart nine years before.The will stated they needed to make business decisions together. At first the two couldn't agree on anything, but as the building's opening day drew near, the caring, generous man who'd stolen Tara's heart began to emerge. But Tara still couldn't believe she'd thought God meant for them to be together. It would take divine help to get them past a decade of pent-up bitterness...and into each other's arms.

Kalgoorlie. They called it Kal. It grew out of the red dust of the desert over the world's richest vein of gold. And like the gold it guarded, Kalgoorlie was a magnet to anyone with a sense of adventure, anyone who could dream. In a story as breathtaking and as sweeping as the land itself, bestselling author Judy Nunn brings Kal magically to life through the lives of two families, one Australian and one Italian. The Australian family are the Brearleys: Maudie, who runs the miners' pub, her husband 'Flash Harry', and his young son, Jack. The Italian family are the Giannis, railway workers from a small village in the Italian Alps, who dream of making a better life for themselves 'at the bottom of the world'. From the heady, early days of the gold rush to the horrors of the First World War in Gallipoli and France, to the shame and confrontation of the post-war riots, KAL is a moving love story and a page-turning action adventure novel.

A heart-warming short story of friendship and love from the pen of bestselling novelist Judy Nunn.When struggling young journalist Nancy buys a tiny rundown terrace in Surry Hills she knows nothing about the previous owner, other than the old lady died six months earlier.But a dusty box retrieved from underneath the old wardrobe in an upstairs bedroom soon changes all that. And the lives, loves and losses of Emily Roper and her best friend Margaret are tantalisingly revealed...

Photojournalist Erin Gray has seen the world through her camera. But she's never taken a snapshot of the husband and daughter she left behind years ago. After Erin suffers life-threatening injuries, she returns home to heal--with every intention of leaving again. But seeing her Texas Ranger husband with their teenage daughter begins to melt her heart. Daniel never lost faith that someday they would be reunited. Now he hopes that he and Erin can put the past behind and come together as a family forever.

A spell-binding, multi-generational novel, set in the ruthless world of movie-making.On a blistering hot day in 1850, George and Richard Ross take their first steps on Australian soil after three long months at sea. All they have is each other, and a quarterly remittance from their irate father who has banished them to the Colonies. A decade on, and the brothers are the owners of successful vineyard, Araluen, nestled in a beautiful green valley not far from Adelaide. Now a successful businessman, George has laid down the roots of his own Ross dynasty, born of the New World. But building a family empire - at any cost - can have a shattering effect on the generations to come ... From the South Australian vineyards of the 1850s to the opulence and corruption of Hollywood's golden age... From the relentless loneliness of the outback to mega-budget movie-making in modern-day New York... Judy Nunn weaves an intricate web of characters and locations in this spellbinding saga of...

Judy Nunn's bestselling debut, set in the steamy, cut-throat world of television.Edwina Dawling is the golden girl of Australian television. The former pop singer is now the country's most popular actress, an international star thanks to the hit TV soap TThe Glitter Game. But behind the seductive glamour of television is a cutthroat world where careers are made or destroyed with a word in the right ear . . . or a night in the right bed. Where success breeds envy and corruption, concealed in the flashing smiles at every premier event, every party. Only the ruthless make it to the top. And, as Edwina is soon to discover, they will stop at nothing to stay there. Not even murder. The Glitter Game is a delicious expose of the glitzy world of television, a scandalous behind-the-scenes look at what goes on when the cameras stop rolling.

Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper returns in this powerful, atmospheric novel about two communities forced to confront each other after a murder that exposes their secret ties and forbidden desires in apartheid South Africa, by award-winning author Malla Nunn. The body of a beautiful seventeen-year-old Zulu girl, Amahle, is found covered in wildflowers on a hillside in the Drakensberg Mountains, halfway between her father's compound and the enormous white-owned farm where she worked. Detective Sergeant Cooper and Detective Constable Samuel Shabalala are sent to the desolate landscape to investigate. They soon discover that Amahle's life was woven into both the black and white communities in ways they could never have imagined. Cooper and Shabalala must enter the guarded worlds of a traditional Zulu clan and a divided white farming community to gather up the secrets she left behind and bring her murderer to justice. In a country deeply divided by apartheid, where...

A remote town. A girl of rare and exquisite beauty. A murder that silences a whole community.The body of a seventeen-year-old girl has been found covered in wildflowers on a hillside in the Drakensberg Mountains, near Durban. She is the daughter of a Zulu chief, destined to fetch a high bride price. Was Amahle as innocent as her family claims, or is her murder a sign that she lived a secret life?Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper is sent to investigate. He must enter the guarded worlds of a traditional Zulu clan and a white farming community to gather up the clues Amahle left behind and bring her murderer to justice. But the silence in the valley is deafening, and it seems that everyone – from the uncooperative local police officer, to the white farm boy who seems obsessed with the dead girl – has something to hide.With no cause of death and no motive, Cooper's investigation is blocked at each turn. Can he tough it out, or will the small-town politics that stir up his feelings about the past be more than he can bear?

The Best-Laid Plans When injury ended her dance career, Jessica Holiday became a landscape designer. A society wedding offered her the chance to make a name for herself, and she vowed to get the job done without help from anyone -- especially handsome newcomer Captain Andrew Keegan. His neighbor might be beautiful, even up to her elbows in dirt, but Drew Keegan had to keep God's plan in sight -- marriage to the socialite of his father's choosing would enable him to help those who needed it most. But when Jessica's designs were jeopardized, Drew began to see his goal -- and Jessica -- in a new light . . .

Her entire career was hanging on the yes or no of a total stranger? Well, Casey Hardy would just have to show highfalutin British lawyer Barrett Westbrook what she was made of. And that was 100 percent serious Texan businesswoman. She'd worked so hard to prove to her father that she could run their family company. But one no from Barrett, with his ledgers and checklists, and Casey could forget her dreams--which now included a Lone Star courtship by him!

When Australian actress Jane Prescott is offered a job in England, she sees it as a chance to ignite her career. Little does she know that it's her stopover in Italy en route that will change her life. For just south of Rome, she discovers...The Hotel Visconti, a grand eighteenth-century villa...A colourfully flamboyant host...A lively party of American tourists...Glamorous locals who gather nightly in the cocktail bar...An Italian lover who looks uncannily like Ryan Gosling... What could go wrong?              

In Judy Nunn's latest compelling novel, compassion meets bigotry, hatred meets love, and ultimately despair meets hope on the windswept shores of Australia. On a barren island off the coast of Western Australia, a rickety wooden dinghy runs aground. Aboard are nine people who have no idea where they are. Strangers before the violent storm that tore their vessel apart, the instinct to survive has seen them bond during their days adrift on a vast and merciless ocean.Fate has cast them ashore with only one thing in common . . . fear. Rassen the doctor, Massoud the student, the child Hamid and the others all fear for their lives. But in their midst is Jalila, who appears to fear nothing. The beautiful young Yazidi woman is a mystery to them all. While they remain undiscovered on the deserted island, they dare to dream of a new life . . .But forty kilometres away on the mainland lies the tiny fishing port of Shoalhaven. Here everyone knows...

She's everything he didn't want...and exactly what he needs McCarthy Temple, the last unmarried Temple brother, was happy with his safe, predictable world. He had his family, his accounting business and his numbers. He didn't need love. He already had it all...except an assistant. Jacqueline Aimes was the least likely candidate. She was overqualified, gorgeous and only staying in Kilgore long enough to sell her parents' land. But as Jacqueline starts to permeate every aspect of his life, Mac finds it harder and harder to imagine life without her. Jacqueline's passion is her work for children in international war zones, though, not small-town living. So Mac has to find a Texas-size miracle to get her to stay...

A son of a forest dwelling people, Yhalen knows little of the world outside the ancestral forest, until he is captured by a band of ogres on a slave-taking mission. Only grim tales of the barbaric giants had reached the forest, but Yhalen soon learns that even the darkest fireside story only hinted at the brutality of these Northern warriors. He discovers the meaning of true fear at their hands, and only the awakening of ancient magic saves him from destruction.Surviving ogre viciousness, he finds himself given to Bloodraven, the half ogre, half human war leader as a slave. Yhalen, refusing to bend, soon pays the price for offending prickly ogre pride.But Bloodraven is no mindless, violent ogrish beast. Bloodraven has an agenda and Yhalen finds himself drawn in the wake into human and ogre politics, into bloodshed and cruelty and into the forbidden magic that is damnation in the eyes of his own people, but which might mean the difference between death and salvation.

Juggling the care of her toddler son and elderly parents kept young widow Abby Cramer busy from sunup to sundown. Just when she thought she had it all under control, her mother broke her hip at a home-improvement store. Good thing store employee Guy Hardy rushed in to save the day with his quick thinking, big smile and his tender kindness extended toward her whole family--especially Abby. Though she suspected Guy had a secret to hide, Abby wanted to believe he was a man of honor and faith. A man she could trust with her heart.

Award-winning screenwriter Malla Nunn delivers a stunning and darkly romantic crime novel set in 1950s apartheid South Africa, featuring Detective Emmanuel Cooper -- a man caught up in a time and place where racial tensions and the raw hunger for power make life very dangerous indeed. In a morally complex tale rich with authenticity, Nunn takes readers to Jacob's Rest, a tiny town on the border between South Africa and Mozambique. It is 1952, and new apartheid laws have recently gone into effect, dividing a nation into black and white while supposedly healing the political rifts between the Afrikaners and the English. Tensions simmer as the fault line between the oppressed and the oppressors cuts deeper, but it's not until an Afrikaner police officer is found dead that emotions more dangerous than anyone thought possible boil to the surface.

In a time when desperate people were seizing with both hands the chance for freedom, refugees from more than seventy nations gathered beneath the Southern Cross to forge a new national identity. They came from all over wartorn Europe to the mountains of Australia to help realise one man's dream: the mighty Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme, one of the greatest engineering feats of the 20th century. People of all races and creeds tunnelled through a mountain range to turn the course of a majestic river, trying to put to rest ghosts from the inferno of history: buried memories, unimaginable pain and deadly secrets. From the ruins of Berlin to the birth of Israel, from the Italian Alps to the Australian high country, HERITAGE is a passionate and fast-paced tale of rebirth, struggle, sacrifice and redemption, and a tribute to those who gave meaning to the Australian spirit.

Too Good to Be True?Juggling the care of her toddler son and elderly parents kept young widow Abby Cramer busy from sunup to sundown. And just when she thought she had it all under control, her mother broke her hip at a home-improvement store. Good thing store employee Guy Hardy rushed in to save the day.Even after the crisis was over, Guy seemed reluctant to end his time with the Cramers. With his generosity, big smile and tender kindness, he fit easily into a life that had been anything but easy for Abby. She wanted to trust him...with her son, with her family and with her heart. But she couldn't help but feel that he was hiding something....

In today's society it is generally the written word that holds the authority. We are more likely to trust the words found in a history textbook over the version of history retold by a friend – after all, human memory is unreliable, and how can you be sure your friend hasn't embellished the facts? But before humans were writing down their knowledge, they were telling it to each other in the form of stories. The Edge of Memory celebrates the predecessor of written information – the spoken word, tales from our ancestors that have been passed down, transmitting knowledge from one generation to the next. Among the most extensive and best-analysed of these stories are from native Australian cultures. These stories conveyed both practical information and recorded history, describing a lost landscape, often featuring tales of flooding and submergence. These folk traditions are increasingly supported by hard science. Geologists are starting to corroborate...

Alex Rainford has it all. He's sexy, charismatic and adored by fans the world over. But Alex is not all he seems. What spectre from the past is driving him ever closer to evil? And who will fall under his spell along the way? Madeleine Frances, beautiful stage and screen actress. Years before she had escaped Alex's fatal charm, but now she is forced to confront him once again...and reveal her devasting secret. Susannah Wright, the finest classical actress of her generation. Not even her awesome talent can save her from Alex's dangerous charisma. Imogen McLaughlin, the promising young actress whose biggest career break could be her greatest downfall. She wants Alex Rainford - and she has no idea that he has the power to destroy her... CENTRE STAGE is a tantalising, behind-the-scenes glimpse into the world of theatre and film and what goes on when the spotlight dims and the curtain falls.

Judy Nunn has sold over one million books worldwide. Elianne, her new bestseller, is a sweeping story of wealth, power, privilege and betrayal, set on a grand sugar cane plantation in Queensland. In the tough world of Queensland sugar mills, it's not only cane that is crushed ... In 1881 ‘Big Jim’ Durham, an English soldier of fortune and profiteer, ruthlessly creates for Elianne Desmarais, his young French wife, the finest of the great sugar mills of the Southern Queensland cane fields, and names it in her honour. The massive estate becomes a self-sufficient fortress, a cane-consuming monster and home to hundreds of workers, but ‘Elianne’ and its masters, the Durham Family, have dark and distant secrets; secrets that surface in the wildest and most inflammatory of times, the 1960s. For Kate Durham and her brothers Neil and Alan, freedom is the catchword of the decade.Young Australians leap to the barricades of the social revolution. Rock ‘n’ roll, the Pill, the Vietnam War, the rise of Feminism, Asian immigration and the Freedom Ride join forces to rattle the chains of traditional values. The workers leave the great sugar estates as mechanisation lessens the need for labour. And the Durham family, its secrets exposed, begins its fall from grace...

What if Sherlock Holmes had turned to crime instead of detection? THE CRIMINAL MASTERMIND OF BAKER STREET by Rob Nunn investigates this very concept. Holmes famously said that "when a clever man turns his brains to crime it is the worst of all." A sinister influence is at work in Victorian London with Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson running a hidden criminal empire. THE CRIMINAL MASTERMIND OF BAKER STREET explores all of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories through the lens of Holmes as a criminal while adding many new exciting tales of Holmes' daring to delight its readers.

Could he really be Professor Perfect? A handsome professor in a flannel shirt and a Texas Rangers cap? Returning to university just became less intimidating--and more intriguing--than Sarah Eason expected. As a widow in her thirties and single mom of three, Sarah's hardly a typical coed. Except Professor Cullen Temple is starting to make her feel like one. He's brilliant, attentive, incredibly sweet...and he's winning over her girls. Yet there's something troubled in those gray eyes. Something that makes her wonder if he might be too good to be true. Plus a bonus short story by USA TODAY bestselling author Ingrid Weaver

'The denuded earth of the iron-ore loading yards, the huge jetties thrusting their way out into the clear blue sea, the endless ponds of the solar salt farm, stretching stark and white over hundreds of hectares . . . all appeared a hideous invasion upon nature. But to Mike McAllister, there was something faintly ludicrous about it. Man's interference seemed petty in the face of such unconquerable timelessness. In millions of years, mankind would cease to exist, but this terrain would not. This was the Pilbara.... Floodtide is a brilliant observation of turbulent times in the mighty 'Iron Ore State' - Western Australia. The novel traces the fortunes of four men and four families over four memorable decades: The prosperous post-war 1950s when childhood is idyllic and carefree in the small, peaceful city of Perth . . . The turbulent 60s when youth is caught up in the conflict of the Vietnam War and free love reigns . . . The avaricious 70s when Western Australia's mineral boom...

Kidnapped by creatures out of folklore, Alex and Victoria find themselves stolen to a land beyond imagination and under the power of creatures both deadly and beautiful. Will the seductions of this new world destroy their love and doom newfound alliances, or is their presence, mortals from a world without magic the salvation of this forgotten, fey realm?

A riveting novel that tells the story of Sydney and the people who shaped its character, its skyline and its heart.In 1788, Thomas Kendall, a naïve nineteen-year-old sentenced to transportation for burglary, finds himself bound for Sydney Town and a new life in the wild and lawless land beneath the Southern Cross. Thomas fathers a dynasty that will last more than two hundred years. His descendants play their part in the forging of a nation, but greed and prejudice see an irreparable rift in the family which will echo through the generations. It is only at the dawn of the new Millennium - as an old journal lays bear a terrible secret - that the family can finally reclaim its honour... Beneath the Southern Cross is as much a story of a city as it is a family chronicle. Bringing history to life, Judy Nunn traces the fortunes of Kendall's descendants through good times and bad, wars and social revolutions to the present day, vividly drawing the events, characters and...

HIS PAST...OR HER FUTURE? From the moment Gillian Moore set foot in Temple Territory, she knew it was the perfect place to open her boutique hotel. The fact that it s also the ancestral home of currently out-of-work Texas cooking sensation Hunt Temple seems like fate. With the cowboy chef in her kitchen, success is practically guaranteed! Too bad their visions of his family land couldn t be further apart. Hunt can t let Gillian destroy his family legacy - not before he and his brothers have a chance to rebuild it. Hunt s prepared to challenge Gillian at every step and make sure she embraces the local Texas flavor. But despite their differences, they make an amazing team. And not just in business. Yet when Hunt s own opportunity knocks, even Texas may not be big enough for both of their careers.

Texas beauty Claire Savage learned a hard lesson the day her father left to pursue his selfish dreams. Trust no one. Now in possession of an MBA, and the owner of her own business, she felt in control. A woman like her had no use for church newcomer and former rocker Luke Dawson. What kind of a man had nothing better to do than produce music for her church's youth band? The kind of man she needed to keep an eye on.She never expected Luke's noble spirit to soothe her, yet could even his gentle touch curb her mistrust when his past resurfaced to threaten them both?

Six days before Christmas, Cooper sits at his desk at Johannesburg’s Marshall Square station, ready for his holiday in Mozambique. A call comes in: a respectable, white couple has been beaten and left for dead in their bedroom. The couple’s teenage daughter identifies the attacker as Aaron Shabalala – the youngest son of Zulu Detective Constable Samuel Shabalala – Cooper’s best friend and a man to whom he owes his life. The Detective Branch isn’t interested in evidence that might contradict their star witness’s story – especially so close to the holidays. Determined to ensure justice for Aaron, Cooper, Shabalala and their trusted friend Dr Daniel Zweigman hunt down the truth. Their investigation uncovers a violent world of Sophiatown gangs, thieves and corrupt police detectives who will do anything to keep their dark world intact . . .