The powerful true story of a man who would inspire one son to make a film about him, starring Geoffrey Rush, and the other to uncover his past, warts and all, in this unforgettable tale."My father was no ordinary man and his was no ordinary life ..." Watching Oscar-winning actor Geoffrey Rush portray his father in the film Swimming Upstream inspired John Fingleton to uncover the story no one had told, of his father's mysterious early life - and what made Harold the extraordinary man...

A gripping tale of a daring heroine testing her wits against a backdrop of secrets, spies and smugglers in perilous Far North Queensland in the late nineteenth century and based on a true story ...A daring heroine tests her wits against secrets, spies and smugglers on a remote Australian island 'It's peculiar, the assumptions we all make. For instance, how, in a diary, the truth bone's connected to the hand bone ... You shouldn't believe everything you read.' 1879, Queensland. Fleei...

From award-winning author Diane Armstrong comes a dramatic and heartwarming novel which brilliantly evokes postwar Sydney.A heart-warming novel in the tradition of CLOUDStREEt and tHE HARP IN tHE SOUtH Empire Day, 1948. A back street in Bondi is transformed as the fireworks of Cracker Night cast a magical glow over its humble cottages. But Australia as a whole is being transformed in this postwar era and the people of Wattle Street know that life will never be the same again. the 'r...

From childhood dreams of prostitution to her unabashed passion for heavy drinking, from growing up wide-eyed on the set of Australian soaps to her infatuation with Bob Ellis, these are the outrageously entertaining and deeply revealing reminiscences of a multimedia star. He was wearing a pair of leather pants that clung like terrified orphans to his muscular thighs, and a revealing black mesh t-shirt. The outfit seemed at odds with the cream-coloured settee and floral print curtains. From ...

The sensational lives and exploits of twenty audacious, brash and scandalous women, now in an all-new format.NOtORIOUS AUStRALIAN WOMEN celebrates the lives of some of Australia's most fearless, brash and scandalous women. there's tilly Devine, who went from streetwalker in London to wealthy Sydney madam and standover merchant; Mary Bryant, the highway robber and First Fleeter who escaped by rowing from Port Jackson to timor with her two children; Lola Montez, the Irish-born grande ...

On her deathbed, Dee Denham, at one time the toast of colonial Cyprus, tells her son Thomas that her illness is a punishment. Compelled by grief and a confused childhood memory of betrayal, Thomas finds himself searching for the meaning of her last words. He searches through faded photographs and love letters, seeks out survivors and examines his own imperfect recollections. A vanished world comes to life: the restless, seductive island of Cyprus at the end of Empire, a place of oleander a...

Orkney 1942. Forbidden lovers, divided by war, united by a secret act of creation.Amid the turmoil of the Second World War, a group of Italian prisoners is sent to the remote Orkney island of Lamb Holm. In the freezing conditions, hunger and untold hardships of Camp 60, this ragtag band must work together to survive.Domenico, a talented artist, is among them. He inspires his comrades to create a symbol of peace during these dark days of war, and out of drif...

Warsaw, Poland. Pilot Jan Grabowski receives orders that take him to the heart of the escalating conflict. He leaves behind his wife, Rulka, who sees Poland overcome by the Nazis. In constant danger and amid cruel reprisals, she joins the Resistance.Norfolk. Louise Fairhurst's war is very different. Evacuated with her class of ten-year-olds from London she finds herself acting mother as well as teacher to the children. She has much to do settling city children dow...

Also published as Empty Cradles.In 1986 Margaret Humphreys, a Nottingham social worker, investigated a woman's claim that, aged four, she had been put on a boat to Australia by the British government. At first incredulous, Margaret discovered that this was just the tip of an enormous iceberg. Up to 150,000 children, some as young as three years old, had been deported from children's homes in Britain and shipped off to a 'new life' in distant parts of the Empire, ri...

The renovations to 34 via del Duomo now complete, Marlena de Blasi, the bestselling international author and woman with the 'fairytale life', longs to find time and space to finish a book. Lured by a friend's offer of a simple stone cottage in a remote province of western Tuscany and distant from the distractions of everyday life in Orvieto, she sets off for a period of solitude. Enter Antonia. Imperious, tempestuous, Antonia is the still-stunning elderly matriarch of a complicated family ...

A CRIME UNSPEAKABLEAustralia, 1919. Quinn Walker returns from the Great War to the New South Wales town of Flint: the birthplace he fled ten years earlier when he was accused of a heinous act.A LIE UNFORGIVABLEAware of the townsmen's vow to hang him, Quinn takes to the surrounding hills. Here, deciding upon his plan of action, and questioning just what he has returned for, he meets Sadie Fox.A BOND UNBREAKABLEThis mysterious girl seems to know, and s...

Norfolk, 1920. Barbara Bosgrove has lived in the market town of Melsham all her life, and is looking forward to the annual Harvest Supper dinner and ball - the first since the dark days of the First World War. George Kennett, a fiercely ambitious man, has had his eye on Barbara since spotting her with her great friend Penny, and Penny's brother Simon. He begins a slow and steady courtship and Barbara is eventually won over, agreeing to marry a man she believes she can rely on. Little does ...