Latika Bourke was adopted from India, aged eight months. Growing up in Bathurst, New South Wales she felt a deep connection to her Australian home and her Australian family.It wasn't until she heard her name uttered in the hit movie Slumdog Millionaire that Latika recognised she knew nothing of her Indian roots, the world she was born into and what she could have become had she not been brought to Australia as a baby.As Latika carved out a successful career for her...

From a talented emerging Australian writer, a brave, honest, unforgettable memoir about mental illness that breaks the silence and shatters the taboos to give hope to all those struggling to find their way through.'When I was eleven years old Mum told me, "One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name." Even before I heard these words I was always a child who crammed intense joy into tiny pockets of time.'One day Sophie Hardcastle realise...

An engaging woman-against-the-odds story about an entrepreneurial South Island sheep farmer. When Beverley Forrester’s beloved husband Jim died unexpectedly, not only did she have to deal with her grief, but she suddenly had a farm to run too. Although she had grown up in a farming family, she herself had trained and worked as an occupational therapist for many years. So there was a lot to learn and new tasks to undertake – not least the need to win the trust of Jim’s loya...

Poignant and moving memoir of Elizabeth Ward, known to one and all as Biff, who grew up in the 1950s in a household that tiptoed around her mother's demons and her father's fame.There are secrets in this family. Before Biff and her younger brother, Mark, there was baby Alison, who drowned in her bath because, it was said, her mother was distracted. Biff too, lives in fear of her mother's irrational behaviour and paranoia, and she is always on guard and fears for th...

Passionate, vivid and immediate, and full of insights, this is Rob Oakeshott's honest and real story of life in Australian politics. From his apprenticeship in the NSW parliament to the last days of the Gillard government, he tells it as it was.When the results of the 2010 federal election became known, no party had a majority in the House of Representatives it was the first hung parliament for forty years. So, both the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and the Leader of the Oppositio...

The deeply honest, funny, gut-wrenching and touching memoir from journalist, celebrity, wife, mother, television presenter and author, Jessica Rowe.The fairytale I had dreamt up saw me still blazing ahead with my career, sharing the cooking and cleaning duties with my husband and having neat, tidy and well- behaved children who had beautifully brushed hair. But that was not my life.Journalist, celebrity, television presenter, author, ambassador for...

A deluded mother who invented her past, an alcoholic father who couldn't deal with the present, a son who wondered if this could really be his family.Richard Glover's favourite dinner party game is called 'Who's Got the Weirdest Parents?'. It's a game he always thinks he'll win. There was his mother, a deluded snob, who made up large swathes of her past and who ran away with Richard's English teacher, a Tolkien devotee, nudist and stuffed-toy collector. Th...

A specialist in discreet and dangerous missions, Stevie Duveen - diminutive, brilliant and fearless - is up against people traffickers, sex slaves and the Russian mob on a mission to rescue the kidnapped daughter of the Russian Central Bank. Risk is her business, but this time she's in over her head .Meet Stevie Duveen: striking, brilliant, gifted in seven languages and all kinds of combat - and strategic analyst for Hazard Ltd, an international trouble-shooting ou...

Zara grows up privileged, in Pakistan. By the time she reaches her late twenties, she is single and no longer welcome in her home; death, illness and an arranged marriage has broken family bonds. She leaves Karachi, Pakistan to seek a new life in America. What begins as a quest for a new life turns into a journey of faith.Zara wants what every woman wants: a husband, a family and a home. Breaking free from the traditions of her culture where marriages are arranged, Zara overcomes t...

The true story of an unlikely romance in the Australian outback.At forty-nine, Deb Hunt stopped dating men. It was just too painful. The men she loved didn't love her back. When she found herself stalking her last boyfriend, who'd become engaged to another woman, Deb knew it was time to make changes.From her home in the UK, she applied for a job in Australia - a PR assistant with the Royal Flying Doctor Service. She packed up her London home, said goodbye to everyt...

First published in 1974 as A Circle of Children this is the first of four books from learning disabilities specialist Mary MacCracken.This is a book about children so emotionally disturbed they cannot fit into society; it is also the story of a woman whose involvement with these children changed the shape of their lives forever.When Mary MacCracken joined a school for emotionally disturbed children as a volunteer, she quickly found herself rocked to the core by the strong, ...

Brutal, brave, hilarious -- a full-frontal memoir about surviving the very worst that life can throw at you.Rosie Waterland has never been cool. Growing up in housing commission, Rosie was cursed with a near perfect, beautiful older sister who dressed like Mariah Carey on a Best & Less budget while Rosie was still struggling with various toilet mishaps. She soon realised that she was the Doug Pitt to her sister's Brad, and that cool was not going to be her currency in this life.