AustLit

'They were still who they always had been, still those sisters, but on this afternoon, in this car, driving with the windows down between cane fields under a deepening sky with purple cut-out mountains in the distance, they were wearing it so lightly, their bossiness and flakiness and wildness, they were wearing it like they used to, like it was supple, slippery, not completely fixed. Like it could be taken off.'

'In the car Meg had been laughing too. Meg and Amber laughing in the front and Nina in the back hiding secret tears of hope behind her sunglasses. They had been close then, the three of them, together in that moment of lightness...'

'Meg and Nina have been outshone by their younger sister Amber since childhood. They have become used to living on the margins of their parents' interest, used to others turning away from them and towards charismatic Amber.

'But Amber's life has not gone the way they all thought it would and now the three of them are together for the first time in years, on the road to a remote holiday rental in Far North Queensland, where Meg and Nina plan on helping Amber overcome her addiction. As good intentions gradually become terrifying reality, these sisters will test the limits of love and the line between care and control.

'Peggy Frew is a consummate observer of human frailty and fragile love, and in Wildflowers she has created a riveting, compassionate and affecting novel that is impossible to put down and even harder to forget.' (Publication summary)

'One family: Helen and John and their daughters Junie and Anna. Helen falls out of love with John, leaves, finds someone else, then a series of others, not paying enough attention to her daughters along the way. John is consumed by jealousy and hopelessness and in his self‐absorption also fails to notice signals from the girls. Junie grows up brittle and defensive, Anna difficult and rebellious.

'One tragedy: When 15‐year‐old Anna fails to come home one night, her mother's unconcerned, as she's done it before and always returned, so it takes three days for her to report it. But this time she doesn't come back... Anna has disappeared and the remaining family members spend the rest of their lives trying to make up for her devastating loss. Each of them must find their own way to cope. (Publication summary)

'Midday, January 1988. The bay side of the island. Helen is walking along Red Rocks Beach. A dull day, dull colours, a close, grey sky. And windy – wind raking up the waves, sweeping sand against her legs in stinging rushes.' (Introduction)

'From the award-winning author of House of Sticks comes a magnificent story of love, tragedy, and forgiveness lost.

'It is the winter of 1985, and 13-year-old Silver Landes is about to be pushed towards a decision that could split her world apart. Her mother, Ishtar, has fallen for the charismatic but unnerving Miller, and the three of them have moved from Brisbane to Hope Farm, a run-down hippie commune in rural Gippsland.

'Among the bedraggled residents of Hope, young Silver finds unexpected friendship and love. Has she found a home at last? Or will Ishtar's secrets force Silver into becoming an adult before she is ready, with devastating consequences?

'Hope Farm is a beautifully wrought, tender tale of what happens when love brings about unforeseen and unimaginable acts of sacrifice, and the enduring damage that can result from holding back the truth.' (Publication summary)