AustLit

'A page-turning, mysterious, funny and delightful story by the bestselling author of Salvation Creek, The Briny Café and Gone Fishing.

'When five couples pool their resources to live in a house located where a turquoise lagoon meets the sea and silver branches of mangroves glow in the moonlight, the quirky little offshore community of Cook's Basin is shocked. How will ten people—one in a wheelchair and one with a hauntingly familiar face—cope with the physical challenges of living where the only way in or out, is by boat?

'Their worst fears are confirmed when a member of the household is found floating face down in the bay soon after they take up residence. The police insist the death was accidental but the bizarre circumstances—factoring in tides and weather—have locals scratching their heads.

'Former journalist turned café owner, Kate Jackson is curious to discover why a group of retirees in their late 70s have chosen to live in such a difficult and isolated location. Kate finds their secrecy disturbing until a throw-away line in an old magazine story opens a Pandora's Box of intrigue and mystery. And once opened, everything becomes more complicated and spirals out of control.

'Wrapped in the colourful culture of a boat-access-only community that prides itself on taking care of its own, Sleepless in Stringybark Bay celebrates having a go at any age, revels in the magic of the bush, and explores the fragility of relationships, old and young.' (Publication summary)

'In this memoir, Susan Duncan reaches an age where there's no point in sweating long-term ramifications. There aren't any. This new understanding delivers an unexpected bonus – the emotional freedom and moral clarity to admit to hidden and often fiendish facts of ageing and, ultimately, to find ways to embrace them.'

'It also unleashes an overwhelming desire to confront her intractable 94-year-old mother with the dreadful secrets of the past before it is too late, no matter the consequences. It is the not-knowing, she says, that does untold damage.'

'Interwoven with stories from the land – building a fully sustainable eco-house in the mid-coast of NSW with her engineer husband Bob, and grappling with white-eyed roans, dogs, bawling cattle markets, droughts and flooding rains, not to mention blunt-speaking locals – this is a book about a mother and daughter coming to terms, however uneasy, with the awful forces that shaped their relationship'. (Source: random house Books Australia website)

'Gone Fishing, the sequel to the bestselling The Briny Café, is a heart-warming, inspirational novel about taking a stand against all the odds.f

'For bargeman Sam Scully, life in Cook's Basin is nothing short of paradise. A wonderland of golden sand and turquoise waters, battered old tinnies and wonky pontoons, it's a realm unspoilt by the modern world.

But then a notice goes up in the Square that screams ‘EXCLUSIVE DEVELOPMENT!''

'Paradise is about to be ripped apart.'

'With plans underway to build a flash resort in the heart of their community, the residents leap into action - with Sam as their leader, and a twelve-foot papier-mache cockatoo as their mascot . . . But it's never going to be easy to turn the tide of ‘progress'.'

'Meanwhile there's trouble brewing at the Briny Café. Kate Jackson is struggling to come to terms with the dreadful secret spilled on her mother's deathbed. And as for Kate's co-owner, Ettie Brookbank… Well, what is happening to Ettie?'

'Ettie Brookbank is the heart and soul of Cook's Basin, a sleepy offshore community comprising a cluster of dazzling blue bays. But for all the idyllic surroundings, Ettie can't help wondering where her dreams have disappeared to.

'Until fate offers her a lifeline - in the shape of a lopsided little café on the water's edge.

'When Bertie, its cantankerous septuagenarian owner, offers her 'the Briny' for a knockdown price, it's an opportunity too good to miss. But it's a mammoth task - and she'll need a partner.

'Enter Kate Jackson, the enigmatic new resident of the haunted house on Oyster Bay. Kate is also clearly at a crossroads - running from a life in the city that has left her lonely and lost.

'Could a ramshackle cafe and its endearingly eccentric customers deliver the new start both women so desperately crave?' (From the publisher's website.)

' A Life on Pittwater gives a glimpse of the way life goes on on the western foreshores, where there are no roads, streetlights or traffic and where the larrikin spirit of times long gone, lives on. There is Susan's lovely home with its gorgeous verandah; the lush surroundings, the bush and the bays; the wildlife and the ever-present dogs; the tinnies, the ferries; the boatsheds and the working boats; the bushfires; and, above all, the close community of arists, actors, writers, shipwrights, cooks and just about anything - a diverse population united by a love of life by the water.

Pittwater is a world where neighbours stop their tinnies to have a quick chat, where no-one ever dresses up and the kids catch the ferry to school. Goannas wander into kitchens to snaffle the Sunday roast and snakes lurk contentedly in barbecues. Everyone has time for a cup of tea and a slice of homemade fruitcake. It's a place like no-where else in Australia; and it's also quintessentially Australian. ' Source: www.susanduncan.com.au/ (Sighted 22/01/2010)

'Continuing the story of Susan Duncan's bestselling and much-loved memoir, Salvation Creek, The House picks up after Bob and Susan marry and, two years later, move from her Tin Shed into his 'pale yellow house on the high, rough hill', Tarrangaua, built for the iconic Australian poet, Dorothea Mackellar.

'Set against the backdrop of the small, close-knit Pittwater community with its colourful characters and quirky history, The House is about what happens when you open the door to life, adventure, and love. But it's also about mothers and daughters, as Susan confronts her mother's new frailty and her own role in what has always been a difficult relationship.

'Where Salvation Creek was about mortality - living life in the face of death - The House is about stepping outside your comfort zone and embracing challenges, at any age. In turn funny and moving, Susan Duncan's beautifully written sequel reminds us to honour what matters in life, and to disregard what really doesn't.' (Publisher's blurb)

''As I bumped across the water in a leaky tin dinghy I didn't know that the journey had begun. That the pale yellow house with a corridor of columns and long verandah on the high, rough hill would hold the key to it all...'

'At 44 Susan Duncan appeared to have it all. Editor of two of Australia's top selling women's magazines, a happy marriage, a jetsetting lifestyle covering stories from New York to Greenland, rubbing shoulders with Hollywood royalty, the world was her oyster. But when her beloved husband and brother die within three days of each other, her glittering life shatters.

'In shock, she zips on her work face and soldiers on - until one morning eighteen months later when she simply can't get out of bed.

'Heartbreaking, funny and searingly honest, Salvation Creek is the story of a woman who found the courage not only to walk away from a successful career and begin again, but to beat the odds in her own battle for survival and find a new life - and love - in a tiny waterside idyll cut off from the outside world.

'From the terrifying first step of quitting the job that had always anchored her to abandoning herself to a passionate affair that she knows will break her heart, Duncan never flinches from the truth or loses her wicked sense of humour.

'Even when she finds a paradise on earth only to discover that it may be too late. It's been said that the greatest risk in life is not to take a risk. Sometimes you have to risk everything to find the only thing you need.' (Publication summary)