AustLit

'CBD is a futuristic book of two worlds and two times that strangely come together. The main story is set in the 23rd Century in the tiny walled city of CBD built by the powerful CroNulla tribe from the ruins of what had been Sydney's centre. This is Gheera's story, a young female scribe who writes down the words of Yrec the Yarncarrier as he tells his history of the CroNullas. But as Gheera records the blind man's words she wonders about their truth. For she has a set of secret diaries from another time. These are Billi's Diaries, from the mid-21st Century, and they tell a very different story of the past. Gheera sets out on a search for the truth. She becomes tangled in the dirty power-play of the CroNulla world, and is dragged along in a series of events that spin out of control. For young Gheera, the city of CBD is grey and suffocating. She longs to escape, and partly does so through Billi's diaries. These diaries are written by a farm boy in rough, phonetic script, full of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. But they are alive and exciting, and the more Gheera reads, the more she longs to discover the real world. Her chance comes when she meets a young boy, an illiterate tunnel-dweller who hangs on her every word as she reads the diaries aloud. Gradually an escape plan is hatched. But, as the pair discover, there's more to escaping than just running away.' (Source: author's website.)