AustLit

(Publication summary)

'Rosie Larson doesn't trust people—and with good reason. Her violent ex-boyfriend, Joel, is out of jail and she's determined he won't find her or their ten-year-old son.

'For Isobel Hutchins, the cost of success is beginning to prove too high. Her impressive career and comfortable lifestyle can't protect her from the news her mother is dying or the need to face her past.

'When tragedy strikes, Rosie and Isobel are thrown together despite their differences. In this difficult space, they draw strength from each other and form an unlikely friendship that may just see them through. Small Blessings is a poignant and uplifting novel of secrets, motherhood, innocence and heartache, and ultimately what we're willing to do for love.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'It's 1968 and free-thinking country girl Maya Callaghan's world is turned upside down when she finds out she's pregnant to her boyfriend Sam, who is awaiting draft orders. A profoundly moving story of love during a time of great social change, with an ending that will leave you cheering.

'May Callaghan is seventeen years old and on her own. At least that’s how it feels.

'Her devoutly religious mother and her gentle but damaged father are fighting, and May's boyfriend, Sam, has left their rural hometown for Melbourne without so much as a backward glance.

'When May lies to her parents and takes the train to visit Sam at his shared house in Carlton, her world opens wide in glorious complexity. She is introduced to his housemates, Clancy, an indigenous university student, and Ruby, a wild bohemian. With their liberal thinking and opposition to the war in Vietnam, they are everything that May's strict Catholic upbringing should warn her against.

'May knows too well the toll that war has taken on her father, and the peace movement in the city has a profound effect on her. For a while, May’s future burns bright. But then it begins to unravel, and something happens to her that will change her life forever.'

(Publication Summary)