AustLit

'Mordecai, a novelist dealing with a bad review, returns to her family’s Brisbane home for the first time in decades following the death of her father. The home conjures echoes from her distant past: the muggy summers, the smell of rotting mangoes, and the perpetual arguments between her Romani mother and father.

'When she discovers her old journal – an innocent tapestry of ideas, drawings, and imaginings – Mordecai is drawn back to 1961 and a long-abandoned investigation into her parent’s unhappiness. Pushed along by her childhood friend Splinter, Mordecai sets out to uncover the long dormant secrets that cursed her family and led to her leaving home at fifteen.

'Spanning from young love to aging cynicism, Magpie is a coming-of-age story that will thrill and delight like lemonade ice-blocks and a swim on a hot day.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.