AustLit

'A powerful love story in which one woman's quest for identity and healing also becomes the single way she can honour her grandparents, whose lives were irreversibly shattered by the Holocaust. Perfect for readers of Anna Funder and Megan Rogers.

'It's 1989 and for a young Jewish-Australian violinist, a scholarship to Berlin is the chance of a lifetime. Germany is on the verge of change as the wall is torn down, and Susanna is swept along by the tumultuous event. Under the careful guidance of Stefan Heinemeyer, her renowned violin teacher and the grandson of a Nazi, she begins a composition in memory of her grandmother, Mirla, who died in the Buchenwald concentration camp during the Second World War, and is inspired to retrace her final footsteps.

'It's a journey that reconnects Susanna to her heritage and propels her musical gift to extraordinary heights. Yet as a forbidden yearning for Stefan begins to unfurl, Susanna's life is forever changed, and the repercussions will echo through decades and across continents.

'In a world where history, society and inherited traumas threaten to silence Susanna and prevent her from ever becoming her true self, can she find the courage to reclaim her power as a woman, a musician, and a composer, and in so doing, lay her haunted past to rest?' (Publication summary)

'We don’t choose where we’re born. Geography ends up being everything.

'Shaimaa Khalil and Shelley Davidow met twenty years ago in the Middle East when Shaimaa was Shelley’s student at the University of Qatar. Strangers in a strange land where the silencing and oppression of women is deeply entrenched, they immediately formed a deep and abiding bond. Shelley saw Shaimaa as her ‘Rosetta Stone’, helping her decode a culture and world so foreign it appeared to be from another planet. Shaimaa saw Shelley and her apartment as her ‘Tardis’, a space where she could glimpse a world she dreamed of inhabiting. Born a decade apart on opposite ends of the African continent – Shaimaa, an Arab Muslim from Egypt and Shelley an Ashkenazi Jew from South Africa – tell the story of a friendship that has defied historical, geographic and temporal boundaries, mapping the vast emotional and geographic territories they have travelled as women pushing against patriarchal confines over the past two decades. In an exchange of words and memories, Shaimaa and Shelley recall what shaped them, what broke them, and how they made themselves whole again through their interwoven stories.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'At forty-four, Lara Winters discovers that Brock, her husband of twenty-one years, has been cheating on her. Devastated and desperate, she flees her home in London, England and heads for the furthest place she can find from her old, blinkered life: Australia.

'On her first day in the laid-back town of Byron Bay, Lara almost runs over the red-haired, slightly raddled Ruby in a car park. Relieved to be still alive, the warm-hearted Aussie leases Lara a small cottage on her semi-rural property where Lara’s journey of self-discovery begins.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The future of work and jobs has become a critical policy area and a frequently heard rallying cry during election campaigns. Politicians and lay public commonly propose simple solutions to the problems of unemployment, underemployment, labour underutilization, mismatch between available skill-sets and job requirements and so on. Globalisation/outsourcing, globalism and foreign labour are increasingly targeted as the main cause of job shortages. Also targeted are international organizations and ‘lobbies’ as well as (allegedly) incompetent local politicians. There is, however, one significant variable frequently missing in these debates: Automation. This provocation looks at the implications of automation on the futures of work. It offers hints and clues as to the dilemmas ahead, it also takes a deliberately normative approach to questions of ‘jobs’, ‘employment’ and ‘work’ as a good provocation works best with clear and accepted categories.'  (Publication abstract)

'Inherited trauma is passed down through generations in a variety of ways. My biographical memoir, Whisperings in the Blood (2016), demonstrates through practice-led research how turning life into art and using metaphor as the vehicle to transmit emotional truth can result in emotional healing across generations. Using a fiction writer’s techniques, I explore the idea of employing intergenerational motifs as extended metaphor in order to grapple with the concept that ancestral wounds can be passed down as ‘whisperings in the blood’, or what I call ‘soul dispositions’. The effect of this practice-led research, which required that I had in-depth discussions with my dying father, my uncle and my dying great-uncle, resulted in the emotional healing of some of these relationships, as well as prompting a new level of empathy and understanding of my relatives, their stories, their parents’ stories. This led to profound insights on the role of shared nonfiction narratives in connecting a writer of memoir to both living and deceased ancestors and effecting degrees of emotional healing across the generations.' (Publication abstract)

During the terrifying years of Apartheid in South Africa, Shelley Davidow’s family was a crime. At a time when it was illegal for black and white people to live together, Shelley’s social activist parents took in Rosie, an abandoned black three-year-old. Rosie grew up as a beloved daughter and sister in a white household. Against the backdrop of racist laws and ever-present threats of violence, Shelley’s parents did all they could to provide a safe, happy home for their five children. But when Rosie was sixteen, devastating truths came to light, shattering the family’s understanding of the past.

In this haunting memoir, Shelley Davidow unravels the memories of her early life, searching for truth and reconciliation. Shadow Sisters leaves us with a deeper understanding of family love – but what if, sometimes, love is not enough?

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Lithuania,1913. Haunted by memories of the pogroms, Jacob Frank leaves his village in the hope of a better life, and boards a ship bound for New York. Twenty-five years later, his daughter Bertha sets sail for South Africa to marry a man she has never met, unaware of the tumult that lies ahead. In time, her granddaughter Shelley, following those very steps in reverse, flees the violence of apartheid to live in America, before at last finding home in Australia.

'These immigrant voyages, repeated from one generation to the next, form the heart of this richly layered memoir. Drawing on her grandmother’s diary and letters,Shelley Davidow tells her family’s stories in vivid detail, recounting their experiences of love and loss alongside her own. As she learns about the past,Shelley discovers that her aspirations and fears, her dreams and nightmares,echo those of her forebears as ancestral whisperings in the blood.

'Spanning four continents and one hundred years, this extraordinary book explores the heartache and emotional legacies of those who leave their homelands forever.' (Publication summary)

'Lucy Wright, sixteen and a paraplegic after a recent car accident that took her mother's life, lives in Queensland on a 10,000 acre farm with her father. When Lucy investigates strange lights over the creek at the bottom of the property, she discovers a mystery that links the lights to the science of cymatics and Scotland’s ancient Rosslyn Chapel.

'But beyond the chapel is an even larger mystery. One that links the music the chapel contains to Norway’s mysterious Hessdalen lights, and beyond that to Saturn and to the stars. Lucy’s discoveries catapult her into a parallel universe connected to our own by means of resonance and sound, where a newly emerging world trembles on the edge of disaster. As realities divide, her mission in this new world is revealed and she finds herself part of a love story that will span the galaxy.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.