AustLit

'With the riverboat trade along the Darling River slowly dying, a once-prosperous pastoralist family fights to survive - and discovers there is a cost to love . . .

'In nineteenth-century New South Wales, the name Dalhunty stood for prosperity and prestige. The family's vast station was home to more than 80 people, and each year their premium wool was shipped down the bustling Darling River to be sold in South Australia.

'Yet, just decades later, Dalhunty Station is on the brink of ruin . . .

'In the summer of 1909, eccentric Benjamin Dalhunty and his son Julian anxiously await the arrival of the Lady Matilda, the first paddle-steamer to navigate the river in more than two years. It will transport their very last wool clip to market.

'Twenty-year-old Julian wants more from life than the crumbling station, but as the eldest son his future has been set since birth.

'Until the day his mother invites a streetwise young man from Sydney into their home ...

'Ethan Harris's arrival shines a light on a family at breaking point. But he also unwittingly offers Julian an escape, as the young men embark on a perilous journey down the Darling and west into untamed lands.

'The Last Station is a captivating story of heritage, heartbreak and hope, set during the dying days of the riverboat trade along the Darling River.' (Publication summary) 

'Spanning two centuries, Nicole Alexander’s compelling new novel is a story of love and faith, destiny and betrayal, in a land as rich and fertile as the secrets it keeps.

'In 1864 cousins Brandon and Sean O’Riain fled their tenant farms in County Tipperary as wanted criminals. Now, three years on, they are working as cedar-cutters in New South Wales’s lush-green Richmond Valley.

'But while Brandon embraces the opportunities this new country offers, Sean refuses to let go of the past. And one of them is about to make a dangerous choice . . .

'Nearly a century later, in the spring of 1949, Stella O’Riain is also fleeing her home – a sheep property on the barren edge of the Strzelecki Desert. She leaves behind her husband Joe and a baby daughter.

'With no money and limited options, Stella accepts her brother-in-law Harry’s offer to live at the O’Riain family cane farm in the Richmond Valley. However Harry’s refusal to discuss Joe - or the row that tore the brothers apart - leaves Stella with more questions than answers.

'In particular, why does she feel someone is watching her from a distance? And what is the real reason she is banned from speaking to the owner of the farm next door?' (Publication summary) 

'South Australia, 1919. Ross Grant has always felt like the black sheep of his wealthy Scottish family. An explorer at heart, he dreams of life on Waybell, their remote cattle station in Australia’s last remaining wilderness, the Northern Territory.

'Then his brother Alastair is branded a deserter after going missing during the Great War. To help restore the Grants’ damaged reputation, Ross is coerced into marrying Darcey Thomas, a woman he has never met.

'Disgusted by his manipulative family, he turns his back on his unwanted wife just hours after the ceremony, and heads to Waybell with no plans to return. He carries with him the hope of carving his own empire in the far north.

'But Ross has not counted on Darcey’s determination to be his wife in more than just name. Nor did he anticipate meeting Maria, a young, part-Chinese woman who will capture his heart. And he certainly wasn’t prepared for how this beautiful yet savage land will both captivate and destroy his soul . . .

'From nineteenth-century Adelaide and the red dirt of mid-north South Australia, to the cattle stations and buffalo plains of the far north Ross’s journey is one of anger and desire, adventure and determination, to the heart of stone country and beyond.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Inspired by a real newspaper story from 1930, An Uncommon Woman is an epic tale of duty, ambition, prejudice and love, from the pen of bestselling author Nicole Alexander. 

'A new world is waiting for her . . . 

It’s 1929, and the world is changing. Cars are no longer the privilege of the rich. Hemlines are rising. Movies are talking. And more and more women are entering the workforce. 

'For Edwina Baker, however, life on her family’s farm in Western Queensland offers little opportunity to be anything other than daughter, sister and, perhaps soon, wife. 

'But Edwina wants more. She wants to see the world, meet new people, achieve things. For while she has more business sense than her younger brother, it will be Aiden who one day inherits the farm. 

'Then the circus comes to town. Banned from attending by her father, Hamilton, Edwina defiantly rides to the showground dressed as a boy. There she encounters two men who will both inadvertently alter the course of her life: pastoralist Mason with his modern city friends; and Will, a labourer who also dreams of escape. 

'And when the night ends in near-disaster, this one act of rebellion strikes at the heart of the Baker family. Yet it also offers Edwina the rare chance to prove herself in a man’s world. The question is, how far is she prepared to go, and how much is she prepared to risk?'

'Taking place over just one week, River Run is an unputdownable rural drama from the bestselling author of The Bark Cutters and Wild Lands.

'It is January 1951, and after a year away Eleanor Webber has returned home to River Run, her family’s sprawling sheep property in western New South Wales. Fleeing a failed love affair back in Sydney, she hopes for some time and space to heal.

'But with shearing of over 25,000 sheep about to commence, and the infamous and moneyed Margaret Winslow and her husband Keith staying in the main house as her mother’s guests, that dream is quickly dashed.

'More worryingly, her half-brother Robbie is increasingly running wild, playing tricks on his governess, antagonising the jackeroos and obsessing about a communist invasion. Though only eleven, Robbie has appointed himself guardian of the property and, in his treehouse by the river, he readies for an imminent attack. Armed with a gun.

'Then, with a storm looming and tensions rising in the shearing shed, a mysterious stranger appears on the horizon.

And in one disastrous moment young Robbie entangles Eleanor in a situation that will have serious repercussions for every member of the Webber family . . .' (Publication summary)

'From bestselling author Nicole Alexander comes an epic novel of bravery, loyalty and impossible love that takes the reader on a spellbinding journey from the streets of early Sydney to the heart of Australia's wild, untamed lands.

'New South Wales, 1837, and settlers in search of fertile country are venturing far outside the colony. Literally cutting a swathe through the bush with their bare hands, they lay claim to territory beyond government jurisdiction - and the reach of the law.

'As she accepts a position on one such farm, seventeen-year-old Kate Carter is unaware she is entering a land of outlaws, adventurers and murderous natives.

'Because the first people of this new world will no longer accept the white man's advance, and retaliatory attacks on both sides have made it a frontier on the brink of war.

'Into Kate's path comes Bronzewing, a young white man schooled by a settler family yet raised within an Aboriginal tribe. Caught between two worlds, Bronzewing strives to protect his adopted people and their vanishing civilisation.

'But as he and Kate will discover, ‘beyond the outer limits' is a beautiful yet terrifying place, where it's impossible to know who is friend and who is enemy . . .' (Publication summary)

'Nicole Alexander, the 'heart of Australian storytelling', takes us on a captivating journey from the American Wild West to the wilds of outback Queensland, from the Civil War to the Great Depression, in an epic novel tracing one powerful but divided family.

'It is Dallas 1886, and the Wade Family is going from strength to strength: from a thriving newspaper and retail business in Texas to a sprawling sheep station half a world away in Queensland.

'Yet money and power cannot compensate for the tragedy that struck twenty-three years ago, when Joseph Wade was slaughtered and his seven-year-old daughter Philomena abducted by Apache Indians.

'Only her uncle, Aloysius, remains convinced that one day Philomena will return. So when news reaches him that the legendary Geronimo has been captured, and a beautiful white woman discovered with him, he believes his prayers have been answered.

'Little does he know that the seeds of disaster have just been sown.

'Over the coming years three generations of Wade men will succumb to an obsession with three generations of mixed-blood Wade women: the courageous Philomena, her hot-headed granddaughter Serena, and her gutsy great-granddaughter Abelena – a young woman destined for freedom in a distant red land. But at what price . . . ?' (Publication summary)

'Nicole Alexander's new bestseller is an epic historical novel that takes three brothers from the drought-stricken outback of Queensland to the horror of the trenches in World War One.'

'They went to war and fought for love ...'

'Although Madeleine has grown up in the shadow of her grandfather, the renowned artist David Harrow, she knows little about him. For David died long before she was born, and his paintings sold off to save the family property, Sunset Ridge.'

'Now, decades on, with the possibility of a retrospective of David's work, Madeleine races to unravel the remarkable life of her grandfather, a veteran of the Great War, unaware that his legacy extends far beyond the boundaries of the family property…'

'It's 1916, and as Europe descends further into bloodshed, three Queensland brothers -Thaddeus, Luther and David Harrow - choose freedom over their restricted lives at Sunset Ridge. A ‘freedom' that sees them bound for the hell of the trenches.'

'With the world on fire around them, the brothers bear witness to both remarkable courage and shocking carnage. But they also come to understand the healing power of love – love for their comrades, love for each other, and love for the young, highly spirited girl they left back home…' (Publisher's blurb)

'Sarah Gordon knows what she wants: the family homestead, Wangallon. When it comes to working the homestead she's a natural but as a woman, it's not her birthright. Even when her beloved brother, Cameron James, first born and heir, is killed in a tragic accident, nobody looks to Sarah to inherit. Instead her grandfather passes management to the one man she truly loves. Feeling betrayed she runs away to Sydney to try to put Wangallon, behind her, but it's in her blood. She is constantly drawn back to Wangallon but when will she finally admit that it's not just Wangallon she longs for but the station's manager, Anthony.

'The Bark Cutters is an Australian family saga that centres around the family property, Wangallon. Past and present interweave in a story that traces the Gordon family from the arrival of Scottish immigrant Hamish Gordon in Australia in the 1850's to the life of his great granddaughter, Sarah, in the 1980's.' (From the publisher's website.)