AustLit

'Only at home in the bush, the bush brides are not meant to be owned, yet Midge has a yearning. But conquerers never understand that the Australian wilds are not meant to be tamed.'

Source: Magazine blurb.

A sentient doll, created from the skin of a mermaid and of the man who built her, as a token to a mermaid he once loved, is sold to a toyshop when her creator falls in love again. She is sold to a poet, with whom she falls desperately in love. But the poet uses her as a physical substitute for his distant lover, and is not capable of returning her affections–or even of recognising her sentience.

The story of the cobbler who made Cinderella's shoes, hunting his missing glass slippers in modern-day Paris.

Sahara Desserts, who works as a belly dancer in restaurants, finds herself engaged in a mythic quest to set her mentor to rest.