AustLit

'An unforgettable and sweeping family saga from Markus Zusak, the storyteller who gave us the extraordinary bestseller The Book Thief.

'Bridge of Clay is about a boy who is caught in the current - of destroying everything he has, to become all he needs to be. He's a boy in search of greatness, as a cure for memory and tragedy. He builds a bridge to save his family, but also to save himself. It's an attempt to transcend humanness, to make a single, glorious moment:

'A miracle and nothing less.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'In this sequel to Miles Franklin's famous novel My Brilliant Career, once again we encounter the enchanting Sybylla Melvyn. She's a little older now, catapulted from bush obscurity into sudden fame with the publication of her autobiography. Sybylla goes to fashionable Sydney to further her career in the literary world, but her patrons, her critics and her innumerable suitors meet more than they bargained for in the wilful Sybylla.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (House of Books ed.).

'The story of two women living very different, heroic lives in two very different Australias.

'Jess, circus-raised, is a stunt-rider who can outride any man. In the early days of film she finds her calling, playing wild outlaw women who answer to no one. However, when her Chinese circus-owner husband is killed she is left pregnant and vulnerable and, after suffering the cruellest betrayal of all, she finds herself closer to the outlaw's life than she had ever imagined.

'Rose goes to Australia from England in the 1950s, in search of a new life. But neither the new country nor motherhood is what she had expected and, very quickly, she finds herself estranged from those she loves, incarcerated and terrified. Yet Rose is strong, and she will manage not only to save herself, but also to shed new light on Jess's story in a moving and deeply satisfying way.' (Publisher's blurb)

'This is the story of one of the most shocking events of the seventeenth century: the wreck of a Dutch ship, the Batavia, off the west coast of Australia, and the extraordinary events that befell its stranded survivors. It is also the story of Judith Bastiaansz, sailing with her family to a new life, who is caught up in something well beyond her experience: first infatuation and then, perhaps, something far more dangerous. Combining a gripping narrative with vivid historical detail, this is a beautiful, terrifying, deeply moving novel of love and anarchy.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Marah and Charis have left Australia to pursue very different careers. Marah, a trainee opera diva, tries hard to keep her weight, her life, her self under control; Charis works nights as a telegram girl, zooming across London on her motorbike dressed as a French maid or a pregnant bride.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

The Fortunes of Richard Mahony was 'first published as a sequence. Australia Felix, the first volume, which covers twelve years of Richard Mahony’s life from the early 1850s, was published in 1917; The Way Home, which deals with his subsequent eight years, appeared in 1925; and Ultima Thule, the final volume covering his last four years, in 1929. The novel was first published as a trilogy in 1930.'

Australia Felix 'begins the story of Richard Mahony, a 28-year-old medical graduate of Edinburgh University and now the keeper of a general store in Ballarat'. Part one of the novel 'follows Mahony’s career until his marriage; the second part deals with the Eureka Stockade, the growth of the varied society of Ballarat and legal hearing in Melbourne'. It 'concludes with Mahony’s decision to start a practice in Ballarat instead of returning to England'. In parts three and four, 'Richardson extends her panoramic picture of a dynamic colonial society in which individuals are subject to great reversals or advances of fortune'.

The Way Home begins with Mahony’s 'arrival in England and concludes with his final, second return to Australia, as a ruined man. In the intervening years he grows disillusioned with English society, returns to Australia to find his investments have made him suddenly rich, attempts to settle into the wealthy community of Melbourne and becomes the father of three children'. His sojourn in England leads to the discovery that he is uncomfortable with the ‘offensive and cramping’ English social hierarchy.

Ultima Thule picks up the story with Mahony’s 'return to Australia, his attempts to establish himself as a medical practitioner, first in Melbourne and then at Barambogie, a small town in northern Victoria'. When Mahony’s skills as a doctor as increasingly questioned, the family moves to the coast and later to Gymgurra where Mahony’s wife, Mary, 'secures a position as postmistress'. Mahony is moved to a private nursing home, then to a government asylum and finally returns home. He is 'devotedly cared by Mary, until paralysis incapacitates his body. After his death he is buried in the local cemetery, within sound of the sea'.

Source: The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature. 2nd. ed. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1994: 294-295.

'For Tempe Caxton, glamorous television star, life has lost its lustre. Her son was killed in the war, her lover has walked out on her, her job is over and life seems meaningless. Suicide seems to promise an easy way out.

'While recovering from a failed attempt, she discovers a surprising secret in the pages of her dead son's diary - she has a granddaughter. And she soon finds out that her grandchild is in trouble - the family that have raised her are being unfairly evicted from the land they have held for four generations.

'Gradually Tempe is pulled into an alien world, with a new purpose; she is forced to rethink her long-held prejudices, fight for principles she has never before thought about, and find a new reason for living.' (From The House of Books imprint, Allen & Unwin website, 2012.)

'Loneliness has driven a young school teacher in a small North Queensland town to form an unlikely relationship with a road worker. Harry is older and more experienced than Elsie, but vulnerable through his possessive love for her.

'In an attempt to escape from him, Elsie obtains a transfer. Her last day in town is spent trying to avoid Harry, fearing the violence of his reaction to her desertion and their inevitable encounter.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (House of Books ed.)

'A suburban couple have drifted into the shallows of middle-aged boredom. Their fourteen-year-old son is a stranger, meeting their attempts at love with hostile indifference. Surly at home, he is a dab hand at shoplifting and looks like sliding into delinquency.

'Moving from Brisbane to a country convent and the Gold Coast, the novel is a brilliant, witty portrait of the surface of ordinary life. The Leverson family and their connections appear normal but desire and inner emotion are never quite so simple.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (House of Books ed.)

'When the tourist ship Malekula arrives at a tropic island in the the Pacific the crushing heat and the looming hurricane intensify the hostilities and frustrations of the egocentric people on board. And when the hurricane bursts on the island the havoc it brings is less perhaps than the personal storms of man and wife, of spinster friends, of man and mistress, of erring priest.

'Gerald Seabrook's pointless womanising achieves a finality of irritation for his suffering wife; elderly Miss Paradise drives her life-long friend, Miss Trumper, to make a fatal pilgrimage; the agent Stevenson sees the failure of his dream of love with his mistress; and the priest, Father Lake, explodes his own petty vices and his spiritual impotence. Their moments of truth are brilliantly illuminated as the story moves to its climax in the hurricane and its aftermath.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (House of Books ed.)

'Kathleen is facing old age alone. Between her selfish children - 'Brain' and his straying wife, and daughter Shamrock and Shamrock's hubby the 'Big Developer' - there is no longer a place for her. But Passing Downs Old People's Home is still not the place for a woman like Kathleen. She is not ready for that and they're not ready for her.

''I've skipped the grandma years,' Kathleen said. 'The four ages of women: bimbo, breeder, baby-sitter, burden. I've cut and run. Wasn't going to tell a soul but I've decided cutting and running is what it's all about.''

Source: Publisher's blurb (House of Books ed.)

'In the prison in Sarah Sweet's backyard, drunks get locked up for the night and sing beautiful songs through the bars. Behind the prison, there's a paddock full of horses waiting to be broken by her dad, the best horse breaker in Boolaroo. Mal Sweet can break anything, except Sarah. She's a champion, stronger than anyone. She won't be broken. Even if it means destroying those closest to her.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.