The powerful true story of a man who would inspire one son to make a film about him, starring Geoffrey Rush, and the other to uncover his past, warts and all, in this unforgettable tale."My father was no ordinary man and his was no ordinary life ..." Watching Oscar-winning actor Geoffrey Rush portray his father in the film Swimming Upstream inspired John Fingleton to uncover the story no one had told, of his father's mysterious early life - and what made Harold the extraordinary man...

The powerful true story of a man who would inspire one son to make a film about him, starring Geoffrey Rush, and the other to uncover his past, warts and all, in this unforgettable tale."My father was no ordinary man and his was no ordinary life ..." Watching Oscar-winning actor Geoffrey Rush portray his father in the film Swimming Upstream inspired John Fingleton to uncover the story no one had told, of his father's mysterious early life - and what made Harold the extraordinary man...

From award-winning author Diane Armstrong comes a dramatic and heartwarming novel which brilliantly evokes postwar Sydney.A heart-warming novel in the tradition of CLOUDStREEt and tHE HARP IN tHE SOUtH Empire Day, 1948. A back street in Bondi is transformed as the fireworks of Cracker Night cast a magical glow over its humble cottages. But Australia as a whole is being transformed in this postwar era and the people of Wattle Street know that life will never be the same again. the 'r...

From childhood dreams of prostitution to her unabashed passion for heavy drinking, from growing up wide-eyed on the set of Australian soaps to her infatuation with Bob Ellis, these are the outrageously entertaining and deeply revealing reminiscences of a multimedia star. He was wearing a pair of leather pants that clung like terrified orphans to his muscular thighs, and a revealing black mesh t-shirt. The outfit seemed at odds with the cream-coloured settee and floral print curtains. From ...

The sensational lives and exploits of twenty audacious, brash and scandalous women, now in an all-new format.NOtORIOUS AUStRALIAN WOMEN celebrates the lives of some of Australia's most fearless, brash and scandalous women. there's tilly Devine, who went from streetwalker in London to wealthy Sydney madam and standover merchant; Mary Bryant, the highway robber and First Fleeter who escaped by rowing from Port Jackson to timor with her two children; Lola Montez, the Irish-born grande ...

A gripping tale of a daring heroine testing her wits against a backdrop of secrets, spies and smugglers in perilous Far North Queensland in the late nineteenth century and based on a true story ...A daring heroine tests her wits against secrets, spies and smugglers on a remote Australian island 'It's peculiar, the assumptions we all make. For instance, how, in a diary, the truth bone's connected to the hand bone ... You shouldn't believe everything you read.' 1879, Queensland. Fleei...

A CRIME UNSPEAKABLEAustralia, 1919. Quinn Walker returns from the Great War to the New South Wales town of Flint: the birthplace he fled ten years earlier when he was accused of a heinous act.A LIE UNFORGIVABLEAware of the townsmen's vow to hang him, Quinn takes to the surrounding hills. Here, deciding upon his plan of action, and questioning just what he has returned for, he meets Sadie Fox.A BOND UNBREAKABLEThis mysterious girl seems to know, and s...

Also published as Empty Cradles.In 1986 Margaret Humphreys, a Nottingham social worker, investigated a woman's claim that, aged four, she had been put on a boat to Australia by the British government. At first incredulous, Margaret discovered that this was just the tip of an enormous iceberg. Up to 150,000 children, some as young as three years old, had been deported from children's homes in Britain and shipped off to a 'new life' in distant parts of the Empire, ri...

We all have secret lives. And we are all pretty good at keeping them secret.With simplicity and great beauty, Currawalli Street reveals the echoes between past and present through the story of one ordinary street and its families, from the pre-war innocence of early 1914 to the painful and grim consequences of the Vietnam War.In 1914, Thomas, the young rector, questions his faith and falls in love; his sister Janet, a dutiful spinster, hides a surprising s...

Caroline Overington's bestseller is a heart-breaking, utterly compelling novel of a family ripped apart.It was four o'clock in the morning. A young woman pushed through the hospital doors. Staff would later say they thought the woman was a new mother, returning to her child - and in a way, she was.She walked into the nursery, where a baby girl lay sleeping. The infant didn't wake when the woman placed her gently in the shopping bag she had brought with her....

When Anna and Matt finally buy their dream farm, their struggles aren't quite over. First it's patchy rain and poor crops, then Matt has an accident, and even when the heavens finally open all might yet be lost. An exciting new novel full of romance and mystery from the author of the bestselling Red Dust and Blue Skies.Anna and Matt Butler were childhood sweethearts with a dream of owning their own land, a dream they achieved through hard work and...

Caroline Overington's stunning fiction debut is a multi-voiced novel centred around a child's death and its terrible repercussions.In 1982 Victorian police were called to a home on a housing estate an hour west of Melbourne. There, they found a five-year-old boy lying still and silent on the carpet. There were no obvious signs of trauma, but the child, Jacob, died the next day.The story made the headlines and hundreds attended the funeral. Few people were s...