Taking the journey from The Sapphires to Top End Wedding with Larrakia actress Miranda Tapsell.
'Felicity McLean’s debut novel, The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone, has been described as Picnic at Hanging Rock for a new generation. In Joan Lindsay’s classic, the girls go missing from Appleyard College, while the titular surname in McLean’s book recalls the same fruit. Cordie, Hannah and Ruth Van Apfel are three sisters who seem to evaporate into the endless, suffocating summer of 1992.' (Introduction)
'In P. J. Harvey’s lyrical masterpiece, “We Float”, the act of floating is languorous, a way of drifting in the moment, taking “life as it comes”. In Helena Fox’s debut novel, floating becomes more of a necessity: it might feel “incandescent”, but it’s a cloak that protects the 17-year-old narrator, Biz, from dark forces that shadow her family life and sabotage her pact with reality.' (Introduction)
