Cirrus@Austlit

'Miss Ditton came to Bindeo as a housekeeper - and as a companion for Penny Bartlett, who had almost overnight become a young woman. But Miss Ditton's plans went beyond companionship, and she began 'managing' Penny, her father, and John Dean, their quiet neighbor Penny had always considered her special friend.

'As in a nightmare, Penny saw her whole life being shaped against her will - and, worst of all, saw a strange bond growing between Miss Ditton and John Dean...'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Here is an unforgettable woman. A woman as strong and as beautiful as the raw new country she helps to carve from the wilderness. A woman of fierce pride, yet gently devoted to her children, and possessed with an undying vision about the future of her land, Sara Dane epitomizes the heart of her untamed country - Australia.

'Set in the colorful days of the late Eighteenth and the early Nineteenth Centuries, Sara Dane unfolds the history of New South Wales, from its beginnings as a penal colony to the day when it could lift its head in contentment and peace.

'From the day in 1792 when young Sara, savagely sentenced in England to transportation on a trumped-up charge, came ashore at Botany Bay, until the day she returns triumphantly wealthy and prominent to her native London, her story rings with the fire of a great passion.

'Sara's story is also the story of the men who loved her - Richard Barwell, her childhood love who possessiveness followed her thousands of miles; Andrew Maclay, whose strength and cunning combined with hers to produce an empire; Jeremy Hogan, the Irish rebel, whose presence meant security as Sara faced the crises of convict outbreaks, giant floods, and armed rebellion with resolution. And then there was Louis de Bourget, the mysterious French emigre' whose love for her beauty and order brought a peace to Sara's life she had thought impossible.

'But throughout her life, Sara held to her own personality tenaciously. All of Sydney knew her as a shrewd business-woman, magnificent, unconventional - but above all, a woman. ' (Publication summary)

'There is always one who kisses and one who holds the cheek...

'Kate Osborne and Hal got engaged in Sydney; but soon Kate had to admit that things were not right between them. She found she could not bear the humiliation of being 'the one who kisses!'

'Had he changed, or was he really very selfish and cruel? And how did he measure up to someone like Rick Benallen? No less handsome, Rick was somehow a man on whom one could depend...'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Mardie was a stranger to the lonely Outback, but she was determined to live in the general store that was her inheritance. However, she fell in love with her very first customer – a handsome taciturn geologist – and was immediately involved in his life. His problems were now hers – and that included two mineral-exploration spies and one troublesome woman.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.