Cirrus@Austlit

'Ghosts trail after us. They are our fears and the shape of our hates. We bring them into our lives and into our homes. A fairy - variety melusine - tells of her private ghosts in unreliable fairy stories. She handles her own haunting. Some years our fears and hates are so strong that we turn our ghosts tangible. Instead of trailing after us forlornly, whispering "Believe in us, or you are damned," they fracture our landscape. Poltergeists and the spirits of drowned girls; malicious presences and portents; cat vampires and roaming bushrangers. These ghosts haunt Canberra. These ghosts can kill. It takes four women, one cup of tea at a time, to deal with Canberra's haunting.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Who wants superpowers?

'Not Rhonda. Rhonda wants to live an ordinary life.

'“My life is a soap opera with magic,” thinks Judith, as she reviews her year.

'Before it all begins, she just wants to lose her past and keep her children safe.

'Belinda, her sister, wants recipes.

'Their lives are simple.

'All three women get a lot more than they bargained for in 2002 and 2003. Bushfires. A possessed lemon tree. Prophecy. Magic. Romance. Violence. Politics. Family.

'Secret Jewish women’s stuff ought to be carried out in more exotic places than suburban Australia.

'Except that sometimes, suburban Australia is chancy and troubling.

'Even without those mystery boxes from the great-grandmother no-one talks about.

'Even without the Angel of Death and Zoë’s pink tutu.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'This is not a self-help book, but it’s a book about dreams. They are not always good dreams.

'Fay is a dreamer.

'To escape real life, which she finds ‘drearily, drably and impossibly dull‘, Fay creates a dream-world.

'She escapes there as often as possible.

'But what happens when the line between dream and real life blurs?

'Dead morris dancers. Horror and happiness. Folksongs and friendship.

'Can she trust anything, or anybody?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.