Solly's Way : An Australian Story
Glen Waverley
:
Sid Harta Publishers
,
2009
8680051
2009
single work
novel
historical fiction
'It is the 1890s and the prosperous years are gone. Drought and depression are biting hard across the outback. The falling price of wool triggers violent confrontation between the pastoralists and the shearers union. Banks across Australia begin to close their doors as property values plummet.
'Thomas Landerville is a small landholder caught between a crippling mortgage and a parched property that can no longer support his flock. His wife Isabelle is a resourceful woman of the outback but like her husband, she is wondering how they can survive. Alone at home, through the heat haze in the distance Isabelle sees an old swagman pushing a loaded wheelbarrow towards her and anticipates that he will ask for a meal and a cup of tea. But she loads the shotgun and leans it behind the door "just in case". Little does she know of the many ways this old swagman will change her life and that of her family.'
Source: Publisher's blurb (Harbour Publishing House)
Solly's Legacy
Ulladulla
:
Harbour Publishing House
,
2016
10293419
2016
single work
novel
historical fiction
war literature
'Daniel Landerville’s roots are embedded deep in the red earth of the Australian outback. It is a time when Empire is paramount and many Australians, even native-born ones, think of England as ‘home’. His boyhood affinity for horses becomes both his business and his passion.
'When the clouds of the Great War gather over Europe, Australian soldiers need mounts, lots of mounts, and the army turns to men like Daniel. Like many others, a sense of patriotic fervour and naive adventurism entices him to leave home and family in answer to his country’s call. When Empire demands it, he becomes a horsemaster of the Australian Light Horse.
'His sense of adventure is soon quenched once he experiences the trench warfare horrors of Gallipoli. When he is invalided home after the great Light Horse charge at Beersheba, his wounds are not just physical. Melancholy and regret threatens to overwhelm him, until he finally realises that he has unfinished business in turbulent post war Ottoman Turkey that he must resolve, if he is to ever find peace.' (Publication summary)
Solly's Journey : A Wanderer's Story
Jacobs Well
:
Ocean Reeve Publishing
,
2021
26585451
2021
single work
novel
'Solomon Buckpitt's desperate family circumstances lead him to signing on as cabin boy on Delaware Belle, a packet ship plying between Plymouth and New York. As he becomes a man, he spends many spare hours reading the works of James Fenimore Cooper's tales of the Wild West and gradually pines for adventures past the confines of shipboard life. Curiosity becomes obsession and the lands beyond the Belle's ports of call beckon until he must follow. Solomon signs off from Delaware Belle in New York and begins walking westwards towards the Oregon Trail, seeking the mystical frontier he'd read so much about. It leads him to places and adventures he could never have imagined. But far from slaking his thirst for new adventure, it gradually festers into an insatiable wanderlust. Then he is shipwrecked on the shores of Australia and a wheelbarrow named Bertha leads him to Wallangulla?'
(Publication summary)
