Cirrus@Austlit

'Collection of short stories by the author of To Ride a Cock Horse', winner of the 1989 South East Asian and South Pacific First Book Award in the British Commonwealth Writers Prize. The stories are linked together by the river Fineflour and its place in the lives of the characters through successive generations.' (Publication summary)

In this beautifully written, quietly powerful book, Masters tells the story of Una and Enid Herbert, two lively young women who keep house for their brothers and widowed father in Wyndham, a tiny farming township south of Sydney, shortly after World War I. Enid is her father’s favourite, tending to the house and garden and priding herself on her domestic skills. Una, however, is different from her sister. Artistic and restless, she escapes from the confines of their farm whenever possible.

Their lives are focused on family matters until the young Reverend Colin Edwards moves into their district. Hungry for love, both sisters are drawn to him, and he to them. Wanting them both, he struggles to decide between the two, as they vie with increasing competitiveness for his affections. Edward’s choice does nothing to remedy the rapidly developing triangle of love and tension, but rather increases its intensity.

Loving Daughters, told in Masters’s spare and elegant prose, is a remarkable story of love, disappointment, frustration, and desire.

Australia's history retold through the eyes of Joan, a woman who has never rated a mention in the school books. Joan leads many lives: she is a wife and mother of no great distinction, but in the life of her imagination she is present at all the big moments of Australia's past. (Source: Trove)

'In this potent tale of love and loneliness, Elizabeth Jolley has woven two parallel stories into a dazzlingly original novel. Arabella Thorne is a brilliant, witty and accomplished woman. The exotic tale of this flamboyant eccentric and her European travels – with jealous secretary and shy schoolgirl protégée – is the inheritance that transforms the uneventful suburban life of Miss Peabody.' (Publication summary)

'In this classic story of small-town life, two schoolteachers are drawn to each other by their concern for a lonely young girl. For as long as Vinny Lalor could remember, she had been on the fringe of things – in her family and at school. But as the final term of the year progresses, rumour and malice mount against Vinny and her two teachers, sweeping them towards scandal and, for one of them, disaster.' (Source : UQP 2015 reissue.)

'From the subtropical lushness of Queensland’s Tamborine Rainforest to the claustrophobic bedroom of a Boston physicist, Janette Turner Hospital’s characters breathe an atmosphere of passion and suspense. Charade Ryan, an enigmatic story-spinning Scheherazade, searches for a way to unravel the long-held secrets of her family origins. As the narrative flits between the present and the past, and truth becomes increasingly subjective, Charade weaves a rich and textural tale out of the myths of her past. This vibrant, superbly crafted novel explores the elusive boundaries between existence and imagination, memory and truth.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (UQP, 2015 ed.)

'Nothing is as it seems in this twisted fairytale of moral ambiguity and corrupted innocence. Just as the tropical beauty of The Frangipani Gardens conceals its inherent menace, watercolour painter Doll lives a prim, respectable existence belying her wildest fantasies. But when her young niece and nephew come to stay, Doll’s true self threatens to be exposed.' (Publication summary)