Cirrus@Austlit

'Moss Side was a hard place in the 1920s. Gangs dominated the streets, and the Bloods were the meanest gang in Moss Side streets. Ernest Roberts was their most feared enforcer, and whether it was in the boxing ring or on the street, Ernie reckoned he was the toughest, hardest son-of-a-bitch around. Then, suddenly, dire circumstances changed all that. He was forced to scarper without so much as a goodbye to his family, with his destination uncertain. But every journey must have a destination, and for better or worse, he chose a new life somewhere south of Capricorn. His arrival wasn't timely. 'Getcha Sinny Mornin' 'erald,' a raucous newsboy shouted. 'World financial system collapses! New York Stock Exchange loses half its value!' It was October 24, 1929-Black Tuesday. At first, he wondered how events so far away could possibly impact him. New York is a long way from Sydney, and he failed to see what was getting everyone excited. Some wealthy American speculators had lost their dough. So what? Then, it got worse. For Ernie, that was just the beginning of his getting of wisdom.' (Publication summary)

'As Osaka Maru steams into the port town of Kure, the great, grey war-making vessels of the Imperial Japanese Navy are making steam. The boy at the bow wonders where they are headed.

'Once ashore, he finds Kure changed beyond recognition. The boy is returning to Japan, to the only family he knows, his uncle and aunt and his cousin, Kazuo. It is seven years since he last saw his homeland. Seven years since, with his parents, he left Kure for Minas Gerais, in the wilds of Brazil, to fulfil his father’s misplaced ambition to become a coffee planter. It had brought his parents only misery and ultimately, an untimely end for them both, leaving Hanro orphaned and alone in a foreign country. It has taken almost two years to find the means to return to his homeland. He climbs Mount Egezan and knocks on his Uncle Junichiro’s door.
The lady who answers is a surprise. She is a gaigin, an Englishwoman who explains that his uncle’s family had moved away, to Hiroshima. She invites him in and he finds that she is married to a flyer on the aircraft carrier Hiryu, the Flying Dragon. When she shows a photo of her husband flying his Nakajima torpedo bomber, wearing a white hachimaki tied around his forehead, a samurai of the sky, he is immediately seen as a hero. The Englishwoman invites the boy to stay with her until he can find his family. In exchange, he agrees to restore the samurai’s garden. The boy finds that he has walked into a tense and conflicted household. Then Radio Tokyo announces that the Imperial Japanese Navy has destroyed the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor …' (Publication summary)

'The enigmatic ruins of ancient civilisations intrigue us all. The mystery of how they were built and even more, what caused their disintegration mystifies us too, and the scientific explanation often feels disturbingly inadequate. There is much more to know. Charlie Khat is studying archaeology at Sydney University. He loves it, along with his part-time job at the museum, his cricket, and his mates, and considers himself to be thoroughly Australian. But he's also a refugee from Cambodia, a Khmer, a brown-skinned man in a white society. His adopted country is vainly resisting the need to shed colonial attitudes and come to terms with a changing world. The Dreaming Stone tells the story of Charlie's mission to unravel the secrets of a mysterious incised stone found on Australia's remote north coast and to uncover the secrets of his own incredible past. His search takes him back to the mighty Mekong River, and almost forgotten boyhood memories. At the great, ruined temples of Angkor Wat, with their awesome carved faces gradually being dismantled by strangling vegetation, he discovers he is in great peril, simply because he is Charlie Khat.' (Publication summary)

'This is Ron's first book. It took a while to get up the courage but he's pretty proud of it. The poems flow from seventy years of experience: farming childhood, love and sex, and travels of the world, of the word and of the mind.' (Publication summary) 

(Publication summary)

'When blitzkrieg begins with an attack on Fort Eben Emael, the phoney war is over. Amid the confusion, Radio Belgium informs the nation that a new Belgian army will form in the west and the young men are ordered to evacuate westward, ahead of the Panzer army. So, Jacques Schuermans leaves home and family to join the westbound refugee stream and an uncertain future. As the Wehrmacht rolls across Belgium, he can only head further west, all the way to London and the blitz. Heroes are created by circumstance, and when the bombs begin to fall on London, Jacques volunteers for the Emergency Services. He is forced to confront his fears and to discover new resources deep within himself. He also discovers Grace Nicholls, a pretty, friendly barmaid at the Blackstock Tavern and love begins to blossom. But war won't wait, so when he is inducted into the Belgian forces destined to free Belgium, the day nears when he must go to war. The lovers decide to seize today, for they may not have tomorrow. The real Jacques Schuermans survived his extraordinary war. 'Souvenirs' is based on his remarkable seven-page memoir, discovered by his daughter Monique after his death many years later.'  (Publication summary)

'The streets of Darlinghurst are dangerous. It is 1930 and razor gangs compete for domination of the turf. Leaving home isn’t optional when Gilbert Maggs’ drunken father chases him from the house with a carving knife. He quickly finds that the back streets hold dangers of their own.

'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)

'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)