Cirrus@Austlit

'Wendy McCarthy wears the feminist badge with pride and continues to fight for women’s rights, 50 years after an injustice ignited her passion, writes Sue Smethurst'  (Introduction)

Author Jessie Stephens convinced three people to share their anguish and her book about heartache is about to take New York by storm, writes Sue Smethurst.'  

'Television journalist and newsreader Mimi Kwa peers into the mirror, shocked by what she sees. Overnight, a thick sprig of her raven hair has turned grey. It is the morning after she has received yet another threatening letter from her father, this one outlining his intention to sue for her inheritance: Kwa v Kwa is headed for the Supreme Court of Western Australia.' (Introduction)

'One family's death-defying act to escape the Nazis and start a new life in Australia.

'Written by award-winning author and journalist Sue Smethurst, whose husband is Mindla and Michael’s grandson, The Freedom Circus is an epic story of courage, hope, humanity, survival and, ultimately, love.

When Sue Smethurst first sat down with her grandmother-in-law and asked how she survived the Holocaust, she was shooed away. By that time Mindla was in a Melbourne Jewish nursing home with other survivors, her body ageing but mind still razor sharp.

''Vhy do you vant to know?' she’d ask. 'My story is nothing special.'

'As death began approaching Sue became a little more pushy. She knew Mindla’s life had to be recorded and they were running out of time. Each week she’d bring cake from her favourite shop in St Kilda, a bottle of the brightest nail polish she could find, a handful of old pictures and her tape recorder. They’d chat and paint Mindla’s nails, and with each ‘chat’ her story unfolded. It was beyond anything Sue could have imagined.

'The tale of how Mindla and her husband Michael Horowitz, a circus performer for the famous Staniewski Brothers, escaped from Poland with their son and embarked on a terrifying journey across Russia, is nothing short of extraordinary.' (Publication summary)

'A heartfelt, brave and inspiring memoir about the power of speaking out. A brave nun. Her twin brother. The secrets and lies that would tear them apart. Twins share a special bond, a connection that can't be put into words. Margaret Harrod shared that bond with her twin brother Michael. Inseparable as children, they both gave their lives to the Catholic Church at age 22, Margaret becoming a nun and Michael a Salesian priest. Now the brother Margaret adored is in jail after pleading guilty to multiple child abuse charges, and the unlikely whistleblower was Margaret, his courageous twin sister. It cost Margaret everything, but she couldn't stay silent any longer about the damage her brother was wreaking in his community. Margaret knows of that damage firsthand, having had that trust betrayed herself.Blood on the Rosary is the extraordinary story of how the brave nun took on the church, fighting for more than a decade to bring paedophile priests to justice, including her own brother.'Margaret Harrod's compelling life experience is a truth we all need to understand.' Chrissie Foster, author of Hell on the Way to Heaven.' (Publication summary)

'Four children by her father.

Thirty years of horrific sexual abuse.

'In March 2009, Joseph Fritzl was sentenced to life in jail for the systematic imprisonment, torture and rape of his daughter Elisabeth over 24 years, fathering seven children. The case shocked the world.

'But just a month before, the story of Australia’s own house of horrors was emerging in a Victorian country town.

'Under a blanket of suppression orders, a man in his late sixties was quietly arrested, charged – and later convicted – for the systematic rape, abuse and imprisonment of his only daughter, ‘Katherine’, which spanned decades. He fathered four of her children.

'Until now, this shocking story has been buried under a complex legal web and Katherine’s insistence on silence so that she could rebuild her shattered life and protect her children.

'In Behind Closed Doors, and written with Sue Smethurst, Katherine breaks her silence and tells the story of how she survived – and how such degrading abuse went unnoticed for so long.' (Publication summary)