Cirrus@Austlit

'They were still who they always had been, still those sisters, but on this afternoon, in this car, driving with the windows down between cane fields under a deepening sky with purple cut-out mountains in the distance, they were wearing it so lightly, their bossiness and flakiness and wildness, they were wearing it like they used to, like it was supple, slippery, not completely fixed. Like it could be taken off.'

'In the car Meg had been laughing too. Meg and Amber laughing in the front and Nina in the back hiding secret tears of hope behind her sunglasses. They had been close then, the three of them, together in that moment of lightness...'

'Meg and Nina have been outshone by their younger sister Amber since childhood. They have become used to living on the margins of their parents' interest, used to others turning away from them and towards charismatic Amber.

'But Amber's life has not gone the way they all thought it would and now the three of them are together for the first time in years, on the road to a remote holiday rental in Far North Queensland, where Meg and Nina plan on helping Amber overcome her addiction. As good intentions gradually become terrifying reality, these sisters will test the limits of love and the line between care and control.

'Peggy Frew is a consummate observer of human frailty and fragile love, and in Wildflowers she has created a riveting, compassionate and affecting novel that is impossible to put down and even harder to forget.' (Publication summary)

There was a house on a hill in the city and it was full of us, our family, but then it began to empty. We fell out. We made a mess. We draped ourselves in blame and disappointment and lurched around, bumping into each other. Some of us wailed and shouted; some of us barely made a sound. None of us was listening, or paying attention. And in the middle of it all you, very quietly, were gone.

Helen and John are too preoccupied with making a mess of their marriage to notice the quiet ways in which their daughters are suffering. Junie grows up brittle and defensive, Anna difficult and rebellious.

When fifteen-year-old Anna fails to come home one night, her mother's not too worried; Anna's taken off before but always returned. Helen waits three days to report her disappearance.

But this time Anna doesn't come back...

A spellbinding novel in the tradition of Helen Garner, Charlotte Wood and Georgia Blain, Islands is a riveting and brilliant portrait of a family in crisis by the breathtakingly talented author of House of Sticks and Hope Farm.

'From the award-winning author of House of Sticks comes a magnificent story of love, tragedy, and forgiveness lost.

'It is the winter of 1985, and 13-year-old Silver Landes is about to be pushed towards a decision that could split her world apart. Her mother, Ishtar, has fallen for the charismatic but unnerving Miller, and the three of them have moved from Brisbane to Hope Farm, a run-down hippie commune in rural Gippsland.

'Among the bedraggled residents of Hope, young Silver finds unexpected friendship and love. Has she found a home at last? Or will Ishtar's secrets force Silver into becoming an adult before she is ready, with devastating consequences?

'Hope Farm is a beautifully wrought, tender tale of what happens when love brings about unforeseen and unimaginable acts of sacrifice, and the enduring damage that can result from holding back the truth.' (Publication summary)