Cirrus@Austlit

'Listen deeply now, if you remember how and why.

'On a hot October afternoon, a girl walks barefoot out of the Wimmera desert, near the small town of Gatyekarr.

'She finds sanctuary with Beth, a regenerative farmer and collector of seeds, devoted to bringing her family's farm back to life. The arrival of the mysterious 'desert girl' unsettles the community and old tensions erupt. The longer the girl stays silent, the more volatile the town becomes. Who is she and what does her presence mean?

'The Desert Knows Her Name is an exquisite novel that speaks to a deep longing for connection with the land, and the silences that persist in contemporary Australia.' (Publication summary)

'A stunning literary debut that takes the reader into the mysteries and truths that lie at the heart of our country.

'In the rear vision, the road was golden and straight and even, its length making sense of the sky, of the vast black cloud that was set to engulf it. I pulled over and got out. Stared at it, this gleaming snake - where I'd been, where it was going. The route that Jed had once taken.

'After years of travelling, Saul is trying to settle down. But one night he receives the devastating news of the death of his oldest friend, Jed, recently returned from working in a remote Aboriginal community. Saul's discovery in Jed's belongings of a photo of a woman convinces him that she may hold the answers to Jed's fate. So he heads out on a journey into the heart of the Australian desert to find the truth, setting in motion a powerful story about the landscapes that shape us and the ghosts that lay their claim.

'The Crying Place is a haunting, luminous novel about love, country, and the varied ways in which we grieve. In its unflinching portrayal of the borderlands where worlds come together, and the past and present overlap, it speaks of the places and moments that bind us. The myths that draw us in. And, ultimately, the ways in which we find our way home.' (Publication summary)

'Set in the Blue Mountains and in Sydney, Tom is Dead is a suspense novel about grief. The narrator's son has been dead for ten years; he was four and a half. For the first time since that day, she spends a few minutes without thinking of him. To stop herself from forgetting, she tries to write Tom's story, the story of his death.

'She writes about the first hours, the first days, and then about the hours and the days before. She strives to describe it all as precisely as possible. It's the details that will lead her and the reader to the truth.' (From Text Publishing's website.)