Cirrus@Austlit

'Tessa is a first-generation Greek teenager growing up in Sydney. Her migrant parents are as strict as their parents before them, but this is 1970s Australia and it is hard for a young girl to be left out of all the social contacts of her peers and conform to a rigidly sexist code of behaviour. University brings relative freedom, but when Tessa falls in love with her English professor and rebels against an arranged marriage, the going gets tough.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'There is trouble on Faraway Island. It is time for the Great Fairy Council to elect a new fairy ruler, but as the Fairy Queen's crown has been stolen, this is not possible. Rumour has it that Lord Foulweather, king of the goblins, has stolen the crown, and that soon he'll be the one sitting on the throne.

'In an attempt to stop this from happening, the Queen decrees that whoever finds the crown and brings it back safely to Faraway Island will be crowned the new fairy ruler.

'Blaize (the singing fairy), Puck (the love fairy), Eden (the healing fairy) and Astara (the youngest fairy in the land), all volunteer to go on the quest. Because the fairies have lost their flying power, the Queen summons a thunderstorm to scatter the volunteers all over the kingdom. Hence, each fairy ends up having a different adventure, meeting bunyips, wattlemen, yowies and dragons along the way. ' (Publication summary)

'Astara, the new Fairy Queen, is faced with her first challenge - the ice in the High Hills is spreading towards the fairy forest, killing a lot of the plants and animals that live there.

'The ice is being spread by hobyahs, icy monsters that live in the glaciers, and the only way to fight them is with the Emerald of Life, a magical gem held by a gryphon, a giant animal that lives on the Glittering Plains and has not spoken or moved for thousands of years.

'To make matters worse, while Astara is trying to work out how to make the gryphon give her the magic emerald, her friend the Moon Fairy and her little moonbeams are kidnapped by the willowykes, nasty tree-like creatures that live by lakes and bogs. ' (Publication summary)

'Fafnir the dragon is in love - with himself. Shot by one of Puck s love arrows while staring at a mirror, poor Fafnir is now singing endless love songs to himself.

'If only his singing were good. It is so bad, in fact, that the goblins have been stealing the gnomes beards and using the hair to make earplugs. The gnomes are furious and turn to Astara, the Fairy Queen, for help.

'Astara summons Puck, the love fairy, to remove the arrow and stop Fafnir's singing. With the help of his friend Blaize, he tries to do so but fails. The only way to break the spell over Fafnir is to find another dragon for him to love, and that is when they decide to ask the Sea Fairy for help.

'The Sea Fairy introduces them to Warawan, the gentle water dragon who lives with her. ' (Publication summary)

'Blaize, the singing fairy, is depressed he has lost his guitar in the goblin caves and can no longer use his fairy magic. Astara, the Fairy Queen, decides Blaize needs cheering up so she sends Cedar, the fairy wand-maker, Puck, the love fairy, Eden, the healing fairy, and herself on a special quest to gather unique materials from around Faraway Island to make Blaize a new magical fairy guitar. Meanwhile, Garton the Ghastly, the new Goblin King, has found Blaizes old broken guitar, and has started playing it and creating havoc for the gnomes and pixies. The only way he can be stopped from playing his hypnotic tunes is by Blaize playing his new guitar and undoing the old guitar's magic. On the quest, the fairies encounter new and strange creatures who help them find what they need to make the guitar and restore peace to the island. Puck meets the Mistral Tree, the rarest tree in the Wild Woods, Eden meets the grumpy singing sirens, and Cedar goes to the Hissing Volcano where she encounters the most unusual gentle beast, the qilin. Astara gets the flower fairies to help her find the magical starberries, which play the most important role of all they tempt the dangerous Chimera from the Wild Forest, and, while it eats the berries, she uses a magical spell and the power of her sceptre to summon a rainbow. The rays fall on the Chimera, and the beast freezes and she manages to collect some of its scales, an essential ingredient in making the new magical guitar.' (Publication summary)

'Astara, Eden, Puck and Blaize have been captured by the Siduri, greedy silver-faced women who live in the Dark Forest and capture prisoners in spider-like webs in the mists behind the Cataract River.

'They mesmerise their prisoners by making them eat enticing silver nuts, and force them to sew silver moondust into their clothes, and to sew nets to capture the moon.

'To make matters worse, Garton the Ghastly teams up with the Siduri, and strengthens their spells by using the stolen Plant Spell Book to enslave even more fairies who he wants to capture once and for all and eat for dinner. ' (Publication summary)

'Astara the Fairy Queen is concerned for her friends the Asrai river fairies. She has gone to visit them in the Diamond River, as she does every mid-winter's night, to have a special dinner and to receive a special gift for her hardest-working fairy, to find they are sick.

'Ziel, the beautiful Asrai Princess, is weak, the fish aren't eating and the ducks have flown away. Even the diamonds have gone missing. Something is causing the river to be polluted and poisoned, and not even Eden s healing cup can help. The fairies soon discover that Garton has been chopping down young green trees in the forest to make his tunnels warm, causing smoke and pollution, and also melting the glaciers where the hobyahs live. The treasure-hungry goblin has also started a mine and taken the wonderful diamonds at the head of the Diamond River.

'The fairies and the hobyahs work together to figure out a way to stop Garton spoiling the environment and making the creatures ill. Ziel draws on her special powers to create wild storms and torrential downpours to fall on the goblins caves, and the hobyahs use a magical ice spell to freeze all the water.

'Meanwhile, the wattleman goes to tell the mistral trees what has happened, who lend the powerful light of their golden flowers to a spell Astara performs to stop the goblins chopping the trees and mining the diamonds.' (Publication summary)

'Eden has befriended a strange and gentle beast, the qilin, who lives on the slopes of the Hissing Volcano and whose favourite food is the fire flower, a mysterious new plant. Eden is keen to study this plant further for its magical properties, however, her precious Plant Spell Book is still in Garton the Ghastly's possession.

'Garton, meanwhile, has tricked the fairies into believing he can't read and that the book is useless to him, so that they don't suspect he is plotting another evil plan to overthrow them. But he is planning the biggest nasty surprise of them all to march on the fairy castle itself and attack, with the help of his loyal goblin army, some enormous fierce flytraps and, his most important weapon, the qilin, who, with the help of the spell book, Garton has turned from a kind friend to the fairies into a vicious, angry beast who obeys his every evil command.

'But the fairies are a lot smarter than Garton had counted on, and, after a spectacular and dramatic battle, they employ some of their most unusual and powerful magic plus an ingenious idea involving Fafnir the Dragon to ward off the goblin army and save their home.

'Eden discovers a way to return the qilin to its normal self using the magical fire flower, and the fairies celebrate their narrow victory. ' (Publication summary)

'The magical Upside-Down Plant, a black stone flower that poisons everything it touches and turns good to bad and bad to good, has been discovered again.

'Many, many years ago, the Midnight Fairy, when she was Fairy Queen, broke its evil powers with a spell and buried it, hoping it would never be seen again.

'Meanwhile, Garton has stolen the fairies precious Plant Spell Book, and recognises the poisonous flower in the book. Not being able to read himself, he kidnaps Goodewin the Gnome Wizard and touches him with the plant.

'Goodewin changes instantly and uses his wizardry for evil instead of good and teaches Garton to read. Garton then uses the black plant to upset all the flowers in the Scented Hills and ruin any magical fairy potions, and the fairies can no longer heal the sick animals in Faraway Island.

'On looking into Goodewin's crystal ball Astara's fears are confirmed. The fairy Plant Spell Book is in Garton's possession and he is using it against them. She realises it's time to call on the Midnight Fairy for help.' (Publication summary)

'Deep in the Dark Forest of Faraway Island, a small and wizened pisky named Pinch is up to mischief!

'She has stolen Eden's magical healing cup and poisoned it with the most dreadful fairy potion ever invented - glamour. Glamour disguises the truth. Those who look at glamour are deceived by it. The glamour draws them in, even though it makes them sick, and they are held under its spell. Those who drink glamour, on the other hand, become the deceivers and are turned into something they are not.

'When the ugly Pinch takes a sip of the glamour potion, she becomes extremely beautiful and fresh-faced to anyone who lays eyes on her. Before long, the nasty pisky has the Gnome Mayor, Puck, Blaize and even Lord Foulweather falling madly in love with her, making her the most powerful being on Faraway Island.

I't's up to Eden to retrieve her healing cup and undo the effect of the deceptive glamour.

'And when she does, Pinch will learn a valuable lesson about the true meaning of beauty. ' (Publication summary)

'It's time for the Great Mystery Party, where Astara, the newest Fairy Queen, will learn about the great mystery of Faraway Island.

'The two previous queens, the Moon Fairy and the Midnight Fairy, meet with her to instruct her. They tell her that every hundred years the Queen must go on a journey and attempt to join the sceptre and crown with the diamond heart of Faraway Island. By doing so, the Queen's powers will be strengthened and she will become the keeper of their fairy powers.

'Should Astara fail in her journey, the fairies will lose their magic and vanish. Astara is horrified to learn this mystery, but reluctantly accepts her mission.

'However, early on in her journey, her crown and sceptre are stolen by Lord Foulweather, King of the Goblins, rendering all the fairies powerless.

'Meanwhile, Lord Foulweather is using fairy magic to cause all sorts of problems, such as creating a drought in the land so he can charge everyone for a drink. The fairies must join forces to recover the sceptre and crown and put a stop to Lord Foulweather. ' (Publication summary)

'In Faraway Island, the bugaboos are on the prowl! These nasty, slimy monsters pounce on their victims, frightening them out of their wits, then stealing their gold and treasure. So far, Eden the healing fairy and her friends the water bunyip and the Wattleman have all been bugabooed and they are not happy!

Meanwhile, Cedar, the fairy wand-maker and keeper of spells, is attending to her one hundred fairy penguins, Penelope, Peg, Petra, Petunia, Penly and Portia, among others. The time has come for them to hatch their chicks. Every one hundred years, her penguins hatch fabulous balls of fluffy gold. The Goldies , as they are known, are fed golden perch until they become big and fat. Once they lose their down, they turn black and white.

Before long, however, Cedar discovers her penguin friends have been frozen and their eggs have gone missing!

Have the bugaboos been at it again? It s up to Cedar and Astara, the Fairy Queen, to save the day. ' (Publication summary)

'Garton the Ghastly, the goblin king, is furious with the fairies for foiling his wicked plans for diamond mines and central heating, and plots revenge. Using the stolen Plant Spell Book, and a stolen wand from a flower fairy, he makes a spell to cause all the fairies to lose their voices.

'Garton is also creating problems for the triggles, small furry creatures who eat mud and live under the Glittering Plains. They dig up pieces of stones and gems to make the plains glitter, but Garton, greedy as ever, has decided the jewels would be better off in his possession.

'He poisons the plains and tricks the triggles into thinking it was the fairies, and convinces them to give him all the jewels. The triggles, who swell and explode when they are frightened, shower the flower fairies with mud. The bedraggled flower fairies need the fairies help, but their voices are lost so they can t communicate!

'Cedar knows a spell that will restore their voices, involving a rare purple rose that can be found on a sapphire. Sadly, because the triggles are giving Garton all the jewels, there are hardly any sapphires left, but luckily, right on the edge of the Glittering Plains, Cedar spies one last glittering gem and a deep purple rose the potion is made and the fairies voices return. ' (Publication summary)