Cirrus@Austlit

'Stina caught the excitement spreading like wildfire amongst the passengers. The Friedeburg had anchored in Moreton Bay and the long and uneventful voyage was finally over. It was 1872 and she couldn’t wait to go ashore, to feel the earth solid under her feet and to run forever without bumping into someone. To feel her hair flying out behind her and to put her arms around something sure and steadfast like a tree. To have a moment of quiet and uninterrupted solitude, to hear birdsong and nobody calling her name or requiring her help.

'Her new home would be in Australia, already so different from everything she’d left behind in Sweden. Life still wouldn’t be perfect, her stepmother would see to that, but soon Stina would be able to find a job and leave home. Through her fourteen-year-old eyes, the world was filled with possibilities just waiting for her to discover them…'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'A group of mates from the Sydney suburb of Botany answer the call from king and country and go away to fight in the first world war. Far from the adventure they imagined, the five years of the conflict bring challenge, fear and loss but also lighter moments and some unexpected romance.

'The boys shoulder distinctive responsibilities in Gallipoli and France. Boney creeps out under the cover of darkness to rescue helpless souls as an ambulance driver, Ced uses his engineering skills to design tunnels and lay explosives until he is captured and becomes a prisoner-of-war behind the front line, Frank leads a team operating a howitzer, Harry is a spy-catcher in England and Simmo takes to the skies as a daring fighter pilot. Clara and Maggie, Australian nurses, work in Cairo and on Lemnos before joining a hospital ship bound for England. Jeanne, a French pastrycook, volunteers as a V.A.D. in Rouen.

'Based on true accounts of the war, these Botany boys experience the daily horrors of those years and, in the process, learn the value of mateship and the cost involved in striving to preserve a way of life they believe cannot be compromised.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Kit Markham’s world turns upside down when Jack, the boy she always believed she would marry, turns out to be her half-brother. At sixteen, feisty and headstrong, she leaves her home in Melbourne and flees to England. The year is 1855. Though unsure of where life will lead, she is determined to stay away long enough to regain control over her future and leave her feelings for Jack behind.

'The Crimean War is drawing to a close in Europe and nurses are needed on the hospital ships bringing the wounded back to Britain. Kit volunteers and meets a young Canadian who was severely wounded outside Sebastopol. After caring for him she realises a calling to train as a doctor and travels to America. As a young woman seeking a place in a man’s world, she encounters both opposition and setbacks to her plan and must draw on her strength and resilience to survive.

'Kit marries Ned and finds she must step outside the accepted role of a doctor’s wife and mother to his children to follow him onto the battlefields of the American Civil War. Further opposition both from her family and from authorities accompanies this decision and Kit is challenged to remain focussed on what she believes is important. Jack re-enters her life, muddying her resolve even more. Ultimately she must decide what it is that will grant her the fulfilment she seeks and make her truly happy.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Penny Taylor, from London's East End, finds herself part of the struggling Hapless family, living in a caravan park in the Illawarra on the south coast of New South Wales. She is kept busy with three young children, two of whom belong to Dudley Hapless, her present partner and a professional basketball player with the Hawks. Dudley has four brothers, Dick, Rob, Bill and Bruce, and a younger sister named Rosie. Dick is a motor mechanic who seemingly cares only about cars and motor racing, Bill is working in Sydney as an architect and has mortgage problems, Rob is presently serving a prison sentence at Silverwater for his part in an armed robbery and Bruce, who works in a pet shop in Warrawong, is struggling to come to terms with his sexuality. Young Rosie, an apprentice hairdresser, is a breath of fresh air in the family, pure and innocent. Her mum's recent death caused her much sadness and she is now working hard to try and keep her grown-up family together. When Penny discovers that one of her children has an aggressive form of leukaemia, Rosie finds herself unmarried and pregnant and Bruce adds a further complication by choosing a very unwise direction, the family teeters on the brink of disintegration. Years of frustration and disinterest are gradually cast aside as each family member finds a way to lend support to these personal crises that are bigger than all of them and, along the way, they discover their own strengths and talents. Told from multiple character perspectives, Winfale Park is a personal and emotional home-grown drama about a group of strangers linked only by a surname, who come to remember the meaning of family and why they should do whatever it takes to stay together.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'A turbulent story of life and death amid the years of the Victorian gold rush.

'Adam, recently widowed and suffering from melancholia, sets out on an overland journey from Sydney in 1847 with his two young sons. Still grieving on his arrival in Melbourne, he leaves the boys in the care of friends and embarks on a further quest to mend his heart.

'Finally returning to Melbourne, he begins working for Joey Gower as the manager of her new hotel in St Kilda. Joey and Adam first met years before and Joey is hopeful of rekindling their brief affair. However her plans are thwarted when Adam is forced to return to Sydney.

'He later returns to Melbourne and purchases a rural property in the Dandenong Ranges but loses everything in the Black Thursday bushfires of 1851. His melancholia recurs.

'With Victoria attaining its statehood and the gold rush gaining momentum, Joey puts her energy into further expanding her growing empire, opening a string of general stores and two hotels in the goldfields, while Adam enters the transport business with Freeman Cobb.

'As Joey spends more time in Ballarat, she meets an American entrepreneur, Bart Montgomery, and her subsequent pregnancy has calamitous consequences for both herself and Adam.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Olivia and her friends Grace, Will and Jack continue discovering the wonders of Mr Mac’s magic classroom and visit many new places together including Tutankhamen’ tomb and Cleopatra in Ancient Egypt an underground city in Turkey, Louisbourg and an old circus. They are present in Darwin during Cyclone Tracy and meet Harry Houdini, Mozart and Breaker Morant with many other people and places in between.

Matt, Nicky, Ben and Kris also return for an adventure back to New York during the terrorist attacks on the twin towers.

'Mr Mac’s love of teaching history provides some of the destinations the four friends choose to visit. Others are the choice of the children. In this fourth book in the series, they continue to meet some of history’s most famous heroes, and are present at some of history’s most crucial times.' (Publisher's blurb)

'The story of two young women determined to live outside the confines of the Victorian Age and who have a lasting impact on the fledgling town of Melbourne. Florence is seduced by the son of her employer in Leicestershire. Thomas Luxford casts her aside, denying all responsibility for her coming child. Fleeing her former life, Florence's twins are born illegitimately in Bedford in 1819.

'Florence is alone and destitute with her infant daughters. Fortunately the twins' paternal grandfather seeks them out and saves them from the workhouse. Thanks to his benevolence, Joey and Maddy grow up in secluded gentility. However, their way of life changes with the onset of their mother's consumption and a trip to Brighton to effect a cure. At nineteen, the twins suffer a double tragedy, losing both their mother and their beloved grandfather.

'After time in London and on the advice of their solicitor, the girls flee the country to secure the inheritance left to them by their grandfather. They choose to make Australia their new home. The voyage via Rio de Janeiro is not without incident and Joey finds she cannot remain in Sydney with her sister. She travels on to Melbourne, determined to make her life in the young and brash settlement. Maddy joins her there. In the fledgling town where floods and constant mud threaten to overwhelm, the girls follow through with their plan for their future.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Matt, Ben, Nicky and Kris are four friends living in the small town of Coolongawong in New South Wales. They have just finished primary school and spent the last two years in Mr Mac’s class. They discovered at the beginning of Year 5 that Mr Mac’s classroom was a magic one and by tripping on a creaky floorboard, crashing into the teacher’s desk and saying the magic words History’s a Mystery, they could be transported back in time and discover history as it is being made in exciting, and sometimes dangerous, adventures.

'Now they must leave the magic classroom behind as they begin high school in Orange. However, Mr Mac has given them hope that their magic adventures may continue. Together they visit Scotland and Sydney before realizing that their adventures cannot continue.

'Matt decides to invite his younger sister Olivia along on an adventure to the Klondike Gold Rush in Alaska. This, in turn, leads to her including her friends Grace, Will and Jack. Together, these four discover the wonders of Mr Mac’s magic classroom and visit many new places together including the Warsaw Ghetto, China’s Terracotta Army, the airship Hindenburg, the Incas, the Taj Mahal and Stonehenge, with many other places in between.

'Mr Mac’s love of teaching history provides some of the destinations the four friends choose to visit. Others are the choice of the children.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Matt, Ben and Nicky have grown up together in the small town of Coolongawong in New South Wales. Last year a new girl came to town and Kris quickly became the fourth member of their group. Now the four friends are about to start Year 6 with the school's most popular teacher, Mr Mac. They discovered last year that by tripping on a creaky floorboard and saying the magic words History's a Mystery, they could be transported back in time and discover history as it is being made in exciting, and sometimes dangerous, adventures. They are now looking forward to another whole year of these adventures. In this second book they continue to meet some of history's most famous heroes and are present at some of history's most crucial times. Their adventures take them from visits back to the time of the dinosaurs and the Ice Age to the Ancient Olympics in Greece, the Vikings and Aztecs, to man's first time on top of Mt Everest and on the moon, from a rainforest adventure and a meeting with Ned Kelly to the last night on the Titanic and many more places in between.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.