Cirrus@Austlit

'There are few more moving experiences than for the silenced to be heard.

'Chrissie Foster is the mother who brought the rich and powerful Catholic Church to its knees over its global abuse of children, including two of her daughters, Emma and Katie. Like the Boston Globe's Spotlight team, she built an undeniable case in her first book Hell on the Way to Heaven, which helped inspire Australian governments to hold world-leading inquiries.

'This is what happened next.

'Grieving the death of Emma and the catastrophic accident that left Katie largely using a wheelchair and unable to care for herself, and bullied by the Catholic Church, Chrissie Foster somehow found the strength to win and bring about changes in child safety that she hopes will last forever. From regional Australia all the way to Rome, her tenacity and bravery to see justice delivered is unequalled. In this confronting account she explains the incredible battle she fought together with her husband, Anthony, and how she found the strength to continue even after his tragic and untimely death.

'Her ongoing activism inspires others to challenge once-powerful male-dominated institutions. In the face of horrifying adversity, Chrissie Foster has come through it to a place of peace.' (Publication summary) 

'Paul Kennedy's Funkytown is the vivid true story of a year in the life of a teenager leaping into manhood.

'It is 1993: a serial killer is loose on the streets of Frankston, Victoria. The community is paralysed by fear and a state's police force and national media come to find a killer. Meanwhile, seventeen-year-old Paul Kennedy is searching for something else entirely. He is focused on finishing school, getting drafted into the AFL and falling in love. So much can change in a year.

'The rites of passage for many Australian teenage boys - blackout drinking, simmering violence and emotional suppression - take their toll, and the year that starts with so much promise ends with Kennedy expelled, arrested and undrafted. But one teacher sees Kennedy self-destructing, and becomes determined to set him on another path.

'Told with poignancy, humour and evoking the brilliant, dusty haze of late Australian summer, Funkytown is a love letter to adolescence, football, family, and outer suburbia.' (Publication summary)

'"My ancestors were the first people to walk on this land. Those other girls were always going to come up against my ancestors. Who's going to stop me?"

The torch. The swift suit. There she is. Good on ya, Cathy! Butterflies. The back straight. Freeman cool. The bend. Cathy lifting. The home straight. Flying now. Go Cathy. "What a legend, what a champion."

Twenty years later. More tears. Goosebumps, still.'

(Source : ABC)

'When it comes to racing, the name most Australians associate with the racetrack is Waterhouse. This is their compelling story.

HIGH STAKES tracks the story of the Waterhouse dynasty - from the early years of the colony to Bill Waterhouse's introduction to the bookmaking world as a sixteen-year-old, working as a 'penciller' (writing betting tickets) for his father in the late thirties. From that moment his future was clear. He went on to make money both on and off the track - and created headlines during the notorious Fine Cotton affair in the eighties.' (Hachette Australia)

'Chrissie and Anthony Foster were like any other young family, raising their three daughters in suburban Melbourne with what they hoped were the right values. Chrissie could not have known that the stranger-danger she feared actually lurked in the presbytery attached to the girls' Catholic primary school. Father Kevin O'Donnell, a long-term paedophile, lived and worked there.

'Two of their young daughters became victims of O'Donnell. And once the truth was revealed, the Fosters began a battle to find out how this could have happened. The Church offered silence, lies, denials and threats. Meanwhile, their daughters tried to piece together their fractured lives.

'This is the chilling true story that made national and international headlines. Chrissie Foster's heartbreaking account of her family's suffering, and their determination to stand up for themselves against the might of the Catholic Church, is testament to the strength of a mother's love, and the resilience of the human spirit.' (From the publisher's website.)