Cirrus@Austlit

'A dazzling new series from bestselling historical fiction author Deborah Challinor, exploring the fascinating world of Victorian funeral customs and featuring Sydney's first female undertaker.

''Men have been undertakers for hundreds of years. Not women, men. You don't belong.'

'Sydney, 1865. Seventeen-year-old Tatiana Caldwell travels from London to make a new life. Her path leads her to Crowe Funeral Services, where she apprentices under the tutelage of Titus Crowe, the enigmatic owner.

'Tatty finds herself drawn to the fascinating conventions of the funeral trade - plumed horses and processions, mutes and mortuary trains, flowers and finery - as well as the more visceral new practice of embalming. Soon she marries, and after the sudden death of her husband, Titus, she becomes Sydney's first female undertaker.

'Her hard-won stability is shattered when Elias Nuttall, a ruthless rival in the funeral trade, accuses Tatty of murdering her husband. Facing public scorn and legal peril, Tatty gathers an unlikely band of allies in a battle to clear her name.

'Black Silk and Sympathy is a riveting and realistic journey through the front parlours and dark alleys of 1860s Sydney, from the Botanic Gardens in the morning to the cemetery at midnight.' (Publication summary)

'Rowie's pro-war, her sister Jo's a protester. And they're both in Vietnam. The compelling new novel from the bestselling author of From the Ashes

'In 1969, at the height of the Vietnam war, nurse Rowie Leonard is serving a 12-month tour of duty. She supports the war and is committed to caring for wounded New Zealand and Australian troops. After a few months, however, she realises that nothing at all about the conflict is as clear-cut as she'd assumed.

'Her younger sister, Jo, is the opposite - a student at Auckland University, a folk singer and a fervent anti-war protestor. But when Jo falls for professional soldier Sam Apanui, home on leave to visit his ill father, she finds herself torn between her feelings and her convictions.

'As the three of them grapple with love, loss, and the stresses and sorrows of war, each will be forced to confront and question everything they believed'  (Publication summary)

'Polly Manaia is living in Sydney's notorious Kings Cross, working as an exotic dancer. She's desperate to bring her young daughter to live with her, but beneath her brash confidence lie dark secrets which threaten to drag her under.

'Gina is excited to live with her mum again. She's mature for an eleven-year-old, but can this young girl cope with Polly's demons?

'Rhoda and Star, transgender performers and Polly's flatmates, bring stability to Polly and Gina's lives. Yet this unlikely little family will find themselves threatened in more ways than one.' (Publication summary)

'Allie Manaia works the Elizabeth Arden counter at Smith and Caughey's. It's been two years since the Dunbar and Jones fire, where some of her friends perished, but she still has nightmares.

'Kathleen Lawson -- rich, lonely and bored -- is one of Allie's customers. Kathleen takes a shine to Allie, but when Kathleen discovers Allie's husband is Maori, her attitude changes. Is she trying to make friends or poison the relationship between Sonny and Allie?

'Meanwhile, Sonny's beautiful younger sister, Polly, is embracing the more relaxed moral standards of the era, living a vibrant but wayward life as a waitress-model-goodtime girl while leaving her young daughter to be raised by her mother.

'As each woman navigates the shifting social and cultural landscape of the 1950s, she is faced with new possibilities and decisions - with freedom comes joy, but also fear and, occasionally, mistakes.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'A story of love, family, adventure and intrigue, set against backdrops of the gold rushes in Australia and New Zealand and the Opium Wars in China.

'When Kitty and Rian Farrell sail their schooner Katipo III in Dunedin Harbour in 1863, they are on a mission. The goldfields have attracted all-comers, including their friend Wong Fu from Ballarat. Wong Fu reveals he is more than a mere fortune seeker: he is in fact the Cloud Leopard tong master of the Wong family, and his daughter has been kidnapped and taken to opium-ridden Hong Kong. Rian and Kitty agree to try to find the Cloud Leopard's daughter, but as they sail closer to their quarry, the stakes jump dramatically. Kitty's adopted daughter Amber is kidnapped when they are forced to stop at Manilla, and it looks like the same party is behind this crime. Kitty, Rian and their crew must not only search for two young women, they must navigate dangerous shoals of pirates, corrupt officials, greedy rulers, wronged lovers and petty grievances.

'Cloud Leopard's daughter continues the story of Kitty, Rian and Amber - now wiser and stronger - as they straddle both sides of the law against the backdrop of gold rushes in Australia and New Zealand and the Opium Wars in China.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The fourth and final book in the epic Convict Girls saga from bestselling author Deborah Challinor, vividly bringing the past and its people to life.

'1832: Convict girls Friday Woolfe, Sarah Morgan and Harriet Clarke have been serving their sentences in Sydney Town for three years. For much of that time they have lived in fear of sinister and formidable Bella Jackson, who continues to blackmail them for a terrible crime. Each of them has begun to make a life for herself, but when Harrie's adopted child Charlotte is abducted and taken to Newcastle, the girls must risk their very freedom to save her.

'But is Friday up to the task? Will her desperate battle with her own vices drive her to fail not only herself, but those she loves and all who love her?

In this final volume of a saga about four convict girls transported halfway around the world, friends and family reunite but cherished loved ones are lost, and an utterly shocking secret is revealed.' (Publication summary)

'Book three in the best-selling SMUGGLER'S WIFE series by one of our leading historical novelists.

'Kitty Farrell, headstrong and passionate as ever, is heartbroken over the apparent death by drowning of her husband Rian. Alone and grieving on the goldfields of Ballarat she turns to Rian's long-time shipmate Daniel, who has loved her from afar for many years.

'The consequences will be disastrous and challenge every character in this brilliant third instalment in Deborah Challinor's extraordinary Smuggler's Wife series.

'Vividly drawn, meticulously researched and driven by a powerful page-turning narrative, Band of Gold will resonate in the hearts of readers for a long time.' (Publication summary)

'1830s Sydney Town - with its bar brawls, blackmail, friendship, romance, tattoos, gin and much more - is brought vividly to life as feisty prostitute Friday, naive seamstress Harrie and cunning thief Sarah try to make their way as transported convict women. Driven by madness …saved by love. ‘A door slammed shut somewhere inside Harrie, trapping all that she was and everything she’d ever been. The voices had won. She was damned. She was …no one.’ 1831: Assigned to a good family in Sydney town and now learning the art of tattoo, convict girl Harrie Clarke is still haunted by the horror of the brutal murder she and friends Friday Woolfe and Sarah Morgan committed the previous year. Powerful and vindictive criminal Bella Jackson continues to demand money in exchange for her silence regarding their crime. And just when it seems that Harrie and her fervent and long-time admirer James Downey might finally be united, an act of pure nastiness severely threatens their chances - and Harrie’s life. When things go from bad to much, much worse for Harrie, she is left teetering on the brink. But Friday, in love at last, is battling demons of her own, and Sarah is forced to lie low for fear of attracting the attention of the police. Who will be the one to rescue Harrie?' (Publication summary)

'It's 1969 and Davey lives to surf with his older brother Tom and listen to the latest hits. Daveys most cherished goal is to win the inaugural Newcastle Under-14 Surf Championship planned for May 1970 with his best friends Johnno and Pete. But then Tom is drafted into the army and sent to Vietnam and everything changes.' (Publication summary)

'1830: Convict girls Friday Woolfe, Harriet Clarke and Sarah Morgan have been settled in Sydney for almost a year. Sarah has been assigned to jeweller Adam Green, Harriet is a maid for the Barrett family, and Friday is working as a prostitute in a brothel. Each of them is struggling to forget the brutal crime they committed.

'But their fate is no longer theirs to control. Vicious underworld queen Bella Jackson holds the girls’ futures in the palm of her hand, biding her time until she exacts payment for what she knows about their misdeeds - payment that will ruin them.

'Harriet, racked with guilt and slowly losing her mind, is convinced that their lost friend is haunting them, and while Friday succumbs to the bottle, Sarah has to fight for everything she holds dear. Once again, the girls must join forces to save one of their own. But which one?

'And in the background Bella Jackson waits and watches …' (Source: Curtis Brown website)

'A full-blooded romance set in times of conflict. In 1951 some 1000 Waikato Miners went on strike to support their brothers in the Seaman's Union engaged in the 1951 Waterfront Lockout. Times were tough and when the Government implemented harsh and heavy-handed emergency regulations, families were divided along political lines, and bitter accusations of sabotage and treachery began to tear small mining communities apart. Against this emotive backdrop, in the tiny mining village of Pukemiro, a story of love and treachery is also being played out in the personal lives of some of those intimately connected with the strike. Ellen McCabe, wife of the local union secretary and hero, Thomas McCabe, and a life-long Union woman, finds herself caught up the passion of the fight - and a new-found passion of her own - when a charismatic war veteran, Jack Vaughan comes to Pukemiro and befriends her husband. In a powerful tale of love and conflict, Ellen is forced to examine her loyalties and make heart-shattering choices, as the country and community around her is pulled apart.' (Publication summary)

'The second rivetting installment in The Smuggler's Wife series by one of our leading historical novelists.

She was Maori, aged anywhere between three and five years old. Her dirty, matted hair hung past her shoulders, and sweet, heart-shaped little face was filthy.

'When Kitty Farrell is offered a trinket by a street urchin, her implulsive response will change both of their lives forever. It is 1845, and after four years on the high seas with Rian, her wild Irish husband, she returns to the lawless Bay of Islands and a country at war.

'Kitty and Rian must battle to be reunited as they fight for their lives and watch friends and enemies alike succumb to the madness of war and the fatal seduction of hatred. (Publication summary)

'Part one of the bestselling saga of love and adventure on the high seas in the Pacific of the 1800s, by one of our leading historical novelists.

'When 18-year-old Kitty Carlisle's father dies in 1838, her suddenly impoverished mother hopes her beautiful daughter might at least find a good husband. But then Kitty is compromised by an unscrupulous adventurer, and she is banished in disgrace to the colonies.

'In the infamous whaling port of Kororareka - known as the Hell-Hole of the Pacific - Kitty falls in love with Rian Farrell, a mysterious sea captain with secrets of his own. Shocking events force her to flee the Bay of Islands for Sydney, but her independent heart leads her into a web of illicit sexual liaison, betrayal and death.

'Part one of the bestselling saga of love and adventure on the high seas in the Pacific of the 1800s, by one of our leading historical novelists.' (Publication summary)