Cirrus@Austlit

'To a young girl the life of a student nurse sounds exciting, but with long hours and short shrift it’s never easy. So when Maggie Groff embarks as a student nurse at London’s King’s College Hospital she must quickly get to grips with the demands of her chosen career. It’s sink or swim.

'In a delightful romp through time, played out against the march of feminism and the fashion, music and movies of almost half a century ago, we follow Maggie’s highs and lows as with trial and much error she becomes a highly skilled nurse and sets sail for a new life in Australia.

'From the watchful gaze of stern ward sisters and the ordeals of nursing at a poor housing estate to becoming an industrial nurse at the iconic Sydney Opera House, Maggie shares her stories of mistakes and mayhem, tea and sympathy, and the life-affirming moments that make it all worthwhile.'

Source: publisher's blurb

'SOCIETY IS DIVIDED. Silicon Valley has taken virtual sex to the extreme, encouraging men to act out their darkest and most violent sexual fantasies. Militant feminists and churches are bitterly opposed. Powerful corporations battle for market control. In the midst of a fierce protest campaign, a bomb goes off in San Francisco.

TWELVE ARE DEAD. Daniel Madsen is one of a new breed of federal agents armed with a gun, a badge and a handheld lie detector. He’s a fast operator and his instructions are simple: find the bomber before he strikes again.

A NIGHTMARE AWAITS. Madsen plunges headlong into a sleazy, unsettling world where reality and fantasy are indistinguishable, exploitation is business as usual and the web of corruption extends all the way to Washington … only to discover the stakes are higher than he could ever imagine.' (Publisher's blurb)

Can you commit the perfect crime? Pilgrim is the codename for a man who doesn't exist. The adopted son of a wealthy American family, he once headed up a secret espionage unit for US intelligence. Before he disappeared into anonymous retirement, he wrote the definitive book on forensic criminal investigation. But that book will come back to haunt him. It will help NYPD detective Ben Bradley track him down. And it will take him to a rundown New York hotel room where the body of a woman is found facedown in a bath of acid, her features erased, her teeth missing, her fingerprints gone. It is a textbook murder - and Pilgrim wrote the book. What begins as an unusual and challenging investigation will become a terrifying race-against-time to save America from oblivion. Pilgrim will have to make a journey from a public beheading in Mecca to a deserted ruins on the Turkish coast via a Nazi death camp in Alsace and the barren wilderness of the Hindu Kush in search of the faceless man who would commit an appalling act of mass murder in the name of his God.

Source: Publisher's Blurb

''His name was Buster Fleabags. He was my dog, and I was his human.'

'Of all the animals who have played such an important part of Rolf Harris's life, he loved Buster Fleabags most.

'The happiest times of Rolf's boyhood in Western Australia were spent with this bouncy little mongrel with the stuck-up ears and the curly tail. Buster swam for hours with Rolf in the river, rode in the basket on the front of his bicycle, and joined in his games.

'Boy and dog were so devoted to each other that when Buster caught the dreaded disease distemper, Rolf slept in the kennel with him as he slowly nursed him back to health.

'Buster Fleabags was as much of a character - and a bundle of energy - as his owner, and this is the story of a very special dog.' (Publication summary)

'If Rolf Harris seems to have been with us forever, that's because he has. For the past fifty years, he has been entertaining the British public as only he knows how.

'Now, in this searingly honest autobiography, Rolf Harris charts his rise to fame, chronicling the triumphs, disasters and revelations along the way. The ultimate renaissance man, he has entertained the nation with his cartoon drawing and paint splashing antics, succeeded as an award-winning television presenter and relaunched himself as a pop festival star. Rolf Harris is proof that if you live long enough, real talent will give you more than one bite at the cherry.' (Publication summary)

'Soldier of fortune Michael Duffy returns to colonial Sydney on a covert mission and with old scores to settle, still enraged by a bitter feud between his family and the ruthless Macintoshes.

'The Palmer River gold rush lures American prospector Luke Tracy back to Australia's rugged north country in his elusive search for riches and the great passion of his life, Kate O'Keefe.

'From the boardrooms and backstreets of Sydney to the hazardous waters of the Coral Sea, the sequel to Cry of Curlew confirms the exceptional talent of master storyteller Peter Watt..'

Source: Publisher's blurb (2013 ed.).

'Forcibly taken from their remote one-room schoolhouse and held captive by three grotesquely masked kidnappers, Sally James and her young charges wage a fierce and violent battle for their lives.' 

Source: ABE Books https://bit.ly/3grE136