Cirrus@Austlit

'In the tiny South African town of Jacob's Rest, Detective Emmanuel Cooper is sent to investigate the murder of an Afrikaner police officer, Captain Willem Pretorius.

'Cooper, an "English" South African, is viewed with suspicion by both the Boer Afrikaners and the dead man's prominent family, and his investigation is quickly taken over by Security Branch. But Cooper isn't interested in political expediency, or making friends in high places, and as he pursues his own inquiry, he discovers that Captain Pretorius had led a deadly double life.

'The more Cooper digs, the more dangerous the investigation becomes. For Cooper is a man with his own secrets, and learning the truth about Captain Pretorius just might save life... if he isn't killed first.

'In this riveting debut, Malla Nunn combines a thrilling, action-packed story with a thoughtful, complex portrayal of an unforgettable time and place and the human desires that drive us all, regardless of race, colour or creed.' (Publisher's blurb)

'The balloon had drifted over a wooded ridge and into their valley. The farmworkers, straightening up one by one, shaded their eyes against the dazzle of the sun on crimson and blue silk. The thing hung in the sky - sumptuous, menacing - like a sign from God or the devil. Then there was thunder and fire, and a man plummeting earthwards. It was the 14th of July. The world was about to change.

'The timeless story of Sophie nursing the ambition to create a repeat-flowering crimson rose, the like of which has never been seen in Europe. Then Stephen, the American balloonist falling out of the sky and into Sophie's life - a love story that unfolds against the sensuous green landscape of Gascony. It is the 14th of July, the year is 1789 and revolution hangs in the air closing in on the private world of the Saint-Pierre family and threatening to change their world forever.'

– Publisher's website

"Set against the backdrop of the Great Famine, this is the story of the triumph of one woman amidst Ireland's despair. It is August 1845. In Dublin's Botanic Gardens, Phytophora infestans is discovered for the first time. The bacteria was to result in the Great Famine, an event of holocaust proportions that affected every man, woman and child in Ireland. England's shame; Ireland's tragedy . Ellen O'Malley is one such victim. She loses her husband, is duped into going to Australia to lead a better life, leaving three of her beloved children behind. She travels aboard a coffin ship and arrives emaciated and ill with her new baby. But Ellen, a woman with an indomitable spirit, rises above her oppression and eventually returns to wreak revenge on those perpetrators of her misery."

-Publisher's blurb.

'The final book by Sumner Locke Elliott, the award-winning author of Careful, He Might Hear You.

Drawing heavily on Locke Elliott's own experiences, Fairyland charts the life of Seaton Daly, an aspiring writer coming to terms with his homosexuality in the repressive atmosphere of inner-city Sydney during the 1930s and '40s. Lonely and naive, Daly dreams of escaping to the 'promised land' of the United States.

Fairyland is an intimate, affecting, sometimes harrowing portrayal of a lifelong search for love. Sumner Locke Elliott's 'coming out' novel, it was first published in 1990, the year before his death.' (Publisher's blurb)