The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart

Author: Holly Ringland
Publisher: House of Anansi
ISBN: 1487005237
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 342

Book Description
An enchanting and captivating novel about how our untold stories haunt us — and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive. After her family suffers a tragedy, nine-year-old Alice Hart is forced to leave her idyllic seaside home. She is taken in by her grandmother, June, a flower farmer who raises Alice on the language of Australian native flowers, a way to say the things that are too hard to speak. Under the watchful eye of June and the women who run the farm, Alice settles, but grows up increasingly frustrated by how little she knows of her family’s story. In her early twenties, Alice’s life is thrown into upheaval again when she suffers devastating betrayal and loss. Desperate to outrun grief, Alice flees to the dramatically beautiful central Australian desert. In this otherworldly landscape Alice thinks she has found solace, until she meets a charismatic and ultimately dangerous man. Spanning two decades, set between sugar cane fields by the sea, a native Australian flower farm, and a celestial crater in the central desert, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart follows Alice’s unforgettable journey, as she learns that the most powerful story she will ever possess is her own.

The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding

Author: Holly Ringland
Publisher: House of Anansi
ISBN: 1487012756
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 607

Book Description
A haunting, magical novel about joy, grief, courage and transformation from the international bestselling author of The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart. ‘On the afternoon that Esther Wilding drove homeward along the coast, a year after her sister had walked into the sea and disappeared, the light was painfully golden.’ The last time Esther Wilding’s beloved older sister Aura was seen, she was walking along the shore towards the sea. In the wake of Aura’s disappearance, Esther’s family struggles to live with their loss. To seek the truth about her sister’s death, Esther reluctantly travels from Lutruwita/Tasmania, to Copenhagen, and then to the Faroe Islands, following the trail of the stories Aura left behind: seven fairy tales about selkies, swans and women, alongside cryptic verses Aura wrote and had secretly tattooed on her body. The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding is a sweeping, deeply beautiful and profoundly moving novel about the far reaches of sisterly love, the power of wearing your heart on your skin and the ways life can transform when we find the courage to feel the fullness of both grief and joy.

The Yellow House

Author: Emily O'Grady
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 1760636134
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 276

Book Description
The winner of the prestigious literary award that has launched over a hundred authors - the Australian/Vogel's Literary award Winner of the 2018 The Australian/Vogel's Literary Award Even before I knew anything about Granddad Les, Wally and me sometimes dared each other to see how close to the knackery we could get. It was way out in the bottom paddock, and Dad had banned us from going further than the dam. Wally said it was because the whole paddock was haunted. He said he could see ghosts wisping in the grass like sheets blown from the washing line. But even then I knew for sure that was a lie. Ten-year-old Cub lives with her parents, older brother Cassie, and twin brother Wally on a lonely property bordering an abandoned cattle farm and knackery. Their lives are shadowed by the infamous actions of her Granddad Les in his yellow weatherboard house, just over the fence. Although Les died twelve years ago, his notoriety has grown in Cub's lifetime and the local community have ostracised the whole family. When Cub's estranged aunt Helena and cousin Tilly move next door into the yellow house, the secrets the family want to keep buried begin to bubble to the surface. And having been kept in the dark about her grandfather's crimes, Cub is now forced to come to terms with her family's murky history. The Yellow House is a powerful novel about loyalty and betrayal; about the legacies of violence and the possibilities of redemption.

Inside Information

Author: Eshkol Nevo
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
ISBN: 1635423244
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 369

Book Description
From the internationally bestselling author of Three Floors Up, a novel of psychological suspense exploring the vagaries of love and relationships through three interlocking stories. A honeymoon in South America that should have been romantic becomes more nightmarish by the minute. A senior doctor at a Tel Aviv hospital feels a powerful, inexplicable urge to protect a young female resident who has recently joined the internal medicine department. A married couple goes out for their regular Saturday morning walk in the orchards on the outskirts of town. The man walks back into the orchard for a moment—and disappears without a trace. Eshkol Nevo’s darkest, most thrilling novel to date, Inside Information weaves together three turbulent and unconventional love stories, diving deep into the enigma that lies at the heart of all intimacy, whether between a man and a woman, a parent and a child, or a person and what they’ve lost.

Foxfire, Wolfskin and Other Stories of Shapeshifting Women

Author: Sharon Blackie
Publisher: September Publishing
ISBN: 1912836238
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 180

Book Description
Beautiful, rich short stories, drawing on myth and folklore to bring to life women's remarkable ability to transform themselves in the face of seemingly impossible circumstances. 'A book for all the wild women ... Foxfire, Wolfskin is simply the most perfect thing. I love each and every placement of each word. Love the wildness, the shapeshifting, the fearsomeness of it.' Jackie Morris, co-author of The Lost Words ' She lived fully, my fox, and I envied her with all my heart. I wanted to dance with her, sister or lover, across the snow-clad vastness of this land. Together, we'd create the Northern Lights. For that is what foxes do racing over the fells, whipping up the snow with their tails, the friction of it sending up sparks into the midnight sky. This is what makes the aurora's glow. Revontulet , we call it: foxfire.' Charged with drama and beauty, this memorable collection by a master storyteller weaves a magical world of possibility and power from female myths of physical renewal, creation and change. It is an extraordinary immersion into the bodies and voices, mindscapes and landscapes, of the shapeshifting women of our native folklore. Drawing on myth and fairy tales found across Europe from Croatia to Sweden, Ireland to Russia, these stories are about coming to terms with our animal natures, exploring the ways in which we might renegotiate our fractured relationship with the natural world, and uncovering the wildness and wilderness within. Beautifully illustrated by Helen Nicholson, Foxfire, Wolfskin and Other Stories of Shapeshifting Women is Blackie's first collection of short stories. 'Sharon Blackie has wrought a new-old magic for our times: glorious, beautiful, passionate myths. They show who we could have been, and they give us a glimpse of a world-that-could-be.' Manda Scott, author of A Treachery of Spies and Boudica 'A deeply evocative and haunting collection ... Part rally cry, part warning, part manifesto and all parts enchanting, Sharon Blackie's Foxfire, Wolfskin is a deeply evocative and haunting collection. I want to press this powerful book into the hands of everyone I know and say listen. ' Holly Ringland, author of The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart

The Language of Flowers

Author: Vanessa Diffenbaugh
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345525566
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The Victorian language of flowers was used to convey romantic expressions: honeysuckle for devotion, asters for patience, and red roses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it’s been more useful in communicating mistrust and solitude. After a childhood spent in the foster-care system, she is unable to get close to anybody, and her only connection to the world is through flowers and their meanings. Now eighteen and emancipated from the system with nowhere to go, Victoria realizes she has a gift for helping others through the flowers she chooses for them. But an unexpected encounter with a mysterious stranger has her questioning what’s been missing in her life. And when she’s forced to confront a painful secret from her past, she must decide whether it’s worth risking everything for a second chance at happiness. Look for special features inside. Join the Circle for author chats and more. Praise for The Language of Flowers "Instantly enchanting . . . [Diffenbaugh] is the best new writer of the year."—Elle “I would like to hand Vanessa Diffenbaugh a bouquet of bouvardia (enthusiasm), gladiolus (you pierce my heart) and lisianthus (appreciation). In this original and brilliant first novel, Diffenbaugh has united her fascination with the language of flowers—a long-forgotten and mysterious way of communication—with her firsthand knowledge of the travails of the foster-care system. . . . This novel is both enchanting and cruel, full of beauty and anger. Diffenbaugh is a talented writer and a mesmerizing storyteller. She includes a flower dictionary in case we want to use the language ourselves. And there is one more sprig I should add to her bouquet: a single pink carnation (I will never forget you).”—Washington Post "A fascinating debut . . . Diffenbaugh clearly knows both the human heart and her plants, and she keeps us rooting for the damaged Victoria."—O Magazine "Diffenbaugh effortlessly spins this enchanting tale, making even her prickly protagonist impossible not to love."—Entertainment Weekly

The Lace Weaver

Author: Lauren Chater
Publisher: Allison & Busby Ltd
ISBN: 0749029250
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 431

Book Description
1941, Estonia. As Stalin's brutal Red Army crushes everything in its path, Katarina Rebane is desperate to protect her grandmother's precious legacy: the weaving of gossamer-fine shawls and the intricate lace patterns holding stories passed down through generations. In Moscow, Lydia Volkova is suffocating in a prison of privilege, yearning for freedom and hoping to rediscover her beloved mother's Baltic heritage. As the battle for their homeland intensifies, these two women are caught in a fight for life, liberty and love.

The Whole Bright Year

Author: Debra Oswald
Publisher: Penguin Group Australia
ISBN: 0143788264
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Book Description
In the summer of 1976 it’s picking season on an Australian stone-fruit orchard run by Celia, a hard-working woman in her early forties. Years ago, when her husband was killed as a bystander in an armed robbery, Celia left the city and brought her newborn daughter Zoe to this farm for a secure life. Now sixteen, Zoe is a passionate, intelligent girl, chafing against her mother’s protectiveness, yearning to find intensity and a bit of danger. Barging into this world as itinerant fruit-pickers come a desperate brother and sister from Sydney. The hard-bitten Sheena has kidnapped her wild, ebullient eighteen-year-old brother Kieran and dragged him out west, away from trouble in the city. Kieran and Zoe are drawn to each other the instant they meet, sparking excitement, worry, lust, trouble . . . How do we protect people we love? How do we bear watching them go out into the perilous world with no guarantee of safety or happiness? What bargains do people make with darkness in order to survive? From the creator of Offspring and author of Useful, The Whole Bright Year is a gripping, wry and tender novel about how holding on too tightly can cost us what we love.

The Loudness of Unsaid Things

Author: Hilde Hinton
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0733642012
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 176

Book Description
'My heart grew, then broke, then mended itself. A wise, funny, brave novel and a story that you will never want to forget.' Favel Parrett An unforgettable story of loneliness, isolation and finding your way. Heart-wrenching, wise and wryly funny, this novel will make you kinder to those who are lost. Miss Kaye works at The Institute. A place for the damaged, the outliers, the not-quite rights. Everyone has different strategies to deal with the residents. Some bark orders. Some negotiate tirelessly. Miss Kaye found that simply being herself was mostly the right thing to do. Susie was seven when she realised she'd had her fill of character building. She'd lie between her Holly Hobbie sheets thinking how slowly birthdays come around, but how quickly change happened. One minute her Dad was saying that the family needed to move back to the city and then, SHAZAM, they were there. Her mum didn't move to the new house with them. And Susie hated going to see her mum at the mind hospital. She never knew who her mum would be. Or who would be there. As the years passed, there were so many things Susie wanted to say but never could. Miss Kaye will teach Susie that the loudness of unsaid things can be music - and together they will learn that living can be more than surviving.

The Last Of The Bonegilla Girls

Author: Victoria Purman
Publisher: HarperCollins Australia
ISBN: 1489246851
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Book Description
A post-Second World War story of strong female ties and family, secrets and lies, set in the multicultural Australia of the fifties. Can the Bonegilla girls defeat their past? Or will it come to claim them? 1954: When sixteen–year–old Hungarian Elizabeta arrives in Australia with her family, she is hoping to escape the hopelessness of life as a refugee in post–war Germany. Her first stop is the Bonegilla Migrant Camp on the banks of the Murray in rural Victoria, a temporary home for thousands of new arrivals, all looking for work and a better life. There, Elizabeta becomes firm friends with the feisty Greek Vasiliki; quiet Italian Iliana; and the adventurous Frances, the daughter of the camp's director. In this vibrant and growing country, the Bonegilla girls rush together towards a life that seems full of promise, even as they cope with the legacy of war, the oppressive nature of family tradition and ever–present sorrow. So when a ghost from the past reaches out for Elizabeta and threatens to pull her back into the shadows, there is nothing that her friends wouldn't do to keep her safe. But secrets have a way of making themselves known and lies have a way of changing everything they touch... MORE PRAISE 'A poignant and compelling read, this is a delightful novel that celebrates all that is good in our multicultural country. It's a beautiful story about female friendship and how it can transcend cultural and language barriers.' - Books + Publishing 'A heartwarming novel...' - The Weekly Times 'A story of strong female ties and family.' - Better Reading