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Salvation Creek by Susan Duncan

Salvation Creek is Susan’s first and only book to date. It is a biographical account of her life journey following the death of her husband and beloved brother only three days later.

The Secret River by Kate Grenville

This story is set in London, 1807. William Thornhill, happily wedded to his childhood sweetheart Sal, is a waterman on the River Thames. Life is tough but bearable until William makes a mistake, a bad mistake for which he and his family are made to pay dearly.

Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea by Yukio Mishima

A novel by a man who committed ritual suicide (seppuku) at the age of 45 is not likely to be a very cheerful read, but The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea is as brilliant and concise a read as exists within the modern canon.

A Man’s Got To Have A Hobby by William McInnes

With humour and great affection, William writes about his family and the characters in their lives, their misadventures, pranks, dreams and and life. Most of all, it is a realistic, down-to-earth book by a man who had a great time growing up.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The brilliant and forensic precursor to modern crime writing, or another dreary and depressing Russian novel full of difficult to pronounce names? In its psychological insights into the mind of one man among many, this masterpiece of modern writing remains as contemporary and chilling as it did when first written by Dostoyevsky in 1866.

Blue Ribbons Bitter Bread by Susanna De Vries

A biography of the life of Australia’s most decorated woman, Joice Loch (1887- 1982). Born during a cyclone in Queensland she spent her childhood in grinding poverty. During her years of unpaid drudgery on various family farms she wrote a children’s book and became a freelance journalist. After marrying Sydney Loch in 1918 she spent some dangerous time in Ireland, before they escaped to Poland to work with the Quakers rescuing the dispossessed from disease and starvation.

Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje

Building this jazz and poetry infused novel up from the barest facts of Buddy Bolden’s life – cornet player, one photograph, disappeared, went mad during a street parade, never recorded – Michael Ondaatje creates a work not just about jazz, but of jazz. At times the novel can be obtuse and fragmentary, much in the same ways as jazz can be, but the reader who perseveres is well-rewarded by the sparkling prose and assured narrative drive.

Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

The story begins in the late 18th century, when France’s poor and oppressed were beginning to plan the downfall of the aristocracy. Young French aristocrat Charles Darnay, disgusted by his family ’s treatment of poor people, renounces his inheritance and goes to England, where he marries a young woman called Lucy Manett. Meanwhile Monsieur and Madame Defarge, two powerful revolutionary figures who hate Darnay’s aristocratic family, are determined that Darnay will die on the guillotine.

Can’t Wait To Get To Heaven by Fannie Flagg

Combining southern warmth with unabashed emotion and side-splitting hilarity, Fannie Flagg takes readers back to Elmwood Springs, Missouri, where the most unlikely and surprising experiences of a high-spirited octogenarian inspire a town to ponder the age-old question: Why are we here?

The Whitechapel Conspiracy by Anne Perry

This novel takes place in 1892, and begins with a trial in which Pitt’s testimony results in the murder conviction of a wealthy and important man, John Adinett, even though no motive can be found and Adinett denies the crime. With help from his former sergeant, Pitt begins to uncover evidence of a political conspiracy that will explain why Adinett killed Fetters.

Brother & Sister by Joanna Trollope

Brought up by the same parents, but born to two different mothers, Nathalie and David have grown up as brother and sister. Following the discovery of her own child’s hereditary hearing disorder Nathalie’s previous acceptance of her adoption is shaken and she sets out to find her own birth mother.

People of the Mist by Kathleen O’Neal Gear & W. Michael Gear

Six hundred years ago in Chesapeake Bay, a young woman’s unprovoked and brutal murder on the eve of her wedding threatens to destroy theAlgonquin Nation in a brutal war. No ordinary woman, Red Knot was the heir to the Greenstone clan and the future leader of the independent villages. Her death has shattered all alliances and left a power void which several ambitious clan chiefs see as their destiny to fill.