Six short stories from Australia's master storyteller Judy Nunn.The Long Weekend Tracy, Eve, Jet, Mel and Danielle are looking forward – if a little nervously - to their upcoming digital detox. No phones, no laptops – just a quiet weekend in a remote mountain shack. What could go wrong? The Wardrobe When journalist Nancy buys a rundown terrace house she knows nothing about the previous owner - until a discovery in an old wardrobe reveals the lives, loves and losses in the world of Emily Roper. The Otto Bin Empire: Clive's Story To the homeless men and women who gather near the docks, the newly arrived Clive cuts an enigmatic figure. 'I'm just a bloke going through a period of adjustment,' he tells himself, 'I'll be back on my feet soon . . .' Changes As she celebrates her sixty-fifth birthday, actor turned film producer Jackie looks back on her seven decades – and all the many changes in her life. Not...

This ebook also includes an extract from Judy Nunn's new novel, Sanctuary.For eight years now Oskar the Pole has been a widower. As a homeless vagrant, pushing a supermarket trolley through the streets of life, he cuts a lonely figure.But Oskar has a talent. He can play chess, and he can play it well.Every afternoon, at the giant chessboard in the park, Oskar becomes a star, a master, the undefeated champion . . .The second of Judy Nunn's captivating short stories featuring the homeless men and women who gather around the plastic bins near the docks, is a heart-warming tale of friendship and community.

Set in Tasmania, Tiger Men is another brilliant work of historical fiction from master storyteller Judy Nunn. Van Diemen's Land was an island of stark contrasts; a harsh penal colony, an English idyll for its landed gentry, and an island so rich in natural resources it was a profiteer's paradise. Its capital Hobart Town had its contrasts too; the wealthy elite in their sandstone mansions, the exploited poor in the notorious slum known as Wapping, and the criminals and villains who haunted the dockside taverns and brothels of Sullivan's Cove. Hobart Town was no place for the meek. Tiger Men is the story of Silas Stanford, a wealthy Englishman; Mick O'Callaghan an Irishman on the run; and Jefferson Powell, an idealistic American political prisoner. It is also the story of the strong, proud women who loved them, and of the children they bore who rose to power in the cut-throat world of international trade. Tiger Men is the sweeping tale of three families who lived through Tasmania's golden era and witnessed the birth of the Commonwealth of Australia, only to watch its young men consumed by the fires and horror of the First World War. **

TERRITORY is the story of Henrietta Southern, a young Englishwoman who trades her war-torn homeland for a place of wild tropical storms and searing heat, crocodile-infested rivers and barren red wilderness. Six months after the bombing of Darwin, she joins her new husband, Spitfire pilot Terence Galloway, for a new life on his Northern Territory cattle station. It is also the story of their sons. Of Malcolm and Kit, two brothers who grow up in the harsh but beautiful environment, and share a baptism of fire as young men in the jungles of Vietnam. And what of the Dutch East Indies treasure ship which foundered off Western Australia in 1629? How is the Galloway family's destiny linked with Batavia's horrific tale of mutiny and murder ...? From the blazing inferno that was Darwin on 19 February 1942 to the devastation of Cyclone Tracy, from the red desert to the tropical shore, TERRITORY is a mile-a-minute read from one of Australia's best loved writers.

During the darkest days of the Cold War, in the remote wilderness of a South Australian desert, the future of an infant nation is being decided ... without its people's knowledge. A British airbase in the middle of nowhere; an atomic weapons testing ground; an army of raw youth led by powerful, ambitious men - a cocktail for disaster. Such is Maralinga in the spring of 1956. MARALINGA is the story of British Lieutenant Daniel Gardiner, who accepts a twelve-month posting to the wilds of South Australia on a promise of rapid promotion; Harold Dartleigh, Deputy Director of MI6 and his undercover operative Gideon Melbray; Australian Army Colonel Nick Stratton and the enigmatic Petraeus Mitchell, bushman and anthropologist. They all find themselves in a violent and unforgiving landscape, infected with the unique madness and excitement that only nuclear testing creates. MARALINGA is also a story of love; a love so strong that it draws the adventurous young English journalist...

Australian actress Samantha Lindsay is thrilled when she scores her first lead movie role in the Hollywood epic Torpedo Junction, playing a character based on World War II heroine 'Mamma Tack'. But as filming begins on Vanuatu, uncanny parallels between history and fiction emerge. Just who was the real Mamma Tack? And what mysterious forces are at play? The answers reveal not only bygone secrets but Sam's own destiny. In another era, Jane Thackeray travels from England to the far distant islands of the New Hebrides. Ensnared in the turmoil of war, Jane witnesses the devastating effect human conflict has upon an innocent race of people. There she meets Charles 'Wolf' Baker, a charismatic fighter pilot, and Jean-Francois Marat, a powerful plantation owner - and soon their lives are entwined in a maelstrom of love and hate ... From the dark days of Dunkirk to the vicious fighting that was Guadalcanal, from the sedate beauty of the English Channel ports to a tropical paradise,...

The Otto Bin Empire: Clive's Story is a tellingly poignant short story from bestselling author Judy Nunn. Also includes an extract from her new novel, Spirits of the Ghan. To the members of the Otto Bin Empire - the homeless men and women who gather around the plastic bins near the docks - Clive is an enigmatic addition to their ranks. Intelligent, healthy and always well presented, even Clive struggles to understand why he finds himself at the bottom of the barrel. How did it happen? 'I'm just a bloke going through a period of adjustment,' he tells himself, 'I'll be back on my feet soon.' But as the weeks turn into months Clive slowly adjusts to his circumstances. He finds tolerance, acceptance and friendship and slowly begins to see humanity in its purest light. He finally realises that dignity, self-respect and honour are to be found in abundance in the Otto Bin Empire . and who knows? Perhaps even love.

Kalgoorlie. They called it Kal. It grew out of the red dust of the desert over the world's richest vein of gold. And like the gold it guarded, Kalgoorlie was a magnet to anyone with a sense of adventure, anyone who could dream. In a story as breathtaking and as sweeping as the land itself, bestselling author Judy Nunn brings Kal magically to life through the lives of two families, one Australian and one Italian. The Australian family are the Brearleys: Maudie, who runs the miners' pub, her husband 'Flash Harry', and his young son, Jack. The Italian family are the Giannis, railway workers from a small village in the Italian Alps, who dream of making a better life for themselves 'at the bottom of the world'. From the heady, early days of the gold rush to the horrors of the First World War in Gallipoli and France, to the shame and confrontation of the post-war riots, KAL is a moving love story and a page-turning action adventure novel.

A spell-binding, multi-generational novel, set in the ruthless world of movie-making.On a blistering hot day in 1850, George and Richard Ross take their first steps on Australian soil after three long months at sea. All they have is each other, and a quarterly remittance from their irate father who has banished them to the Colonies. A decade on, and the brothers are the owners of successful vineyard, Araluen, nestled in a beautiful green valley not far from Adelaide. Now a successful businessman, George has laid down the roots of his own Ross dynasty, born of the New World. But building a family empire - at any cost - can have a shattering effect on the generations to come ... From the South Australian vineyards of the 1850s to the opulence and corruption of Hollywood's golden age... From the relentless loneliness of the outback to mega-budget movie-making in modern-day New York... Judy Nunn weaves an intricate web of characters and locations in this spellbinding saga of...

Judy Nunn's bestselling debut, set in the steamy, cut-throat world of television.Edwina Dawling is the golden girl of Australian television. The former pop singer is now the country's most popular actress, an international star thanks to the hit TV soap TThe Glitter Game. But behind the seductive glamour of television is a cutthroat world where careers are made or destroyed with a word in the right ear . . . or a night in the right bed. Where success breeds envy and corruption, concealed in the flashing smiles at every premier event, every party. Only the ruthless make it to the top. And, as Edwina is soon to discover, they will stop at nothing to stay there. Not even murder. The Glitter Game is a delicious expose of the glitzy world of television, a scandalous behind-the-scenes look at what goes on when the cameras stop rolling.

When Australian actress Jane Prescott is offered a job in England, she sees it as a chance to ignite her career. Little does she know that it's her stopover in Italy en route that will change her life. For just south of Rome, she discovers...The Hotel Visconti, a grand eighteenth-century villa...A colourfully flamboyant host...A lively party of American tourists...Glamorous locals who gather nightly in the cocktail bar...An Italian lover who looks uncannily like Ryan Gosling... What could go wrong?              

In Judy Nunn's latest compelling novel, compassion meets bigotry, hatred meets love, and ultimately despair meets hope on the windswept shores of Australia. On a barren island off the coast of Western Australia, a rickety wooden dinghy runs aground. Aboard are nine people who have no idea where they are. Strangers before the violent storm that tore their vessel apart, the instinct to survive has seen them bond during their days adrift on a vast and merciless ocean.Fate has cast them ashore with only one thing in common . . . fear. Rassen the doctor, Massoud the student, the child Hamid and the others all fear for their lives. But in their midst is Jalila, who appears to fear nothing. The beautiful young Yazidi woman is a mystery to them all. While they remain undiscovered on the deserted island, they dare to dream of a new life . . .But forty kilometres away on the mainland lies the tiny fishing port of Shoalhaven. Here everyone knows...

In a time when desperate people were seizing with both hands the chance for freedom, refugees from more than seventy nations gathered beneath the Southern Cross to forge a new national identity. They came from all over wartorn Europe to the mountains of Australia to help realise one man's dream: the mighty Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme, one of the greatest engineering feats of the 20th century. People of all races and creeds tunnelled through a mountain range to turn the course of a majestic river, trying to put to rest ghosts from the inferno of history: buried memories, unimaginable pain and deadly secrets. From the ruins of Berlin to the birth of Israel, from the Italian Alps to the Australian high country, HERITAGE is a passionate and fast-paced tale of rebirth, struggle, sacrifice and redemption, and a tribute to those who gave meaning to the Australian spirit.

Alex Rainford has it all. He's sexy, charismatic and adored by fans the world over. But Alex is not all he seems. What spectre from the past is driving him ever closer to evil? And who will fall under his spell along the way? Madeleine Frances, beautiful stage and screen actress. Years before she had escaped Alex's fatal charm, but now she is forced to confront him once again...and reveal her devasting secret. Susannah Wright, the finest classical actress of her generation. Not even her awesome talent can save her from Alex's dangerous charisma. Imogen McLaughlin, the promising young actress whose biggest career break could be her greatest downfall. She wants Alex Rainford - and she has no idea that he has the power to destroy her... CENTRE STAGE is a tantalising, behind-the-scenes glimpse into the world of theatre and film and what goes on when the spotlight dims and the curtain falls.

'The denuded earth of the iron-ore loading yards, the huge jetties thrusting their way out into the clear blue sea, the endless ponds of the solar salt farm, stretching stark and white over hundreds of hectares . . . all appeared a hideous invasion upon nature. But to Mike McAllister, there was something faintly ludicrous about it. Man's interference seemed petty in the face of such unconquerable timelessness. In millions of years, mankind would cease to exist, but this terrain would not. This was the Pilbara.... Floodtide is a brilliant observation of turbulent times in the mighty 'Iron Ore State' - Western Australia. The novel traces the fortunes of four men and four families over four memorable decades: The prosperous post-war 1950s when childhood is idyllic and carefree in the small, peaceful city of Perth . . . The turbulent 60s when youth is caught up in the conflict of the Vietnam War and free love reigns . . . The avaricious 70s when Western Australia's mineral boom...