As tensions simmer in a small country town, three women are going to need more than CWA sausage rolls and can-do community spirit to put things right. From a bestselling Australian author comes a delightful novel full of practical wisdom and dry humour that examines female friendship, buried secrets and why honesty is (usually) the best policy. Privacy is hard to maintain in Badara, the kind of small Australian country town where everyone knows everyone else's business. So discovers single mum Paige when she and her three children arrive from the city seeking refuge. Paige's only respite from child care and loneliness is the Tuesday gym club, where she had feared the judgement of the town matriarchs, but she is met only with generosity and a plethora of baked goods. Besides, both the brusque Marion and her polished sister-in-law Briony are too busy dealing with their own dramas to examine hers.Well-to-do farmer's wife and proud mother Briony...

A toxic will plays havoc in the lives of three generations of women when they discover they have been living a lie. A keenly observed story of the danger of secrets, the legacy of betrayal and the power of family from a bestselling Australian author. Sometimes an ending is really a beginning ...Felicity Lewis's fiftieth birthday party in her newly renovated home, loving husband and daughter Greta by her side, is going off with a bang when disaster strikes. Her father, Franklyn, with his usual impeccable timing, has keeled over and died.For some members of the family, his wife Hazel for example, Franklyn's death is not the great loss it first appears to be. But when his toxic and inexplicable will is read out, it becomes clear that long-buried secrets are about to surface, starting with the astonishing reappearance of Hazel's long-lost sister.Indeed, Franklyn's death sets in motion a chain of events that will cause three generations of Gifford family...

Bestselling author and voice of Australian storytelling Tricia Stringer tackles troubled relationships, ageism, and love old and new in this warm, funny, uplifting story of colleagues and unlikely travel companions thrown together on an astonishing (and revealing) train trip across Australia. Ketty Clift's couture dressmaking business is thriving but the same can't be said for her staff. Lately, cracks have appeared in the team's harmony, testing relationships and causing issues with customers. Worse, the rumour that Ketty has lost her touch is circulating. So when Ketty's old friend Carlos suggests a holiday by train - on the iconic Ghan, no less - Ketty decides to take her surprised staff with her in the hope of fixing what ails them.But it's not turning out to be the cure-all Ketty had hoped for. Her protective second-in-command, Judith, doubts Carlos's intentions and sows suspicion in Ketty's mind. Her younger staff members, Birgit and Lacey, are beset...

Bestselling author Tricia Stringer asks whether age necessarily brings wisdom when the sale of a deceased estate pits sister against sister, divides a community and wreaks havoc in a small country town. Margot and her sister Roslyn have lived side by side in a little town in the Adelaide Hills most of their lives, supporting each other through thick and thin. Then their neighbour Gunter dies. Surprisingly, his will asks that his house and vineyard be sold and that Roslyn donate the money to a charity of her choice. When a developer wants to buy the land and create a hotel just over Margot's fence, Margot is outraged and decides to stand for Mayor and fight the development. But Roslyn feels differently. Her awareness of family violence and homelessness is sparked by the arrival in town of a young pregnant woman, who is escaping abuse and sleeping in her car. Determined to do some good, Roslyn supports the sale - she has found her charitable cause and the...

Who will find you when you lose your place in the world?Full of practical wisdom, this heart-warming novel from a bestselling author celebrates finding help where you least expect it as well as the ties between women that can change - and save - lives. Eve has been a partner in a Wallaby Bay fishing fleet as long as she can remember. Now they want her to sell - but what would her life be without work? She lives alone, her role on the town committee has been spiked by malicious gossip and she is incapacitated after surgery. For the first time in her life she feels weak, vulnerable - old. When her troubled god-daughter Julia arrives at Wallaby Bay, she seems to offer Eve a reprieve from her own concerns. But there is no such thing as plain sailing. Eve has another house guest, the abrasive Lucy, who is helping her recuperate and does not look kindly on Julia's desire for Eve's attention.But Lucy, too, has demons to battle and as each woman struggles to...

Dee Dee Ramone doesn't quite know what he's getting himself into when he and his wife Barbara move into the squalid Chelsea Hotel with their dog Banfield. He spends most of his time trying to score drugs and walking Banfield, with whom he can magically communicate. Meanwhile, he can't stand his neighbors and shies away from violence, but wishes everyone were six feet under. He also thinks that the room he's staying in is the very room where his old friend Sid Vicious stabbed Nancy Spungen, and begins having nightmares of Nancy emerging from the bathroom with a knife wound. After one of his nightmares, an evil force enters his hotel room and hurls him against a wall. Dee Dee also gets involved with the transvestite lover of one of his gay fellow addicts. When his wife finds out, the two fight it out and become seriously wounded. During all this, Dee Dee is tormented by the living and dead demons that plague the hotel, along with the ghosts of his old dead punk rock friends Sid...

'The story of an ordinary man who discovers he's not so ordinary. Pascoe is one of our finest writers.'Ray LawrenceJim Bloke's your typical Aussie, sort of. Being an orphan he's done it tough in the past, but he knows how to take care of himself and he has an affinity with life's important things. So when he takes a job as a sea-urchin diver on a stretch of coastal paradise, he's right at home with the morwong, pearl perch and butterfish.He's less at home with the people – apart from the woman who works as his deckhand – since the industry's crookeder than your average banker. And because Bloke's already done a season in the big gym, he makes a perfect fall guy when things go wrong.That sends him running again, by a roundabout way into the arms of his real family. But Jim's not sure that's where he wants to be. He wants love and that's hard, he wants his identity and that's even harder.Bloke is an achingly funny novel...

In his fourth novel Earth award-winning Aboriginal author Bruce Pascoe, establishes himself at the peak of contemporary Australian literature. Earth is a daring and thought-provoking work; a novel of voices from the past and the present. The setting is the Victorian countryside, west of Melbourne during the latter part of the nineteenth century. A time of great upheaval for the Aboriginal people of this area. The story unfolds through the lively dialogue of its protagonists, some worldly others more ethereal. It is a story of love, denial, hypocrisy, greed, murder. There is also humour and warmth in the narrative, counterbalancing the sense of anger and sadness at the injustice, duplicity, mendacity and callous brutality being meted out to the Aboriginal people of the region in the name of Christianity, civilisation and progress. Ultimately there is hope amidst the despair, and old values richly reassert themselves against overwhelming odds.

Sometimes you need to repeat something a hundred times before a bell rings in the colony.' From the bestselling author Bruce Pascoe comes a deeply personal story about the consequences and responsibility of disrupting Australia's history. When Dark Emu was adopted by Australia like a new anthem, Bruce found himself at the centre of a national debate that often focussed on the wrong part of the story. But through all the noise came Black Duck Foods, a blueprint for traditional food growing and land management processes based on very old practices. Bruce Pascoe and Lyn Harwood invite us to imagine a different future for Australia, one where we can honour our relationship with nature and improve agriculture and forestry. Where we can develop a uniquely Australian cuisine that will reduce carbon emissions, preserve scarce water resources and rebuild our soil. Bruce and Lyn show us that you don't just work Country, you look, listen and care. It's not Black Duck magic, it's the result...

This box set contains four licensed novellas in the Miss Fortune universe. The Two-Body Problem Black Widow Valley The No-Tell Motel Vampire Billionaire of the Bayou

Paul Callaghan, bestselling author of The Dreaming Path, shares how the key to mindset, lifelong learning and leadership excellence exists within Indigenous knowledge systems. First Nations peoples have known for tens of thousands of years that we are all born to learn and continue learning until we take our last breath, from everyone and everything around us – from teachers, lecturers, books, courses, Elders, children, babies, strangers, friends, life and nature. In Leading from the Dreaming, Paul Callaghan draws on his business experience and cultural knowledge to walk you through the 8 Rs of Leadership: responsibility, relationships, respect, recognition, reflection, results, resilience and renewal. By developing this adaptable, curious mindset, you will set yourself up for leadership excellence in your personal and professional lives.