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1 y separately published work icon The Shattered Skies John Birmingham , London : Head of Zeus , 2021 20222190 2021 single work novel science fiction

'Space opera on an epic scale – as it should be. Part two of a violently energetic and energetically entertaining three-part mil-SF extravaganza.

'Centuries after they were defeated and exiled to Dark Space, the Sturm have returned. Disgusted by the new technologies humankind have come to depend on, they intend to liberate us, by force if necessary.

'With their advanced tech rendered null by the Sturm's attack, humanity face certain annihilation. Their only hope lies with a few brave souls who survived the initial onslaught: the Commander of the Royal Armadalen Navy's only surviving warship; a soldier sentenced to die; a young royal, forced to flee when her home planet is overrun and her entire family executed; the leader of an outlaw band, and the infamous hero of the first war with the Sturm hundreds of years ago.

'If they are to stand any chance of survival, these five heroes must shed their modern technology and become the enemy. Their resistance might be humanity's only hope.'

Source : publisher's blurb

1 y separately published work icon Cruel Stars Trilogy John Birmingham , London : Head of Zeus , 2019- 17979975 2019 series - author novel
1 y separately published work icon The Boy with Blue Trousers Carol Jones , London : Head of Zeus , 2019 17980208 2019 single work novel historical fiction

'On the goldfields of 19th-century Australia, two very different girls are trying to escape their past.

'1856, China.

'In the mulberry groves of the Pearl River Delta, eighteen-year-old Little Cat carries a terrible secret. And so, in disguise as a boy in blue trousers, she makes the long and difficult passage to Australia, a faraway land of untold riches where it is said the rivers run with gold.

'1857, Australia.

'Violet Hartley has arrived off the boat from England, fleeing scandal back home. Like the Chinese immigrants seeking their fortunes on the goldfields, Violet is seduced by the promise of a new frontier. Then she meets Little Cat, a woman who, like her, is trying to escape her past.

'As their fates inextricably, devastatingly entwine, their story becomes one of freedom, violence, love and vengeance, echoing across the landscapes of two great continents.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

1 1 y separately published work icon The Cruel Stars John Birmingham , London : Head of Zeus , 2019 17980015 2019 single work novel science fiction

'Centuries after their defeat, the Sturm have returned with an overwhelming attack on the fringes of human space. On the brink of annihilation, humankind's only hope is a few brave souls who survived the initial onslaught.

'Everybody thought the Sturm were dead, engulfed by the Dark. They were wrong. Centuries after their defeat, the enemy has returned with an overwhelming attack on the fringes of human space.

'On the brink of annihilation, humankind's only hope is a few brave souls who survived the initial onslaught: Commander Lucinda Hardy, thrust into uncertain command of the Royal Armadalen Navy's only surviving warship; Booker3, a soldier of Earth, sentenced to die for treason, whose time on Death Row is cut short by the invasion; Alessia, a young royal of the Montanblanc Corporation, forced to flee when her home planet is overrun and her entire family executed; Sephina L'trel, the leader of an outlaw band who must call on all of their criminal skills to resist the invasion.

'And, finally, retired Admiral Frazer McLennan, the infamous hero of the first war with the Sturm hundreds of years ago, who hopes to rout his old foes once and for all – or die trying. These five flawed, reluctant heroes must band together to prevail against a relentless enemy and near-impossible odds. For if they fail, the future itself is doomed.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

1 y separately published work icon The Concubine's Child Carol Jones , United Kingdom (UK) : Head of Zeus , 2018 13527684 2018 single work novel historical fiction

'In 1930s Malaya a sixteen-year-old girl, dreaming of marriage to her sweetheart, is sold as a concubine to a rich old man desperate for an heir. Trapped, and bullied by his spiteful wife, Yu Lan plans to escape with her baby son, despite knowing that they will pursue her to the ends of the earth. Four generations later, her great-grandson, Nick, will return to Malaysia, looking for the truth behind the facade of a house cursed by the unhappy past. Nothing can prepare him for what he will find. This exquisitely rich novel brings to life a vanished world – a world of abandoned ghost houses, inquisitive monkeys, smoky temples and a panoply of gods and demons. A world where a poor girl can be sold to fulfil a rich man's dream. But though he can buy her body, he can never capture her soul, nor quench her spirit.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

1 y separately published work icon A Place to Remember Jenn J. McLeod , Sydney South : HarperCollins Australia , 2018 13525809 2018 single work novel

'A man loses five years of his life. Two women are desperate for him to remember. Running away for the second time in her life, twenty-seven-year old Ava believes the cook's job at a country B&B is perfect, until she meets the owner's son, John Tate. The young fifth-generation grazier is a beguiling blend of both man, boy and a terrible flirt. With their connection immediate and intense, they begin a clandestine affair right under the noses of John's formidable parents. Thirty years later, Ava returns to Candlebark Creek with her daughter, Nina, who is determined to meet her mother's lost love for herself. While struggling to find her own place in the world, Nina discovers an urban myth about a love-struck man, a forgotten engagement ring, and a dinner reservation back in the eighties. Now she must decide if revealing the truth will hurt more than it heals...'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

4 49 y separately published work icon Letty Fox, Her Luck Christina Stead , New York (City) : Harcourt Brace , 1946 Z462885 1946 single work novel "One hot night last spring, after waiting fruitlessly for a call from my then lover, with whom I had quarrelled the same afternoon, and finding one of my black moods upon me, I flung out of my lonely room on the ninth floor (unlucky number) in a hotel in lower Fifth Avenue and rushed into the streets of the Village, feeling bad." "So begins Letty Fox's own story, a comic extravaganza about the crazy circus of her early life; about her moping mother, absent father, and two impossible sisters; about work and play, sex and men, and the seemingly unending search for a lasting relationship." (Publisher's blurb)
9 174 y separately published work icon The Man Who Loved Children Christina Stead , New York (City) : Simon and Schuster , 1940 Z462160 1940 single work novel (taught in 19 units)

'Set in Washington during the 1930s, Sam and Henny Pollit are a warring husband and wife. Their tempestuous marriage, aggravated by too little money, lies at the centre of Stead's satirical and brilliantly observed novel about the relations between husbands and wives, and parents and children.

'Sam, a scientist, uses words as weapons of attack and control on his children and is prone to illusions of power and influence that fail to extend beyond his family. His wife Henny, who hails from a wealthy Baltimore family, is disastrously impractical and enmeshed in her own fantasies of romance and vengeance. Much of the care of their six children is left to Louisa, Sam's 14-year-old daughter from his first marriage. Within this psychological battleground, Louisa must attempt to make a life of her own.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (MUP).

1 y separately published work icon Red Dirt E. M. Reapy , London : Head of Zeus , 2016 9631818 2016 single work novel thriller

Three young Irish people have come to Australia, running from the economic ruins of their home country and their own unhappy lives. In this promised land, stunned by the heat and the vast arid space of the interior, they each try to escape their past in a chaotic world of backpacker hostels, huge fruit farms and squalid factories, surrounded by new friends who are even more damaged and dangerous than they are themselves. Endless supplies of cheap drink and drugs loosen what little sense of responsibility they have, and a spiral of self-destructive behaviour forces each of them to face up to the reality of their lives.

This is a story of the consequences of impulsive choices and of the places where they lead. A vulnerable young man is left alone by his friends in a remote wilderness; a desperate girl puts herself into the hands of violent sex traffickers; a once-privileged favourite son lets a drunken quarrel escalate to murder. An utterly compelling, readable novel that hooks from the first page and immerses us in an all-too topical nightmare. (Publication summary)

3 1 y separately published work icon Stiletto : A Novel Daniel O'Malley , Sydney : HarperCollins Australia , 2016 8887539 2016 single work novel fantasy thriller

'Myfanwy Thomas returns to clinch an alliance between two deadly rivals, and avert epic - and slimy - supernatural war such as the world has never known.

'After years of enmity and bloodshed, two secret organisations with otherworldly abilities must merge, and there is only one person with the fearsome powers - and bureaucratic finesse - to get the job done. Rook Myfanwy Thomas must broker a deal between deadly rivals the Checquy - a centuries-old covert British organization that protects society from supernatural threats; and the Grafters - a centuries-old supernatural threat.

'But an assassination attempt threatens to derail the whole process, and Myfanwy must dispatch two young agents - one from each side - to track down an extremist faction and destroy it before a devastating war is triggered.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

3 y separately published work icon Glory Thrown In Eric Lambert , London : Frederick Muller , 1959 Z1177458 1959 single work novel

'They were men afraid. men desperate. Patient. Exhausted. Half mad. They were the remnants of the Fifty-Fifth.

'The Germans thought that Egypt was theirs. All that stood in their way was the exhausted Eighth Army huddled in the gap between the Quattara Depression and the Mediterranean. But just before Montgomery's immortal attack at Alamein, an Australian infantry battalion was ordered into an action that would ordinarily have been given to a brigade.

'The Fifty-Fifth Division were thrown in to lure German tanks away from the fighting that would result in the successful Allied campaign ending in the Battle of El Alamein.

'A fast-paced tale that takes us into the seedy depths of war-torn Cairo, this powerful novel tells the story of the doomed Fifty-Fifth, a battalion so severely mauled, they were virtually extinct.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Head of Zeus ed.)

8 11 y separately published work icon The Twenty Thousand Thieves Eric Lambert , 1951 Melbourne : Newmont , 1951 Z471118 1951 single work novel war literature

'Their officers called them a stinking, lazy, drunken rabble and their friends said they took the colonel prisoner, burnt down their officers' mess and drove off the military police with heavy rifle-fire. This is the unforgettable story of the gallant men of the A.I.F.: the fearless and fatalistic Diggers of the Western Desert.

'Twenty thousand men were on their way to the deserts of Egypt and Libya: some had joined up for adventure, some were on the run from the police, for others, the army meant three meals a day and a bed to sleep in. From an induction camp in Australia to the siege of Tobruk, the savage intensity of Second X Battalion's experiences is not for the faint hearted. How soon will death silence so many of these brave voices and how many will ring out beyond the brutality of the battlefield?'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Head of Zeus ed.)

5 3 y separately published work icon The Veterans Eric Lambert , London Sydney : Shakespeare Head Press , 1954 Z471016 1954 single work novel

'They are the veterans of the North African desert campaign, home for three weeks' leave after three long years at war – time to find the brothels, the black markets, the racketeers and the dollar-happy Yank servicemen.

'When a faceless madman in the War Office throws them into the shell-torn beaches, mountain trails and steaming jungles of New Guinea, they become creatures of the mud; walking skeletons racked with malaria. There are thousands of them.

'In the throes of battle, black clouds billow about the destroyers in the distance, piercing the darkness with savage explosions. In a merciless system of mutual slaughter, they must draw on every last ounce of their strength for a chance of survival against the raging fires of war, the endless jungle and the brutal enemy that lies within it.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Head of Zeus ed.)

16 15 y separately published work icon The Ladies of Missalonghi The Courtship of Missy Wright Colleen McCullough , London : Hutchinson , 1987 Z375514 1987 single work novel
— Appears in: Tim; Ledi iz Missalongi 1993;

'The Hurlingford family have ruled the small town of Byron, nestled in the Blue Mountains, for generations. Wealthy, powerful and cruel, they get what they want, every time.

'Missy Wright lives with her widowed mother and crippled aunt in genteel poverty. Hurlingfords by birth, all three are victim to the family's rule of inheritance: the men take it all. Plain, thin and unforgivably single, it seems Missy's life is destined to be dreary.

'But then a stranger arrives in town. A divorcee from Sydney. And she opens Missy's eyes to the possibility of a happy ending.'

Source : publisher's blurb

1 y separately published work icon The Throwaway Children Diney Costeloe , London : Head of Zeus , 2015 8705371 2015 single work novel historical fiction

'The story of two sisters sent first to an English, then an Australian orphanage in the aftermath of World War 2.

'Rita and Rosie Stevens are only nine and five years old when their widowed mother marries a violent bully called Jimmy Randall and has a baby boy by him. Under pressure from her new husband, she is persuaded to send the girls to an orphanage - not knowing that the papers she has signed will entitle the charity which owns it to do what they like with the children. And it is not long before the powers that be decide to send a consignment of orphans to their sister institution in Australia. Among them - without their family's consent or knowledge - are Rita and Rosie, the throwaway children.' (Publication summary)

1 y separately published work icon Second Chance Cafe Amanda Prowse , London : Head of Zeus , 2015 8703901 2015 single work novel

'Set between Sydney and Edinburgh at Christmas, this is a story of family ties, lost love, and the power of the past.

'Alex loves Christmas. She owns a cafe by Sydney's harbour bridge, and she spends days decorating it with vintage hand-cut snowflakes to look like a winter wonderland - a magical retreat from the baking Australian summer outside. This year has not been easy - she was dumped by the man she thought she'd marry - but Alex is pouring all her energies into creating the perfect Christmas for her customers. Until she starts receiving letters from a cafe in Bristol, England, and finds herself drawn to its mysterious owner... ' (Publication summary)

9 9 y separately published work icon The Song of Troy Colleen McCullough , London : Orion , 1998 Z294322 1998 single work novel historical fiction

'It was a clash of arms that would echo through the millennia: a hard-fought conflict born of love, pride, greed and revenge; a decade-long siege of the ancient world's greatest city from which nobody will escape unscathed.

'As urgent and passionate as if told for the first time, international besteller Colleen McCullough breathes life into legend, swinging our sympathies from Greece to Troy and back again as they move inexorably towards a fate not even the gods themselves can avert. Here are Greek princess Helen, sensuous and self-indulgent, who deserts a dull husband for the sake of the equally self-indulgent Trojan prince Paris; the haunted warrior Achilles; the heroically noble Hektor; the subtle and brilliant Odysseus; Priam, King of Troy, doomed to make the wrong decisions for the right reasons; and Agamemnon, King of Kings, who consents to the unspeakable to launch his thousand ships, incurring the terrifying wrath of his wife, Klytemnestra.'(Publication summary) 

1 y separately published work icon Ten-Pound Ticket : A Short Story Amanda Prowse , London : Head of Zeus , 2014 17980447 2014 single work novella historical fiction

'Australia, 1962: Susie has just arrived on the boat from England. She is clutching a newborn baby, but she has no wedding ring on her left hand.

'The land is dusty and hot, and the work is hard and tiring. All Susie wants is to go home. But with no money, and no hope, how can she turn her life around?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

35 49 y separately published work icon The Thorn Birds Colleen McCullough , New York (City) Sydney : Harper and Row , 1977 Z95593 1977 single work novel

The Thorn Birds is the unforgettable story of the Clearys, spanning three generations; a sweeping family saga of dreams, titanic struggles, dark passions, and forbidden love in the Australian Outback. (Source: Trove)

12 7 y separately published work icon An Indecent Obsession Colleen McCullough , Sydney : Harper and Row , 1981 Z95298 1981 single work novel

'The Second World War has just ended and Sister Honour Langtree, a caring and conscientious Army nurse, cares for a striking mixture of five battle-broken soldiers being treated in the psychiatric care section of the hospital. To the soldiers, Honour is a precious, adored reminder of the world before war – they are as devoted to her as she is to them.

'Then Seargent Michael Wilson arrives. A damaged and decorated hero, Wilson is a man of secrets and silent pain. Honour finds herself drawn to this tortured man, and discovers a love that will ultimately lead to a violent tragedy.'

Source : publisher's blurb

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