AustLit

'An empowering and exhilarating look at the girls who went before us, and the way they shaped the world.

'Twelve-year-old Ming Qong is convinced that girls must have changed the world, even if they are rarely mentioned in history books.

'So when Ming gets the chance to go back in time, she imagines herself changing destinies from a glittering palace or an explorer's ship. Instead, she ends up in Australia in 1898, living a tough life as Flo Watson on a drought-stricken farm.

'Luckily, Ming is rescued by Flo's Aunt McTavish, from Sydney. Wealthy Aunt McTavish belongs to Louisa Lawson's Suffragist Society, who are desperately and courageously fighting for women's rights. And Ming is determined to get involved, to make a difference.

'But change is never easy, so how can one girl change the world?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Down below the giant rumbled, All around us buildings crumbled, Newcastle began to shake ... ‘Quake!’ yelled someone. ‘Out! Earthquake!’

'From the award-winning creators of Flood, Fire, Cyclone, Drought and Pandemic.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'SOME GIRLS ARE BORN TO BE LOVED, SOME ARE BORN TO BE USEFUL, AND SOME ARE BORN TO BE BAD ...

'Indulged and wealthy Kat Fitzhubert is sold in an arranged marriage to a colony across the world. Lady Viola Montefiore is the dark-skinned changeling of a ducal family, kept hidden and then shipped away. Titania Boot is as broad as a carthorse, and as useful.

'On the long sea voyage from their homeland of England, these three women are fast bonded in an unlikely friendship. In the turmoil of 1850s Australia - which has reinvented itself from convict colony to a land of gold rushes and illusive riches - one woman forges a business empire, while another turns to illegal brewery, working alongside a bushranger as the valleys around her are destroyed. The third vanishes on her wedding day, in a scandal that will intrigue and mystify Sydney's polite society and beyond.

'In this magnificent and broad-sweeping saga, award-winning author Jackie French defies the myth of colonial women as merely wives, servants, petty thieves or whores. Instead, in this masterful storyteller's hands, these three women will be arbiters of a destiny far richer than the bewitching glitter and lure of gold.'

Source : publisher's blurb

''Joy comes in the morning'

'It's Christmas Eve in 1932, and Joey, Ellie and their parents are droving cattle in the drought.

'How will Santa find them on the long and dusty road? And will there be pudding and presents and a tree in the morning?

'But Joey knows that Christmas always comes.' (Publication summary)

'The final and thrilling conclusion to the popular and bestselling Miss Lily series

'A mysterious telegram: 'Lily needs you' is received just before a plane from war-wracked England lands in one of Sophie Greenman's paddocks.

'Sophie, Countess of Shillings, has been living a quiet life on her property in Australia, until love and loyalty draws her back to Shillings Hall where she trained to become one of Miss Lily's 'Lovely Ladies'. Now, in 1942, Shillings Hall is training women to become espionage agents.

'Sophie's mission? To seek out disaffected German officers prepared to kill Hitler.

'Across Europe women like Sophie, or Parisian couturier Violette, or Hannelore, German Prinzessin and spy, must determine where their deepest loyalty lies. And as Europe slowly disintegrates, Miss Lily must also decide her final fate.

'Based on real-life events, this is the story of the women men didn't see. And in this fifth and final book in the Miss Lily series, Jackie French tells the story of the remarkable women who have been carefully left out of our war histories: those lost lilies of allied espionage.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'It's 1932, the height of the Depression, and Butter O'Bryan and his friends have another mystery to solve.

'The Very Small Castle is home to Butter O'Bryan, his father, three aunts, friends Gil, Olive and Tish, and their dog, Woofer.

'But now there's also a monster at the castle!

'When glamorous film actress Delilah Divine vanishes in the middle of filming on Howlers Beach, the police suspect her co-star, the war-hero actor behind the movie's villainous monster ...

'But soon even more strange disappearances leave the police baffled.

'It's up to Butter to solve the mystery of the vanishing film star, but can he crack it before it's too late?'

Source : publisher's blurb

'Six mysterious passengers and seven dark secrets. Who can be trusted?

'It's a dark and dangerous journey for the Cobb and Co night mail coach, but when his coach-driver father is injured, young Jem Donovan must take the reins.

'Surely a boy like Jem can't handle a team of four horses and guide the coach on a rough bush track through fog and untold dangers?

'But there are six passengers on the coach tonight, each with a secret.

'And if Jem can't get them all to their destination by morning, the seventh secret could be deadly ...'

Source : publisher's blurb

'Telling BITS of history as they really were! In 1788, beautiful Australia became a prison as England sent their convicts to the new colony on crowded, smelly ships. And when they arrived, they brought the stink with them. Life as a convict was toughflogging was frequent, food was scarce, and they knew almost nothing about farming. Let alone their new home. Life as a convict stankin every way! Welcome to the most STINKY look at Australia yet!' (Publication summary)

 'The powerful new novel from master storyteller Jackie French

'The soldiers she saved called her the Angel of Waterloo.

'The husband she loved and lost called her Hen.

'The patients she treated in secret called her Auntie Love.

'She was Henrietta Bartlett, a surgeon's daughter, a survivor of the Napoleonic Wars. But now the battlefield is just a blood-soaked memory, and Hen dreams of peace, a home, and a society that allows women to practise medicine.

'On the other side of the world, the newly founded colony of New South Wales seems a paradise. But Europe's wars cast long shadows ...

'From bestselling author Jackie French comes the story of one woman's journey from the hell of Waterloo to colonial Australia, where she can forge her own dreams in a land of many nations.' (Publication summary)

'As the bushfire swallowed up the world they knew, a wombat shared her burrow with other animals.

'As the flames of a bushfire approach, one small wombat shelters with other animals in her burrow. But that is just the beginning of their journey to safety.

'Based on events witnessed by Australian Children's Laureate Jackie French during the 2020 fires, and co-created with award-winning illustrator Danny Snell, this is a story of courage, compassion and survival, which saw people across Australia come together to save our wildlife from devastation.' (Publication summary)

'The war carried the Spanish flu across the world. Faces grew masks. Shops and schools wore signs that said, Closed. Families nursing the sick drew their curtains together to say their house was quarantined... From the award-winning creators of Flood, Fire, Cyclone and Drought, comes this powerful story of humanity prevailing during a pandemic.' (Publication summary)

'As the King of England wavers between duty and love, Sophie knows that she must choose duty.

'The year is 1936 and the new King Edward VIII wishes to marry American divorcee, and suspected German agent, Wallis Simpson. Top-secret documents that the king must read and sign are being neglected for weeks, and some are even turning up in Berlin.

'And as Germany grows its military might with many thousands of new fighter planes every year, Britain and its empire are under increasing threat.

'Can Miss Lily's most successful protege, Sophie Vaile, the Countess of Shillings, seduce the new king, prevent his marriage to Wallis Simpson, and turn him from fascism?

'And if a man can sacrifice his life for his country, should a woman hesitate to sacrifice her honour?

'Based on new correspondence found in German archives, Lilies, Love and Lies is a work of fiction.

'Or is it?

'In the fourth title in the Miss Lily series, Jackie French explores one of the most controversial events in history that saw the unthinkable happen when a king chose love over duty.' (Publication summary)

'Drawing on her own family history, this is a story from Jackie French about education in Colonial Australia - and how women once had to fight for their right to it.

'January 1901

'Sharks circle the stranded ship as Hannah and her family head to a new home in the newly formed nation of Australia. Hannah's father has a new post as the schoolmaster in a larger school in northern NSW, where the school's wealthy patron, a sugar planter called Mr Harris, will give the family a life of comfort and the best society.

'But secrets lurk in this subtropical paradise. From the moment Hannah's mother rebels against her husband's refusal to let Jamie, the Pacific Islander boy who rescues them from their shipwreck, into his school, the facade crumbles. Mr Harris's fortune is built on slavery and the whip. And the new Federal government's first law demands that all Pacific islanders - even those born in Australia - be deported. If Mr Harris learns of the secret school that Hannah's mother is running, it will mean ruin, violence, and possibly even death.

'Hannah and Jamie must fight for Jamie's right to stay in the land he loves, and for their rights to education and equality.

'Can the friendship and love of two young people win against such prejudice and power?' (Publication summary)

'Telling BITS of history as they really were! Gold fever hit Australia in the 1850s and it was the start of a wild, crazy hunt that saw people from all over the world come to try their luck. A few people might have dug up a fortune, but what most diggers dug was latrines. It turns out that the Gold Rush was mostly smelly, dirty, filthy and just yuck. Welcome to the most STINKY look at Australia yet!'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Butter O'Bryan has been told there are ghosts on Howlers Beach, but are there?

'Howlers Beach, 1932

'Butter O'Bryan lives in a Very Small Castle with his father and his three aunts - Aunt Elephant, Aunt Cake and Aunt Peculiar. These aren't their real names, of course, just as Butter's father isn't really called 'Pongo'.

'And even though Butter is only twelve years old, and the grandson of one of Australia's most successful Jam Kings, he is very aware of the hardship many people are experiencing.

'Butter has been told there are ghosts at the nearby isolated Howlers Beach, but are there? And how can the children Butter plays cricket with on the beach simply vanish? Who are these children and why do they refuse his help?

'Butter is certain they're hiding a secret and he's determined to uncover it.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Dippy the diprotodon is the BIGGEST and friendliest wombat who lived 100,000 years ago.

'Dippy has dug a new hole. A BIG hole, which leads him to a strange new world - and even stranger new friends. But do these giant creatures really just want to play?

'Based on a concept by Ben Smith Whatley and brought to life by the creators of the internationally bestselling Diary of a Wombat, this is an hilarious story of prehistoric daring and chaos set in the fascinating world of ancient Australian megafauna.'   (Publication summary)

'Paris, Christmas Eve, 1933

'For once it was an accident. Violette did not mean to kill St Nicholas. But there he was, with blood on the cobblestones, and a family waiting for the Christmas Eve miracle that would never come. And her own family expecting her to eat Christmas goose tomorrow at Shillings Hall in England.

'Violette Jones had led a life of melodrama since being born in the middle of a war to an espionage agent. But even she had never had to face a bloodied St Nicholas, and somehow conjure three miracles for Christmas.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.