When you read a good book, it transports you to another world.
The author’s imagination and yours collide to bring that world to life.
When you read a book set in our unique Australian landscape and told with an Australian voice, the familiarity allows the imagination to flow more freely, which is why we’re taking a look at Australian authors.
When Alice Love surfaces from a strange, beautiful dream to find she’s been injured in a gym, she knows that something is very wrong. Her first concern is for her unborn baby, and she’s desperate to see her husband, Nick, who she knows will be worried about her. But Alice isn’t pregnant. And Nick isn’t exactly rushing to her beside.
Liane is a Sydneysider. Her first book commissioned by her father. She wrote a novel for him and he paid her an advance of $1.00. She wrote a three volume epic called, ‘The Mystery of Dead Man’s Island’.
She was in advertising and marketing for a while until her younger sister, Jaclyn Moriarty had a novel published. Liane says in her bio that ‘In a fever of sibling rivalry, Liane rushed to the computer and wrote a children’s book called The Animal Olympics, which went on to be enthusiastically rejected by every publisher in Australia.’
But she persisted and since then she has had 6 novels published. The Last Anniversary, What Alice Forgot, The Hypnotists Love Story, The Husband’s Secret, Big Little Lies, and Truly Madly Guilty, as well as the Nicola Berry series for children.
Of course, you may have also heard of Big Little Lies? It was adapted by David E. Kelley, the HBO limited series of Big Lies was a critically acclaimed smash hit starring Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern.
Liane’s most recent novel Truly Madly Guilty was published in 2016 and has also been picked up by Nicole and Reese’s production companies. Watch this space.
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 everyone, and everyone has their place. In Shoalhaven things never change. Until now…
Judy grew up in Perth. She was an actress from the late 60s until Judy’s transition as a storyteller, from actress to writer, began with a casual conversation at a party in the early 1980s that led to a job writing for a new TV series called Neighbours. She then went back to acting on the new show in 1988, Home & Away. She never stopped writing though and completed 4 books while acting on Home & Away.
Today, with over one million copies of her books sold worldwide, Judy Nunn is one of Australia’s most successful authors. In 2015 she was made a Member of the Order of Australia for her “significant service to the performing arts as a scriptwriter and actor of stage and screen, and to literature as an author.”
The lone swimmer, turning over now to switch to a perfectly executed back crawl, wasn’t Oxford or Cambridge, wasn’t a man. It was a woman, a girl. It was Catherine. Of course it was Catherine… It’s 1925 and fifteen-year-old Catherine Quick longs to feel once more the warm waters of her home, to strike out into the ocean off the Torres Strait Islands and swim, as she’s done since she was a tiny child. But now, with her recent move to London where she lives with her aunt Louisa, Catherine feels that everything she values has been stripped away…Louisa, a busy, confident London surgeon who fought boldly for equality for women, holds definite views on the behaviour of her young niece. She wants Catherine to pursue an education, just as she did, to ensure her future freedom. Since Catherine arrived, however, Louisa’s every step seems to be wrong and she is finding it harder and harder to block painful memories from her past…It takes the influence of enigmatic American banker Manfred Lear Black to convince Louisa to come to New York where Catherine can test her mettle against the first women in the world to swim the English Channel. And where, unexpectedly, Louisa can finally listen to what her own heart tells her.
She grew up in Brisbane, Australia, with three brothers. Both her parents were journalists.
Mary-Rose also worked as a journalist, nursing assistant, computer operator and corporate writer while studying towards degrees in journalism and creative writing.
She has written 5 novels.
Her first novel, No Safe Place, was runner-up in the Australian Vogel Literary Award. Her first non-fiction book, The Birth Wars, was a Finalist in the Walkley Awards for Journalism and in the Queensland Premier’s Awards for Non-Fiction and for Science Writing. In Falling Snow and Swimming Home have both been published internationally, and Swimming Home won The Courier-Mail 2016 People’s Choice Award. Her latest book, For a Girl, is a true story from Mary-Rose MacColl’s young life.
This is where it all started! The first classic Phryne Fisher mystery, featuring our delectable heroine, cocaine, communism and adventure. Phryne leaves the tedium of English high society for Melbourne, Australia, and never looks back.
The Phryne Fisher series (pronounced Fry-knee, to rhyme with briny) began in 1989 with Cocaine Blues which was a great success. Kerry has written sixteen books in this series with no sign yet of Miss Fisher hanging up her pearl-handled pistol. Kerry says that as long as people want to read them, she can keep writing them.
Kerry Greenwood was born in the Melbourne suburb of Footscray and after wandering far and wide, she returned to live there. She has a degree in English and Law from Melbourne University and was admitted to the legal profession on the 1st April 1982, a day which she finds both soothing and significant. Kerry has written twenty novels, a number of plays, including The Troubadours with Stephen D’Arcy, is an award-winning children’s writer and has edited and contributed to several anthologies. In 1996 she published a book of essays on female murderers called Things She Loves: Why women Kill.
Ned was beside me, his messages running easily through him, with space between each one, coming through him like water. He was the go-between, going between the animal kingdom and this one. I watched the waves as they rolled and crashed towards us, one after another, never stopping, always changing. I knew what was making them come, I had been there and I would always know.’ Meet Jimmy Flick. He’s not like other kids – he’s both too fast and too slow. He sees too much, and too little. Jimmy’s mother Paula is the only one who can manage him. She teaches him how to count sheep so that he can fall asleep. She holds him tight enough to stop his cells spinning. It is only Paula who can keep Jimmy out of his father’s way. But when Jimmy’s world falls apart, he has to navigate the unfathomable world on his own, and make things right.
Sofie Laguna won the Miles Franklin Award in 2015 for the novel, The Eye of the Sheep.
Originally studied to be a lawyer, but after deciding law was not for her, she moved to Melbourne to train as an actor. Sofie worked for many years as an actor before she began to write – both for children and adults. Sofie has just released her third novel for adults, ‘The Choke’, to wide acclaim.
Sofie lives in Melbourne with her husband, illustrator Marc McBride, and their two young sons.
This is a category in the Ipswich Libraries’ 2017/2018 Holiday Reading Challenge.
Read or listen to any books from each of the categories these holidays for your chance to win fantastic prizes.
Ipswich Libraries staff have made suggestions in these categories and they can be found here.
Library reading challenge
The other categories are: Adapted to Movie/TV Show, Author You’ve Never Read Before, Recommended by Staff, Set During the Summer and Book You’ve Been Meaning To Read.
When you’ve finished your six books, complete the online entry form or print version and return it to any Ipswich Libraries branch by 2 February 2018.
If you have any questions about the Holiday Reading Challenge, or the books, then you can call the Library on 3810 6773.
