Manifest

A fatal fall during steel erection, witnessed by many, was misinterpreted in various ways, leading to further deaths and impacting future generations.

The tragic repercussions echoed through time, dividing those involved.

It took another war to unite them and heal the wounds of the past.

Lament for Etty

Etty Scott, having earned the wrath of the Scottish Kirk, fleas to Ireland with her widowed father, who manages to gain a position as an overseer on the construction of a new asylum harbour.

She uses her twin gifts of second sight and her knowledge as a herbalist to aid the local people and becomes determined to raise them out of the grinding poverty which threatens to envelop them, even if it means endangering her own life.

The Cellar

What would you do if you were a soldier in 1916, found an enemy nurse in a Pozières cellar with constant artillery attacks and the danger of death ever present? Would you trust them not to kill you? Would you rescue them? Or leave them behind while you escaped? Many moral and ethical questions are raised by the author over the course of the book. The interactions with military bureaucrats were understandably not always friendly to a possible enemy agent from 1916 to 1918 when the book is set.

Ed Jacobs has written a story based on his great uncle Martin’s role in World War 1 and using his own military experience and thorough research to imagine a war story with a complex romance. A What if…story around an Australian Staff Sergeant and a German nurse Kerstin who he rescues and becomes close to over the ensuing ordeals of injury, hardship and divided loyalties.

Would it be possible to love the enemy and plan a life together and…where would that be and what obstacles would they face?

The visceral horror of the trenches, constant death and destruction can be felt through vivid description and is contrasted with the beauty of a place untouched by war and a return to some sort of a normal life in France and England while Martin recovers from injury.

Anyone interested in the First World War and particularly the events around Pozières will find this book of great interest. The added dimension of two people caught between opposing forces provides human interest to balance the horrors of war.

Erina S Hutton

Author of A Photographic Memory; George S Hutton’s Port Adelaide and Surrounds, 1924-1984. Mile End SA, Wakefield Press, 2019

Are You John?

In 1954, a young boy escapes the emotional torment of his home, fleeing into the vast, unforgiving Australian bush. Alone and naive, he embarks on a perilous journey spanning seventy years, where every encounter shapes his destiny. Who will he meet in this wild frontier? Will he find allies among the rugged inhabitants, or will the darker elements of society pull him into their nefarious undertakings? As he navigates the trials of life, from the innocence of youth to the wisdom of age, we witness a profound transformation. Can he rise above the harsh realities and succeed, or will he be consumed by the very environment he sought refuge in?

Children Sent into Danger

Beginning in 1910, this story follows two brothers, Michael, a baby, and Ronald, a seven-year-old, who suddenly lose both parents. Their mother dies in childbirth, and their father perishes in the worst coal mining disaster in Lancashire’s history: the Pretoria Pit explosion at Hulton Colliery near Westhoughton, Bolton, which claimed 344 lives.

Taken to a local orphanage, the baby is fostered by a local mill owner and his wife. Unbeknownst to anyone at the time, the mill owner’s intentions are far from benevolent; he wants a compliant son to fulfill his wishes. Meanwhile, the traumatized and unruly Ronald is deemed too difficult to adopt and is sent to Australia under Britain’s Child Migrant Program, where he initially suffers much abuse.

Despite their harsh beginnings, both brothers eventually join the medical profession. During World War II, they encounter each other several times while working in field hospitals, completely unaware of their true relationship.

Is it possible that they will one day discover the bonds of brotherhood and reunite?

Flies to Wanton Boys

Set in the final years of Queen Victoria’s reign, at the beginning of the end of Empire in India, Flies to Wanton Boys records the life of Marian Chase as she defies convention to cross continents. Ignoring repeated advice that ‘this is no place for a woman’, she travels through India in search of experiences and relationships more extraordinary than she could ever have expected from her comfortable middle-class upbringing in London and on the South coast.

Intoxicated by India; its colours, its sights, its people, she survives landslides and bandit tribesmen in the mountains of the Northwest Frontier, running aground on the mighty Brahmaputra River and devastating monsoon floods in the tea plantations of Upper Assam.

And on her journey, she marries, gives birth to a daughter, is widowed, and then marries again to a man whose power and ego finally leave her abandoned and homeless.

Her eventual return to England, to the family she left behind fifteen years earlier, is not enough to relieve the grief she feels at having squandered the life she once had.

Marian was a remarkable woman who kept meticulous diaries, revealing with unique honesty not just the places and peoples she embraced but her emotions, her doubts, and her fears until eventually she had no energy left.

The Song of the Minstrel

Edmund Carpenter is born on the lowest rung of society in late 15th century England, and yet his mother has told him that his father was an Earl. His confusion is compounded by having had a privileged, lonely childhood growing up in a monastery, learning to read and write.

As he reaches his twentieth birthday, he leaves the monastery to team up with two minstrels that he had met on his first journey to nearby Bristol. The new trio are invited to join the household of Sir Reynold Bray, the close friend and chief minister of King Henry VII. There, at Eaton Manor in Bedfordshire, he enters a world of intrigue, mystery and romance revolving around Bray, the King and Queen and their two sons, Princes Arthur and Henry.

What Edmund discovers at Eaton, while revealing his true identity, will, for better or for worse, dictate his life’s course and potentially change the future of the realm.

Two Hearts, One War

Against the haunting backdrop of World War I, Two Hearts One War weaves a stirring narrative of Esad, a Bosnian soldier, and Charlotte, a French nurse. Though separated by the arbitrary divisions of war, they are united through shared suffering and losses. As each endures the relentless horrors of battle and privation, their improbable bond reveals both the bestial face of warfare and the beating heart of human compassion.

This poignant tale bears witness not only to the trials that pitted army against army, but also war’s devastating toll on innocent civilians caught in the maelstrom. It is a reminder to those embroiled in today’s conflicts must break the cycle of violence and pursue peace, lest we relive the tragedies of the past.

Ana Kelly: A Saga of Love and Courage

The captivating story of Ana Ludovina Teixeira de Aguilar unfolds against the backdrop of the French invasions of Portugal and the military aid provided by the English, commanded by the Duke of Wellington, who also played a pivotal role in her marriage to Waldron Kelly, an Irish lieutenant.

Discover how Ana Kelly’s love for Waldron remained steadfast until her death. Delve into her family’s connection to the Portuguese royal family and the support Queen Victoria provided in the final phase of her life. This is a tale of love and remarkable resilience, intertwined with an intimate yet rigorous historical account.

Gripping until the last page, this narrative comes highly recommended by Timeout Magazine as one of 28 must-read European literature books about romance and treason.

Shakespeare in Virginia

In February 1616, William Shakespeare finds himself on the brink of financial ruin and trapped in an unhappy marriage. Desperate for a way out, he agrees to resume his clandestine work for the English secret service. His mission: to report on the Virginia Company and their activities in the Virginia Colony. To maintain his cover, Shakespeare must fake his own death and assume a new identity.

As he embarks on this dangerous journey, Shakespeare befriends John Rolfe and his wife Matoaka (Pocahontas), who are visiting England. The couple provides invaluable insights into Virginia, Powhatan society, and the complex situation unfolding in the Colony. Following Mataoka’s tragic death, Shakespeare accompanies Rolfe to Virginia, taking on the guise of a tobacco planter.

In this new world, Shakespeare must navigate the treacherous waters between the avaricious English colonists and the hostile, embittered Powhatans. Can his experience as a renowned actor and playwright help him survive and thrive in the Colony? And how will the most famous life in history come to an end?

Before the First Fleet to Australia

Most know the story of Australia’s First Fleet. But who were those convicts, sailors, marines and administrators who travelled to Botany Bay in 1787? And who orchestrated this ambitious expedition? In his meticulously researched new book, John Gardiner pulls back the curtain on the world from which the First Fleet emerged.

Delving into English newspapers, official reports, and government documents from the era, Gardiner vividly captures the squalor of London’s slums, the rotting hulks on the Thames where prisoners languished, and the hardscrabble lives of those who would people New South Wales. We meet real-life figures like Prime Minister William Pitt, Home Secretary Lord Sydney, and the Fleet’s commander, Captain Arthur Phillip. And we discover a society rife with corruption, violence, and despair.

Before the First Fleet to Australia paints an unflinching portrait of late 18th century England in all its vulgarity and cruelty. Gardiner’s fearless account confronts historical truths often glossed over about the First Fleet’s origins. Was this ragged band of convicts a collection of pathetic vagabonds or part of a strategically calculated colonial enterprise? Readers can decide for themselves in this absorbing and revelatory narrative history.

The Unknown Warriors

The Unknown Warriors is based on a true story set in the beauty and tragedy of Europe in the years just before the Second World War. Abrienda de Soza, inheritor of a fortune stolen from the coffers of Imperial Russia during the last days of the Russian Civil War, fights to keep her country out of the hands of both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia and preserve a culture threatened by both through any means possible. Nika Molnar, an agent working for Hungarian Intelligence’s Special Unit, seeks to exact vengeance on the man who murdered her father when she was a child. Impeccably researched, The Unknown Warriors captures the feel and nuance of a world soon to be destroyed forever—a uniquely told and deeply compelling story of war, intrigue and betrayal, but also of love and sacrifice played out against the backdrop of a world heading inexorably towards war.

The title is taken from a speech by Winston Churchill. “This is a War of Unknown Warriors, but let all strive without failing in faith or duty…”