Showing results by narrator "Tamala" in All Categories

How quickly the ground shifts beneath our feet. We make choices—in the face of love, or violence, or necessity—and the effects ripple outward. In these moving short stories, acclaimed authors examine the foundations of the past, uncovering the irreversible decisions and life-changing encounters that mark the turning point between before and after.

Blending the mythical power of Téa Obreht and the epic scope of Min Jin Lee, a searing historical novel that tells a story of colonization, survival, and resistance in a way never done before—a beautiful, brilliant, and brutal reimagining of the first contact between Indigenous people and white British settlers and the far-reaching consequences for one Aboriginal girl coming of age in an unsteady and dangerous world.

Sorrento, Victoria, 1999. Fred's family is a mess. Her mother died when she was six and she's been raised by her Pop and adoptive father, Luca, ever since. But now Pop's had to go away, and Luca's girlfriend Anika and her son have moved in. More and more it feels like a land-grab for family, and Fred is the one being left off the map. Even as things feel like they're spinning out of control for Fred, a crisis from the other side of the world comes crashing in.

Growing Up in Country Australia is a fresh, modern look at country Australia. There are stories of joy, adventure, nostalgia, connection to nature and freedom, but also more grim tales - of drought, fires, mouse plagues and isolation. From the politics of the country school bus to the class divides between locals, from shooting foxes with Dad to giving up meat as an adult, from working on the family farm to selling up and moving to the city, the picture painted is diverse and unexpected. This is country Australia as you've never seen it before.

Evie has been raised in the heart of Aboriginal Redfern, by a proud trailblazing Wiradjuri family. She remembers so much about the previous world – the Dreamtime, the ancestors, and the knowing – but she also harbours a dark pain that is becoming almost too much to bear. And then Evie meets James, a young man radiating pure love who fills her life with light. On the cusp of adulthood, with their whole lives ahead of them, they travel to Evie’s beloved country, the central west of New South Wales and the Riverina regions.

Rosie and Nona are sisters. Yapas. They are also best friends. It doesn’t matter that Rosie is white and Nona is Aboriginal - their family connections tie them together for life. The girls are inseparable until Nona moves away at the age of nine. By the time she returns, they’re in Year 10 and things have changed. Rosie prefers to hang out in the nearby mining town, where she goes to school with the glamorous Selena and her gorgeous older brother, Nick.

A young woman, living on the street, has to keep her wits about her. Or her friends. But when the drugs kick in that can be hard. Anton has been looking out for her. She was safe with him. But then Steve came along. He had something over Anton. Must have. But he had a flat they could crash in. And gear in his pocket. And she can't stop thinking about it. A good hit makes everything all right. But the flat smells weird. There's a lock on Steve's bedroom door. And the guy is intense. The problem is, sometimes you just don't know you are in too deep until you are drowning.

Frigid tells the story of the 1991 United Bank of Denver Robbery. Four guards were murdered. Six vault tellers were held at gunpoint. The book contains interviews with many people involved in the case. James W. King was tried and acquitted in 1992.

Sleeping in the Bathtub is based on a true story. Former Marine, Timothy Allen McWilliams shot three people in 1980 near West Virginia University. One young man died. After a mistrial in 1984, a conviction in 1984, and the overturning of the verdict by the West Virginia Supreme Court in 1986, Timothy Allen McWilliams came home to his parents in 1988. In March of 2018, Tim woke up one morning and stabbed to death his father.

It’s 1868, and the gold rush is spreading across the wild west of New South Wales, bringing with it a new breed of colonial rogue - bushrangers. A world far removed from hardworking farm girl Annie Bird and her sleepy village on the outskirts of Sydney. But when a cruel stroke of fortune sees Annie orphaned and outcast, she is forced to head for the goldfields in search of her grandfather, a legendary tracker. Determined and dangerously naive, she sets off with little but a swag full of hope - and is promptly robbed of it on the road.

From the acclaimed author of the Miles Franklin long-listed Madukka: The River Serpent (UWA) and the Barbara Jefferis Award shortlisted Benevolence, Compassion continues Julie Janson's emotional and intense literary exploration of the complex and dangerous lives of Aboriginal women during the 1800s in colonial New South Wales, which she began in Benevolence as a counter narrative to colonial history in Australian literature.

This is the story of one of Australia's first true heroes Pemulwuy. A proud and feared Aboriginal warrior, Pemulwuy leads an uncompromising twelve-year war against British colonial oppression and makes the supreme sacrifice in order to guide his people to safety. Most histories of Australia start with the First Fleet and the hard times the colonists had with the climate and unruly convicts. Very few mention what really happened or the blood that was spilled in the wars never spoken of.