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Jackie French

The story behind Banjo Paterson's iconic Australian song.
 
'Once a jolly swagman camped by a Billabong
Under the shade of a Coolibah tree
And he sang as he watched and waited till his Billy boiled
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me...'

In 1894, twelve-year-old Matilda flees the city slums to find her unknown father and his farm. But drought grips the land, and the shearers are on strike. Her father has turned swaggie and he's wanted by the troopers. In front of his terrified daughter, he makes a stand against them, defiant to the last. 'You'll never catch me alive, said he...'

Set against a backdrop of bushfire, flood, war and jubilation, this is the story of one girl's journey towards independence. It is also the story of others who had no vote and very little but their dreams.

Drawing on the well-known poem by A.B. Paterson and from events rooted in actual history, this is the untold story behind Australia's early years as an emerging nation.

PRAISE

'Jackie French has a passion for history, and an enviable ability to weave the fascinating minutiae of everyday life into a good story.' -- Magpies Magazine

Edwina Wren

HarperAudio

The Matilda Saga

A Waltz for Matilda

In the tradition of The Man from Snowy River comes a gripping and courageous sequel to A Waltz for Matilda

 
The year is 1919. Thirty years have passed since the man from Snowy River made his famous ride. But World War I still casts its shadow across a valley in the heart of Australia, particularly for orphaned sixteen-year-old Flinty McAlpine, who lost a brother when the Snowy River men marched away to war.

Why has the man Flinty loves returned from the war so changed and distant? Why has her brother Andy 'gone with cattle', leaving Flinty in charge of their younger brother and sister and with the threat of eviction from the farm she loves so dearly? A brumby muster held under the watchful eye of the legendary Clancy of the Overflow offers hope. Now Flinty must ride to save her farm, her family and the valley she loves.

Set among the landscapes of the great poems of Australia, this book is a love song to the Snowy Mountains and a tribute to Australia's poets who immortalised so much of our land. The Girl from Snowy River combines passion, heartbreak, history and an enduring love and rich understanding of our land.

PRAISE FOR A WALTZ FOR MATILDA

'... this absorbing saga abounds in social and historical detail' -- Magpies

The Girl from Snowy River

A page-turning, heart-warming family saga set in the Snowy Mountains during the Depression in the 1930s.

 
Blue Laurence has escaped the prison of her aunt's mansion to join the Magnifico Family Circus, a travelling troupe that brings glamour and laughter to country towns gripped by the Depression.

Blue hides her crippled legs and scars behind the sparkle of a mermaid's costume; but she's not the only member of the circus hiding a dark secret. The unquenchable Madame Zlosky creates as well as foresees futures. The bearded lady is a young man with laughing eyes. A headless skeleton dangles in the House of Horrors. And somewhere a murderer is waiting ... to strike again.

This third book in the Waltz for Matilda saga is set in 1932, at the height of the Depression. Miss Matilda is still running Drinkwater Station, but has put aside her own tragedy to help those suffering in tough economic times and Joey, from The Girl from Snowy River, uses his new medical skills to solve a mystery.

PRAISE FOR A WALTZ FOR MATILDA
'Jackie French has a passion for history, and an enviable ability to weave the fascinating minutiae of everyday life into a good story.' -- Magpies Magazine

PRAISE FOR THE GIRL FROM SNOWY RIVER
'... when I was 11 or 12, I would have read and reread it until it fell to bits. It has everything: horses, poems, ghosts, heroism, war, the bush and a love story.' -- Saturday Age

'this is a genuine gem that is impossible to put down and must be swallowed whole in one sitting.' --Newcastle Herald

The Road to Gundagai

In war-torn Malaya, Nancy dreams of Australia - and a young man called Michael.

 
The year is 1942 and the world is at war. Nancy Clancy left school at fourteen to spend a year droving, just like her grandfather Clancy of the Overflow. Now sixteen, Nancys family has sent her to Malaya to bring home her sister-in-law Moira and baby nephew Gavin. Yet despite the threat of Japanese invasion, Moira resists, wanting to stay near her husband Ben.

But not even Nancy of the Overflow can stop the fall of Singapore and the capture of so many Australian troops. When their ship is bombed, Nancy, Moira and Gavin are reported missing.

Back home at Gibbers Creek, Michael refuses to believe the girl he loves has died. As Darwin, Broome and even Sydney are bombed, Australians must fight to save their country. But as Michael and the families of Gibbers Creek discover, there are many ways to love your country, and many ways to fight for it.

From one of Australia's most-admired storytellers comes a gripping and unforgettable novel based on true events and little-known people. This is a story about ultimate survival and the deepest kinds of love.

PRAISE

'A book about a love of country that is heartwarming and heartbreaking, and hard to put down.'

-- Adelaide Advertiser, 4 stars

To Love a Sunburnt Country

The fifth title in the sweeping Matilda Saga

 
Hippies wear beads, demonstrators march against the Vietnam War, and the world waits to see the first human steps on the moon's surface.

But at Gibbers Creek, Jed Kelly sees ghosts, from the past and future, at the Drinkwater billabong where long ago the swaggie leaped to his defiant death. 

But is seventeen-year-old Jed a con artist or a survivor? When she turns up at Drinkwater Station claiming to be the great-granddaughter of Matilda Thompson's dying husband, Jed clearly has secrets. As does a veteran called Nicholas, who was badly wounded in the Vietnam War and now must try to create a life he truly wants to live, despite the ghosts that haunt him too.

Set during the turbulence of the late 1960s, this was a time when brilliant and little-known endeavours saw Australia play a vital role in Neil Armstrong's 'one giant leap for mankind' on that first unforgettable moon walk.

The fifth title in the highly acclaimed Matilda Saga, The Ghost by the Billabong is a story of deep conflicts and enduring passions - for other people, for the land, and for the future of humanity.

PRAISE FOR THE MATILDA SAGA

'An engrossing mystery story, an ode to strong women, and a moving exploration of the private wounds we carry ... The Last Dingo Summer is a must for your summer reading list' - Better Reading

'The perfect read for anyone who loves immersing themselves in Australian fiction. Gripping, emotional and moving, Facing the Flame is a great book to curl up with on a warm spring night' - New Idea

'Highly recommended ... this was a complete binge, read in one night because it was just too good and too gripping to put down ... a cracking story filled with rich characters both old and new and imbued with all that we hold dear about Australian love of country and mateship' - ReadPlus

The Ghost by the Billabong

It's 1972 in Gibber's Creek, and across the nation, the catchcry is, 'It's time'.

 
As political ideals drift from disaster to the dismissal, it's also time for Jed Kelly to choose between past love, Nicholas, the local Labor member, and Sam from the Halfway to Eternity commune. It's time too for Matilda Thompson to face her ghosts and the life that took a young girl from the slums of Grinder's Alley to being the formidable matriarch of Gibber's Creek.

During this period of extraordinary social change and idealism, modern Australia would be born. And although the nation would dream of a better world, it would continue to struggle with opposing ideas of exactly what that better world might be.

Jackie French, author of the bestselling To Love a Sunburnt Country, has woven her own experience of that time into an unforgettable story of a small rural community and a nation swept into the social and political tumult of the early 1970s. A time that would bear witness to some of the most controversial events in Australian history; and for Matilda, a time that would see her vision made real, without blood spilled upon the wattle.

PRAISE FOR TO LOVE A SUNBURNT COUNTRY

'a book about love of country that is heartwarming and heartbreaking, and hard to put down'

--The Advertiser, 4 stars

If Blood Should Stain the Wattle

'Gripping, emotional and moving'
-- New Idea

 
 

There have been fires before, but not like this.

 

In 1978, as the hot wind howls and the grass dries, all who live at Gibber's Creek know their land can burn. But when you love your land, you fight for it.

 

For Jed Kelly, an even more menacing danger looms: a man from her past determined to destroy her. Finding herself alone, trapped and desperate to save her unborn child, Jed's only choice is to flee - into the flames.

 

Heartbreaking and powerful, Facing the Flame celebrates the triumph of courage and community, and a love for the land so deep that not even bushfire can erode it.

PRAISE
'The perfect read for anyone who loves immersing themselves in Australian fiction. Gripping, emotional and moving, Facing the Flame is a great book to curl up with on a warm spring night.' -- New Idea

Facing the Flame

'Gripping, emotional and moving'
-- New Idea on Facing the Flame (The Matilda Saga, Book 7)

 
 

A body has been found in the burned-out wreckage of the church at Gibber's Creek -- with older skeletons lying beneath it.

The corpse is identified as that of Ignatius Mervyn, the man who attempted to kill Jed Kelly and her unborn child.

Newcomer Fish Johnstone is drawn into the murder investigation, convinced that the local police are on the wrong track with their enquiries. But as she digs beneath the warm and welcoming surface of the Gibber's Creek community, more secrets emerge.

And Fish must also face her own mystery -- the sudden appearance and then disappearance of her father, a Vietnamese refugee she never knew.

Set during the Indigenous rights and 'boat people' controversies of the late 1970s, this haunting story shows how love and kindness can create the courage to face the past.

 

PRAISE FOR THE MATILDA SAGA

'The perfect read for anyone who loves immersing themselves in Australian fiction. Gripping, emotional and moving, Facing the Flame is a great book to curl up with on a warm spring night.' -- New Idea

'Highly recommended ... this was a complete binge, read in one night because it was just too good and too gripping to put down ... a cracking story filled with rich characters both old and new and imbued with all that we hold dear about Australian love of country and mateship' -- ReadPlus

'An entertaining and fascinating read that accurately captures the feel of the early 1970s' -- Canberra Weekly

The Last Dingo Summer

From Australia's best-loved storyteller comes the final book in the bestselling Matilda Saga
 
This is a love song to our nation, told in a single sweeping story

Jed Kelly has finally persuaded her great aunt Nancy to tell the story of her grandparents. The tale that unfolds is one of Australia's greatest romances - that of Clancy of the Overflow, who gave up everything for Rose, the woman he adored, and yet still gained all he'd lost and more.

But Nancy's story is not the history that Jed expects. More tales lurk behind the folklore that surrounds Clancy - the stories of the women hidden in Australia's long history, who forged a nation and whose voices need to be heard.

It is also a story of many kinds of love. Clancy's growing passion for the bush, immortalised in Paterson's poem, which speaks to him in the ripple of the river and the song of the stars, and Nancy's need to pass on her deep understanding of her country. 

But perhaps the most moving love story of all is the one that never happened, between Matilda O'Halloran and Clancy of the Overflow. And as Jed brings all of these stories to life in her book, Matilda and Clancy will once again waltz beside the river and the forgotten will be given a new voice. 

PRAISE FOR THE MATILDA SAGA

'An engrossing mystery story, an ode to strong women, and a moving exploration of the private wounds we carry ... The Last Dingo Summer is a must for your summer reading list' -- Better Reading

'The perfect read for anyone who loves immersing themselves in Australian fiction. Gripping, emotional and moving, Facing the Flame is a great book to curl up with' -- New Idea

'Highly recommended ... this was a complete binge, read in one night because it was just too good and too gripping to put down ... a cracking story filled with rich characters both old and new and imbued with all that we hold dear about Australian love of country and mateship' -- ReadPlus