Author Archive | admin

Peter Fitzsimmons
Our heroes can come from the most ordinary of places. As a shy lad growing up in country Victoria, no one in the district had any idea the man Albert Jacka would become. Albert ‘Bert’ Jacka was 21 when Britain declared war on Germany in August 1914. Bert soon enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force and the young private was assigned to 14th Battalion D Company. By the time they shipped out to Egypt he’d been made a Lance Corporal.

On 26 April 1915, 14th Battalion landed at Gallipoli under the command of Brigadier General Monash’s 4th Infantry Brigade. It was here, on 20 May, that Lance Corporal Albert Jacka proved he was ‘the bravest of the brave’. The Turks were gaining ground with a full-scale frontal attack and as his comrades lay dead or dying in the trenches around him, Jacka single-handedly held off the enemy onslaught. The Turks retreated.

Jacka’s extraordinary efforts saw him awarded the Victoria Cross, the first for an Australian soldier in World War I. He was a national hero, but Jacka’s wartime exploits had only just moving on to France, he battled the Germans at Pozières, earning a Military Cross for what historian Charles Bean called ‘the most dramatic and effective act of individual audacity in the history of the AIF’. Then at Bullecourt, his efforts would again turn the tide against the enemy. There would be more accolades and adventures before a sniper’s bullet and then gassing at Villers-Bretonneux sent Bert home.

Gina Chick
Gina Chick, the inaugural winner of Alone Australia, tells the story of her extraordinary, indomitable life in one of the most powerful, moving memoirs you will ever read. From day one of her wildly unconventional childhood, Gina Chick blazed her own trail, which led her to dance through the hidden world of ’90s Sydney nightlife into the arms of a conman. She fled to the wilderness to find healing, began a wondrous love affair with the deepest lessons life – and death – can offer, and found that all the answers are written in the wisdom of the body and the whirling silence of stars.

If you’re ready to get lost in jungles, wander into wolf-dens, sing with storms, rescue orphaned animals, dive to the depths, dance ’til your knees wobble, fall in love, find yourself by losing it all, and most of all be real; this book is for you.

We Are the Stars is a magic carpet ride through the exquisite mystery of the human heart. You’ve never read anything like it.

Judy Nunn
FAMILIES COME IN ALL SHAPES AND SIZES. In these six captivating short stories, meet some members of the Otto Bin Empire – the homeless men and women who gather down by the docks.

Adam, the teenage runaway, who has just one to stay lost. Until life offers him a second chance. Oskar, the elderly Polish immigrant, who to outsiders cuts a lonely figure. But every afternoon, at the giant chessboard in the park, Oskar becomes a star.

The poet Reginald, who claims he just wants to observe. Then he meets young Sally – and the scruffy kelpie who hangs around the bins – and is inspired in ways he’d never imagined.

Johnny, the generous, charismatic, habitual criminal, who is finally determined to turn his life around – if only he can stay out of jail.

Benny, the Big Issue vendor with a heart of gold, who loves nothing more than helping others.

And finally Madge, the much-loved Otto Bin matriarch. Her past has always been shrouded in secrecy, but now she’s ready to share her story . . .

Don Bentley
April 2011: On a remote mountaintop overlooking the remains of the Iranian nuclear weapons program, Azad Ashani witnesses a Quds Force demonstration of a capability meant to upend America’s war in the Middle East. Ashani, director of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security and Irene Kennedy’s former back channel to the Iranian government, recognizes the demonstration’s true significance, and the nation-ending conflict it will provoke. Alone, Ashani stands no chance of preventing this rush to madness.

But with the help of one man, he just might. In Washington, DC, CIA director Irene Kennedy briefs the president that the operational window to kill or capture Osama bin Laden at his recently discovered compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan is rapidly closing. But before he’ll authorize a commando raid on Pakistani soil, the president demands irrefutable proof of bin Laden’s presence.

Proof he trusts just one man to provide. Preventing a looming war in the Middle East while delivering justice for the nearly 3,000 Americans killed on 9/11 would be a big ask for anyone.

Mitch Rapp isn’t just anyone.

Graham Brown
When Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala investigate a mass stranding of aquatic life in the Indian Ocean, they accidentally uncover a much deeper mystery. A strange figure soon steals NUMA’s findings, forcing a high-speed chase—someone really didn’t want them examining those dead whales. But who, and why?

A cryptic text through the NUMA satellite network makes things still stranger: these odd phrases and numbers look like NUMA codes. But who could be tantalizing the crew with such specific knowledge of their tech? Are they being helped by an old friend, or lured into a trap by a traitor who knows a little too much about NUMA’s inner workings?

Kurt, Joe, and even Max, the agency’s supercomputer, will have to investigate like never before as they decrypt data, infiltrate a cult of cloned men, and prepare for a battle on two very different planes: one physical; one digital.

The aquatic stranding was just the beginning of a sinister plan concocted by a mind more brilliant than any they’ve ever faced—the mind of a machine. A new, terrifying world order is being plotted. First marine ecosystems will be devastated, then the entire globe’s . . .Unless the NUMA crew can stop this code of desolation.

Laura Dave
Nora Noone’s father, Liam, was many things to many people. To the public he was a self-made hotel magnate, whose luxury boutique hotels were among the most coveted destinations in the world. To his three ex-wives, he was a loving yet distant family man who managed to keep his finances—and his families—separate. But to Nora, her father was always a mystery—especially after his suspicious death at his cliffside home.

Though the authorities rule Liam’s death accidental, Nora and her estranged brother, Sam, believe otherwise. As they form an uneasy alliance to unpack the mystery, they start putting together the pieces of their father’s past and uncover a family secret that changes everything.

Tami Hoag
Small town labels are hard to shake. Hometown hero. Fallen angel. Can anyone ever escape their past? A murder victim dumped at the dead end of a lonely country road, face and hands obliterated by a shotgun blast, is not the way sheriff’s detective Nick Fourcade wants to start his week. His only lead takes him to the family of a hometown hero suddenly gone missing. Marc Mercier left his home for a weekend hunting trip and hasn’t been seen since.

Meanwhile, sheriff’s detective Annie Broussard begins her first day back on the job after suffering a brutal attack by taking on the case of B’Lynn Fontenot, a mother desperate to find her grown son, a recovering drug addict. Robbie Fontenot has been missing for eight days, but the local police have no interest in the case, telling B’Lynn that an adult has the right to disappear, and a missing addict is no big surprise. But B’Lynn swears her son was turning his life around. Sympathetic to a mother’s anguish, Annie agrees to help B’Lynn, knowing she’s about to start a turf war with the city police. As Annie searches for Robbie Fontenot and Nick investigates the disappearance of Marc Mercier, it quickly becomes apparent that nothing is as it seems in the lives of either man. And it’s still not clear whether either of them – or neither – might be the unidentified murder victim. Old jealousies and fresh deceits, family loyalties gone wrong and love turned sour, all lay a twisting trail that leads deep into the Louisiana swamp, endangering all who cross the path of a bad liar.