A brumby muster held under the watchful eye of the legendary Clancy of the Overflow offers hope. Now a girl must ride to save her farm, her family and the valley she loves.
Blue Laurence has escaped the prison of her aunts’ 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 skeleton dangles in the House of Horrors.
And somewhere a murderer is waiting . . . to strike again.
This third book in the 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.
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, Nancy’s 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 Gibber’s 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 Gibber’s Creek discover, there are many ways to love your country — and many ways to fight for it.
Copyright
Angus&Robertson
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, Australia
First published in Australia in 2015
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Jackie French and E French 2015
The right of Jackie French to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
HarperCollinsPublishers
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
French, Jackie, author.
The ghost by the billabong / Jackie French.
ISBN: 978 0 7322 9529 5 (paperback)
ISBN: 978 1 7430 9579 9 (ebook)
French, Jackie. Matilda saga ; 5.
For children.
Families—Juvenile fiction.
Australia—Social conditions—1965–1972—Juvenile fiction.
A823.3
Cover design by Christa Moffitt, Christabella Designs
Cover images: Girl © Ebru Sidar / Trevillion Images; all other images by shutterstock.com
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