Spirits of the Ghan
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And what of the Dutch East Indies treasure ship which foundered off Western Australia in 1629? How is the Galloway family’s destiny linked with Batavia’s horrific tale of mutiny and murder …?
From the blazing inferno that was Darwin on 19 February 1942 to the devastation of Cyclone Tracy, from the red desert to the tropical shore, Territory is a mile-a-minute read from one of Australia’s best loved writers.
Pacific
An epic story of love, sacrifice and revenge swept along on the winds of war.
Australian actress Samantha Lindsay is thrilled when she scores her first lead movie role in the Hollywood epic Torpedo Junction, playing a character based on World War II heroine ‘Mamma Tack’.
But as filming begins in Vanuatu, uncanny parallels between history and fiction emerge. Just who was the real Mamma Tack? And what mysterious forces are at play? The answers reveal not only bygone secrets but Sam’s own destiny.
In another era, Jane Thackeray travels from England to the far distant islands of the New Hebrides. Ensnared in the turmoil of war, Jane witnesses the devastating effect human conflict has upon an innocent race of people. There she meets Charles ‘Wolf’ Baker, a charismatic fighter pilot, and Jean-Francois Marat, a powerful plantation owner – and soon their lives are entwined in a maelstrom of love and hate …
From the dark days of Dunkirk to the vicious fighting that was Guadalcanal, from the sedate beauty of the English Channel ports to a tropical paradise, Pacific is Judy Nunn at her enthralling best.
Heritage
They came to change the course of a river. And changed the course of their lives …
In a time when desperate people were seizing with both hands the chance for freedom, refugees from more than seventy nations gathered beneath the Southern Cross to forge a new national identity. They came from all over wartorn Europe to the mountains of Australia to help realise one man’s dream: the mighty Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme, one of the greatest engineering feats of the 20th century.
People of all races and creeds tunnelled through a mountain range to turn the course of a majestic river, trying to put to rest ghosts from the inferno of history: buried memories, unimaginable pain and deadly secrets.
From the ruins of Berlin to the birth of Israel, from the Italian Alps to the Australian high country, Heritage is a passionate and fast-paced tale of rebirth, struggle, sacrifice and redemption, and a tribute to those who gave meaning to the Australian spirit.
Floodtide
Four men. One unbreakable friendship. Forged in the mighty Iron Ore State.
Floodtide is the story of Mike, Spud, Pembo and Murray, and the friendship that binds them over four memorable decades in Western Australia.
The prosperous 1950s when childhood is idyllic in the small city of Perth … The turbulent 60s of free love and war … The avaricious 70s when WA’s mineral boom breeds a new kind of entrepreneur … The corrupt 80s, when greedy politicians and powerful businessmen bring the state to its knees …
Each of the four has a story to tell. An environmentalist fights to save the beautiful Pilbara coast from the mining conglomerates; a Vietnam veteran rises above crippling injuries to discover an extraordinary talent; and an ambitious geologist joins a hard-core businessman to lead the growth of Perth from a sleepy town to a glittering citadel of skyscrapers.
But, as the 1990s ushers in a new age, all four are caught up in the irreversible tides of change – and actions must be answered for …
Maralinga
Judy Nunn’s gripping and thought-provoking bestseller. During the darkest days of the Cold War, in a remote SA desert, the future of a nation is being decided …
Maralinga is the story of British Lieutenant Daniel Gardiner, who accepts a twelve-month posting to the wilds of South Australia on a promise of rapid promotion; Harold Dartleigh, Deputy Director of MI6 and his undercover operative Gideon Melbray; Australian Army Colonel Nick Stratton and the enigmatic Petraeus Mitchell, bushman and anthropologist. They all find themselves in a violent and unforgiving landscape, infected with the unique madness and excitement that only nuclear testing creates.
Maralinga is also a story of love; a love so strong that it draws the adventurous young English journalist Elizabeth Hoffmann halfway around the world in search of the truth.
And Maralinga is a story of heartbreak; heartbreak brought to the innocent First Australians who had walked their land unhindered for 40,000 years …
Tiger Men
Set in Tasmania, Tiger Men is another brilliant work of historical fiction from master storyteller Judy Nunn.
Van Diemen’s Land was an island of stark contrasts: a harsh penal colony, an English idyll for its gentry, and an island so rich in natural resources it was a profiteer’s paradise.
Its capital, Hobart Town, had its contrasts too: the wealthy elite in their sandstone mansions, the exploited poor in the notorious Wapping slum, and the criminals who haunted the dockside taverns. Hobart Town was no place for the meek.
Tiger Men is the story of Silas Stanford, a wealthy Englishman; Mick O’Callaghan, an Irishman on the run; and Jefferson Powell, an idealistic American political prisoner. It is also the story of the strong, proud women who loved them, and of the children they bore who rose to power in the cutthroat world of international trade.
From the pen of master storyteller Judy Nunn comes a sweeping saga of three families who lived through Tasmania’s golden era and the birth of Federation and then watched with pride as their sons marched off to fight for King and Country.
Elianne
Judy Nunn has sold over one million books worldwide. Elianne, her no.1 bestseller, is a sweeping story of wealth, power, privilege and betrayal, set on a grand sugar cane plantation in Queensland.
In 1881 ‘Big Jim’ Durham ruthlessly creates for Elianne Desmarais, his young French wife, the finest of the great sugar mills of the Southern Queensland cane fields, and names it in her honour.
The massive estate becomes a self-sufficient fortress and home to hundreds of workers, but ‘Elianne’ and the Durham Family, have dark and distant secrets; secrets that surface in the wildest of times, the 1960s.
For Kate Durham and her brothers Neil and Alan, freedom is the catchword of the decade. Rock ‘n’ roll, the Pill, the Vietnam War, the rise of Feminism, Asian immigration and the Freedom Ride join forces to rattle the chains of traditional values.
The workers leave the great sugar estates as mechanisation lessens the need for labour – and the Durham family, its secrets exposed, begins its fall from grace …
Judy Nunn’s latest novel is a story of honour – family honour among hard men in a hard environment. But when honour is lost so too is love, and without love, what becomes of the family?
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Version 1.0
SPIRITS OF THE GHAN
ePub ISBN – 9780857986757
First published by William Heinemann in 2015
Copyright © Judy Nunn, 2015
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
A William Heinemann book
Published by Random House Australia Pty Ltd
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www.randomhouse.com.au
Random House Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com/offices.
National Library of Australia
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br /> Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Nunn, Judy, author
Spirits of the Ghan/Judy Nunn
ISBN 978 0 85798 675 7 (ebook: epub)
Ghan (Train) – Fiction
Railroads – Northern Territory – Design and construction – Fiction
Aboriginal Australians – Land tenure – Northern Territory – Fiction
A823.3
Cover design by Josh Durham/Design by Committee
Map by Ice Cold Publishing