FICTION · HISTORICAL
Katherine Webb
IAN YARBRO WAS IN NO MOOD FOR A PARTY.
— from The legacy
Most acclaimed
The unseen
For a brief but explosive period in the mid-seventies, the young, the unemployed and the homeless of Italyʹs cities came together in an unexpectedly militant movement known simply as Autonomy. Against the austerity programmes and social discipline of the ruling Christian Democrats and their would-be partners in the Communist Party, the movement developed a "politics of refusal"--Expressed in school occupations and factory sabotage, mass shoplifting and violent street protest, combined with carnivalesque creativity. But the movement was soon divided, especially over the issue of armed struggle, while its opponents united behind the most repressive measures ever seen in postwar Italy. Nanni Balestrini, himself a victim of that repression, follows in spare but vivid unpunctuated prose Autonomyʹs trajectory through the eyes of one working-class protagonist -- from high-school rebellion, squatting and attempts to set up a free radio station, to arrest and the brutalities of imprisonment. This is a powerful and gripping novel: a rare evocation of the intensity of commitment, the passion of politics.
The legacy
"She who loves and runs away, lives to love another day" was Jacy Tiernan's credo. Only this fair-haired beauty had never loved again after Ian Yarbro. Ten years ago, she had fled her beloved Australian homestead with a shattered soul. Ian,the rugged sheep rancher who'd awakened her young heart to the most exquisite pleasures, had sired the child of another woman. Unable to forgive him, Jacy ran off to New York to live with her wealthy divorced mother, leaving behind all dreams of happiness. Now Jacy had returned to Corroboree Springs to care for her ailing father. And Ian was waiting, his heart as hard and defiant as the great Outback. Jacy knew she dared not love this proud and brooding man. Yet she also knew they could not deny the fevered passion that still blazed across them like bushfire. And when her father made a final wish that she and Ian wed, and unite their lands to ensure the future, Jacy realized she could no longer run. This time she would have to stand her ground and find the courage to turn a bitter clash of wills into a true bond...and Ian's burning hunger into the sweet, everlasting ecstasy of love.
The English girl
"Joan Seabrook, a fledgling archaeologist, has fulfilled her lifelong dream to travel to Arabia and has arrived in the ancient city of Muscat with her fiance, Rory. Desperate to escape the pain of a personal tragedy, she longs to explore the desert fort of Jabrin and unearth the wonders held within. But Oman is a land lost in time, in the midst of violent upheaval, and gaining permission to explore could prove impossible. Joan's disappointment is only eased by the thrill of meeting her childhood heroine, pioneering explorer Maude Vickery, and hearing the stories that captured her imagination as a child. The friendship that forms between the two women will change everything. Both women have desires to fulfill and secrets to keep. As their bond grows, Joan is inspired by the thrill of her new friend's past and finds herself swept up in a bold and dangerous adventure of Maude's making. Only too late does she begin to question her actions - actions that will spark a wild, and potentially devastating, chain of events."--Page 0f cover.