The Matilda Saga

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The Matilda Saga

The story of our country, and a love song to our land, told by the strong women who forged a nation

A Waltz for Matilda

The story behind Banjo Paterson's iconic Australian song. 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.

The Girl From Snowy River

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.

The Road To Gundagai

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.

To Love a Sunburnt Country

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.

The Ghost by the Billabong

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.

If Blood should stain the wattle

Time for old folk, time for young folk, time for a new, idealistic Labor government. In Gibber's Creek, it's time for Jed Kelly to choose between past love, Nicholas, the local Labor member, and Sam from the Halfway to Eternity commune

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Facing the Flame

There have been fires before, but not like this. Heartbreaking and powerful, FACING THE FLAME is a story of the triumph of courage and community, and a love for the land so deep that not even bushfire can erode it

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The Last Dingo Summer

Under the burnt timber of the church, the police have found the body of Merv Ignatious, the man who so viciously attacked Jed Kelly when she was fifteen, and tried to kill her and her unborn child in last year's bushfire.

And also in the church, lie skeletons from many years ago.

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Clancy of the overflow

The final book in the magnificent Matilda Saga, this is a book about the many kinds of love. Clancy's love of the bush, immortalised in Paterson's poem. Nancy's deep understanding of her country, and her need to pass it on. But perhaps the most moving love story of all was the one that never happened, between Matilda O'Halloran and Clancy of the Overflow.

Jackie French

Australian author, ecologist, historian, dyslexic, honourary wombat

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