G'Day Mate: Aussie Authors

Australia is famous for many things kangaroos, koalas, The Great Barrier Reef and a wonderful literary tradition as well. Australian authors are slowly but steadily entering the American market with great success. With the recent death of bestselling Australian author Colleen McCullough (1937-2015) and the emergence of several bestselling authors Graeme C. Simsion and Liane Moriarty I was curious about other popular Aussie novelists, and discovered some real gems. Check out one of these fine novels from the land down-under.


Bittersweet
Colleen McCullough
McCullough intertwines a sweeping story of two sets of twins--all trained as nurses but each with her own ambitions. Because they are two sets of twins, the four Latimer sisters are as close as can be. Yet these spirited young women each have their own dreams for themselves. They are famous throughout New South Wales for their beauty, wit and ambition, but they are not enthusiastic about the limited prospects life holds for them Together they decide to enroll in a training program for nurses--a new option for women of their time.

Big Little Lies
Liane Moriarty
The novel begins with a murder, but it's not entirely clear who was murdered. It certainly was someone at the fundraiser for the Piriwee Public School. The novel begins six months prior to the violent act and tells the lives of single mother Jane, twice-married Madeline, and Celeste, who secretly suffers from domestic abuse. Popular author Moriarty revitalizes the tired social-issues themed women's fiction genre with wit, emotional depth and fantastic storytelling.

The Rosie Project
Graeme C. Simsion
Don Tillman, an intense, but emotionally challenged geneticist, thinks having women fill out a six-page, double-sided questionnaire before a date is logical and sensible. Rosie Jarman, a spontaneous barmaid, thinks Don should loosen up and learn to live a little. Follow this unlikely pair as they discover romance.

Eyrie
Tim Winton
The story of Tom Keely, a man who's lost his way in middle-age and is now holed up in an apartment at the top of a dingy high-rise, looking down on the world he's fallen out of love with. He's cut himself off, until one day he runs into some neighbors: a woman he used to know  when they were kids, and her introverted young boy. The encounter shakes him up in a way that he doesn't understand. What follows is a heart-stopping, innovative novel, funny, provoking, exhilarating and populated by memorable characters.

Shame and the Captives
Thomas Keneally
A story inspired by true events follows the experiences of a World War II prisoner's wife who makes friends with an Italian radical in the hope of improving her husband's suffering, only to be swept up in a violent prison break. Keneally nicely blends history, romance, and wartime scheming into another wonderful historical fiction novel.