Alice to Nowhere

They say no one from the convict settlement of Sydney Town crossed the steep ranges of the Blue Mountains until 1813. But the quick-witted convict Clancy Fitzgerald did it in 1798, dragging with him the proud - but reluctant - Eliza Philips. Faced with constant danger and wrenching isolation, Clancy and Eliza found themselves pale-skinned strangers in a land of ancient traditions and spiritual beliefs.

He thought he had everything until tragedy struck... Adam Ross, orphaned at nine, cherished a dream - that one day he would have land of his own. The opal fields of Coober Pedy offered his first glimpse of riches - and Nellie, a dusky beauty, provided his first taste of love... From the western plains of New South Wales to the balmy waters of Sydney Harbour, from the grinding heat of a West Australian cattle station to the eerie desert shores of Lake Eyre, Adam was driven by his ambition.

The world's toughest car race. Twenty-one days of searing heat and rock-hard desert tracks; of blowouts and breakdowns; of subterfuge and sabotage. Ten thousand miles of dust and glory. Driving at breakneck speed over Australia's roughest roads and through the most appalling conditions imaginable, six competitors break free from the pack and fight for the lead, gradually finding themselves entangled in a web of deceit, betrayal and danger. Dust and Glory is best-selling author Evan Green's stirring account of the most grueling race of them all.

Yearning for what they’d left behind and disillusioned by city living, Jack Ferguson and Harry Turner leave Perth to return to the rough opal-mining environment of Coober Pedy, on the edge of the Stuart Ranges in South Australia. They discover, however, that all is not as idyllic as they remembered. They face harsh conditions, personal trials and a lack of funds. But determination, hard work and a little luck see them begin to establish themselves....

A great Australian yarn about a bold Australian outback adventure belonging to another time in another world, inspired by a true story. The happy routine life of two Perth boys is shattered one November day in 1950 when they are falsely accused of theft. With fabricated evidence mounting against them they decide to run away from their homes and families to avoid prosecution and pooling their meager pocket money they back the winner of the Melbourne Cup and fund an escape.

It's pretentious socialite Abigail Mulholland's worst nightmare when her plane crashes into an ancient Australian wilderness. Things go from bad to downright hellish when rescuers never come. As she battles to survive in an environment that's as brutal as it is beautiful, Abigail finds herself also fighting her unlikely attraction to Mackenzie - another survivor, and a much younger man. Mackenzie Steel is devastated by his partner's death in the crash, the only person with whom he shared his painful past. 

Spanning three generations, Capricornia tells the story of Australia's North. It is a story of whites and Aborigines and Asians, of chance relationships that can form bonds for life, of dispossession, murder and betrayal.

Patrick Garrity started life unwanted and unloved as the bastard son of a female convict. Barely out of his teens, he worked to make a new life for himself in the limitless back country of New South Wales. There he met Mayrah, the native girl he bought to satisfy his passions and the woman who would change his destiny and that of an entire continent. Divided by competing cultures, they were nevertheless united by their fierce love of the land -- and eventually, each other.

The Birdsville Track is one of the best-known - and loneliest – tracks in Australia, and for 20 years Tom Kruse was the mailman, battling the searing heat, floods, and mechanical breakdowns. He made the run every fortnight, and was a lifeline to the isolated settlements and stations along the way, delivering everything from letters to essential supplies. The Track is still just that - a track through the desert and sandhills. Tom began in the days before reliable vehicles, good communication, and air access in case of emergency. He made running repairs of his truck, he loaded and unloaded tons of stores to ferry his cargo across flooded creeks.

Birdsville is one of the most remote police postings in Australia. It can be lonely and uneventful for weeks, then the dramas come thick and fast: from desert rescues to rising floods, venomous vipers to visiting VIPs. Throw in heat, dust and flies and it's not a job for the faint-hearted, unless you're Senior Constable Neale McShane, who has single-handedly taken care of a beat the size of Victoria for the past 10 years. Recently retired, Neale and his family thrived on the adventures and colourful times.

Van Diemen's Land was an island of stark contrasts; a harsh penal colony, an English idyll for its landed 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 slum known as Wapping, and the criminals and villains who haunted the dockside taverns and brothels of Sullivan's Cove.

Betrayed by the woman he adores, deported to Australia for murdering her lover, David Kerrick has lost the will to live - until the lure of the outback claims his soul. Wealthy and beautiful, Alexandra Hammond has every reason to disdain the man who killed her cousin. But Alexandra is a woman with the strength to judge the truth for herself and to forge her own destiny. Together, they will take on the vast outback, burying the bitterness of the past and planting the seeds of a shining future.

For much of its history Australia has been described as riding on the sheep's back...but if the country rode on anyone's back, it was on the aching, creaking, flexing spines of Australian shearers. Armed with their blades, a sense of adventure and a relentless work ethic, shearers have been a fundamental part of Australia's outback for centuries.

Wrested from the primordial Australian wilderness, Tibooburra Station has taken the blood, sweat, and tears of generations of Kerricks and given them a magnificent heritage in return. But now the golden legacy of the outback station is threatened by the disappearance of the young boy who will one day inherit it all.

In 1962 Cindy drops out of college to impulsively marry an Australian grazier, moving from the glamorous world of Palm Springs, California, to an isolated sheep station on the sweeping plains of the Riverina in New South Wales. Cindy's new life at Kingsley Downs station is not what she'd imagined, as she is flung into a strange and challenging world. Natural disasters and the caprices of the wool industry shape her destiny and though she tries hard to fit in, she finds she is always the outsider.