A family full of secrets…and one girl who must survive. Sixteen-year-old Alison Brennan’s mother, Bernadette, is an agoraphobic hoarder, and her father Harry seems to have no past. Struggling every day, Alison seeks the help of a school counsellor. When an old homeless man is found dead in a Melbourne park, Alison's life changes. Somehow, the man's death is connected to her family and the Polish Home Army. Fighting for her future, can Alison unravel the mystery of her family and the dead man, and find a way to place her trust in others again?

The campervan sits in the driveway, waiting for jaded academic Alice and her husband Will to retire and hit the road…any day now. But when Will suddenly dies, Alice is lost. Unhappy at work and with her future plans thwarted, she rises daily, putting one foot in front of the other; existing, not living. Until one day, when she climbs into the campervan and decides to go alone. Escaping her city life, Alice heads across the Nullabor, taking the odd job as it comes along and meeting a colorful cast of characters who will change the way she views the world. Red Dirt Odyssey is a reminder that life can change in a moment. An exploration of contemporary Australian life, loss and loneliness, friendship and renewal, risk and adventure, it is a powerful narrative set against the dramatic landscapes of coastal Australia and the Outback.

As the Australis Star cruises for nineteen days from Sydney to Honolulu, the lives of five passengers are changed forever. Genevieve hates cruises; all that lounging around quaffing cocktails and too much food. But Peter, her husband, has bought this one for her after the worst year of her life, and she couldn’t tell him she didn’t want to go. Still traumatized after a family tragedy, both of them have gone into hiding behind small talk and silence. A cruise is the last place where Genevieve could imagine making a friend, but when she meets Thomas, a morbidly obese man inhabiting a patch of shade on the deck, she finds him easy to talk to. Thomas himself has a past - one which has poisoned the only relationship he cared about. The two form a gentle friendship and a kind of healing takes place, until Peter drops a bombshell. By the end of the cruise, all of their lives will have changed. Kath Engebretson's 'Nineteen Days' is a story of unexpected friendships, facades that people wear, and what happens when they break. But above all, it is a story of how love manages to seep through the cracks and find a way.