'Winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize and Australian Book Industry Awards, Book of the Year. After a childhood of poverty and petty crime in the slums of London, William Thornhill is transported to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. With his wife Sal and children in tow, he arrives in a harsh land that feels at first like a de...

'Searching for the Secret River is the extraordinary story of how Kate Grenville came to write her award-winning novel, The Secret River. It all began with her ancestor Solomon Wiseman transported to New South Wales for the term of his natural life who later became a wealthy man and built his colonial mansion on the Hawkesbury. Increasingly obse...

War between Bayern and Tira is finally over. To cement the peace with their old sworn enemies, a group from each kingdom will cross to the other for a 'season of friendship'. At first all is well, but mysterious events in the Tiran capital arouse suspicions and anger bubbles just beneath the surface. Enna's friend Razo must find out who is masterminding these events before it's too late and they find themselves trapped in the heart of Tira as war breaks out.

There is a mysterious white river, one that holds the answers to the past. But it's just in a lullaby that Anna and Elsa's mother sings to them. Or is the white river actually real? Anna and Elsa leave the comfort of their bed to look for it in the forest. It could hold the answers to why Elsa has magic--that is, if it exists at all . . .

Growing up near the Sabine, journalist Wes Ferguson, like most East Texans, steered clear of its murky, debris-filled waters, where alligators lived in the backwater sloughs and an occasional body was pulled from some out-of-the-way crossing. The Sabine held a reputation as a haunt for a handful of hunters and loggers, more than a few water moccasins, swarms of mosquitoes, and the occasional black bear lumbering through swamp oak and cypress knees. But when Ferguson set out to do a series of newspaper stories on the upper portion of the river, he and photographer Jacob Croft Botter were entranced by the river’s subtle beauty and the solitude they found there. They came to admire the self-described “river rats” who hunted, fished, and swapped stories along the muddy water—plain folk who love the Sabine as much as Hill Country vacationers love the clear waters of the Guadalupe. Determined to travel the rest of the river, Ferguson and Botter loaded their gear and launched into the stretch of river that charts the line between the states and ends at the Gulf of Mexico. To learn more about The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, sponsors of this book's series, please click here.

The Orange Prize–Winning author of The Secret River delivers “brilliant fiction and illuminating personal history” in the finale of her Australian trilogy (The Independent). With The Secret River, Kate Grenville dug into her own family’s history to create an unflinching tale of frontier violence in early Australia. She continued her bold exploration of Australia’s beginnings in The Lieutenant. Now Sarah Thornhill brings this acclaimed trilogy to an emotionally explosive conclusion. Sarah is the youngest daughter of William Thornhill, an ex-convict from London. Unknown to Sarah, her father has built his fortune on the blood of Aboriginal people. With a fine stone house and plenty of money, Thornhill has reinvented himself, teaching his daughter to never look back or ask about the past. Instead, Sarah fixes her eyes on handsome Jack Langland, whom she’s loved since she was a child. Their romance seems idyllic, but the ugly secret in Sarah’s family is poised to ambush them both. Driven by the captivating voice of the illiterate Sarah—at once headstrong, sympathetic, curious, and refreshingly honest—this is an unforgettable portrait of a passionate woman caught up in a historical moment that’s left an indelible mark on the present.

Harley Savage is a plain woman, a part-time museum curator and quilting expert with three failed marriages and a heart condition. Douglas Cheeseman is a shy, gawky engineer with jug-handle ears, one marriage gone sour, and a crippling lack of physical courage. They meet in the little Australian town of Karakarook, where Harley has arrived to help the town build a heritage museum and Douglas to demolish the quaint old Bent Bridge. From the beginning they are on a collision course until the unexpected sets them both free. Elegantly and compassionately told, The Idea of Perfection is reminiscent of the work of Carol Shields and Annie Proulx and reveals Kate Grenville as "a writer of extraordinary talent" (The New York Times Book Review).

The amnesiac patient in the makeshift Amazon hospital looks familiar to visiting American nurse Amy Graham. This isn't the first time she's seen those blue–gray eyes, the hard lines of his handsome face. When Amy sees his birthmark, she knows exactly who he is: Micah McKnight, the presumed–dead Navy SEAL. Her best friend's brother. The man her own mother set up to die. Amy can't bear to tell him the dangerous truth about his hidden past. But her secrets are about to explode, because now someone is after them both.

Mia arrives at a small town by the river, carrying a secret. Her new neighbors, the Stonebrooks, immediately draw her interest. Soon, she meets brothers Alex and Jay. Mia is attracted to Alex, the older handsome brother. They begin dating, but Mia remains guarded, hiding behind an invisible barrier. She also befriends Jay, the gentle dreamer, who spends most of his time at the river, with his mysterious friend, Alina. As the three teens spend more and more time together, strange things start to happen. This brilliantly crafted story, told from the alternating perspectives of Mia, Alex, and Jay, creates a web of secrets. And secrets buried deep below the dark surface are the hardest to uncover.

As Freddy gazes at the majestic river gushing past him in the depths of a Scottish winter, he's ready to jump in and end his life. But what happens next is not what Freddy expects. From the moment he enters the river, Freddy starts a journey which is more beautiful, funny, and mysterious than he could have imagined. And through this journey Freddy's story becomes interweaved with a cast of unforgettable characters who are equally lost and in search of answers. Eventually they all unite in their quest for an answer to the biggest question of them all: will the river take them where they want to go? In the tradition of inspirational works of fiction like The Alchemist and Life of Pi, Secrets of a River Swimmer is at once a profound exploration into living with meaning and an affecting story of people on the cusp of change.