One woman’s unexpected story from South Korea. An exhilarating true tale of friendship, danger, and the possibility of new beginnings. The plight of migrant factory workers in South Korea leads Katoomba-based author Elaine Kennedy to question her own motives for travel and working in Daegu. Heartbreaking and surprisingly intimate, Kennedy’s memoir is full of true drama and incident. This is a ‘stranger than fiction’ story that compels like the best written novels. The reader is drawn deeper and deeper into the beauties, mysteries and injustices that surround and disturb the author, while Kennedy’s undercover fight to assist those who have come to Korea without her own privileges is tense and gripping. This original, warm and suspenseful story is peopled with wonderful characters and rings with the passion and authenticity of truth. Elaine Kennedy grew up in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and was involved with music and performance from an early age. Later that interest led to teaching Music and English at secondary level. Her interest in other cultures and languages grew from teaching migrants and refugees; at first in state schools and later in TAFE and programs for international students in a university college. She has subsequently worked overseas for government-initiated programs in Japan, Korea, China and the UK. While working in Korea in a teacher training institute she was introduced to migrant factory workers who were being exploited by their employers and lived under harsh conditions for little pay. In trying to help them and seek justice for them this book began to form and to take on an importance as a story that needed to be told. Praise for Waiting for a Wide Horse Sky ‘Told with the pace of an adventure story, with emotional honesty and self -reflection, and with no less than three love stories unfolding under difficult and sometimes dangerous circumstances, this book is a very satisfying read.’ Kate Matthew, Newsbite

One summer chasing tornadoes could finally change Jane's life for the better Seventeen-year-old Jane McAllister can't quite admit her mother's alcoholism is spiraling dangerously out of control until she drives drunk, nearly killing them and Jane's best friend. Jane has only one place to turn: her older brother Ethan, who left the problems at home years ago for college. A summer with him and his tornado-chasing buddies may just provide the time and space Jane needs to figure out her life and whether it still includes her mother. But she struggles with her anger at Ethan for leaving home and feels guilty--is she also abandoning her mom just when she needs Jane most? The carefree trip turned journey of self-discovery quickly becomes more than Jane bargained for, especially when the devilishly handsome Max steps into the picture.

Sir Anthony and the Star Stone Crystal is about a young boy warrior and his great adventure through the magical help of his great grandfather and soon learns that dreams can indeed become reality but strength and wisdom can only come from his parents who just happen to be the king and queen of Goodinia, the city in which he lives. This story is one of a boy who learns quickly what it means to honor thy father, mother and learns the lesson that family must stick together through the good times and the bad. A great coming of age story.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB PICK • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH From the New York Times bestselling author of Loving Frank comes a much-anticipated second novel, which tells the improbable love story of Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson and his tempestuous American wife, Fanny. At the age of thirty-five, Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne has left her philandering husband in San Francisco to set sail for Belgium—with her three children and nanny in tow—to study art. It is a chance for this adventurous woman to start over, to make a better life for all of them, and to pursue her own desires. Not long after her arrival, however, tragedy strikes, and Fanny and her children repair to a quiet artists’ colony in France where she can recuperate. Emerging from a deep sorrow, she meets a lively Scot, Robert Louis Stevenson, ten years her junior, who falls instantly in love with the earthy, independent, and opinionated “belle Americaine.” Fanny does not immediately take to the slender young lawyer who longs to devote his life to writing—and who would eventually pen such classics as Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In time, though, she succumbs to Stevenson’s charms, and the two begin a fierce love affair—marked by intense joy and harrowing darkness—that spans the decades and the globe. The shared life of these two strong-willed individuals unfolds into an adventure as impassioned and unpredictable as any of Stevenson’s own unforgettable tales. Praise for Under the Wide and Starry Sky “A richly imagined [novel] of love, laughter, pain and sacrifice . . . Under the Wide and Starry Sky is a dual portrait, with Louis and Fanny sharing the limelight in the best spirit of teamwork—a romantic partnership.”—USA Today “Powerful . . . flawless . . . a perfect example of what a man and a woman will do for love, and what they can accomplish when it’s meant to be.”—Fort Worth Star-Telegram “Horan’s prose is gorgeous enough to keep a reader transfixed, even if the story itself weren’t so compelling. I kept re-reading passages just to savor the exquisite wordplay. . . . Few writers are as masterful as she is at blending carefully researched history with the novelist’s art.”—The Dallas Morning News “A classic artistic bildungsroman and a retort to the genre, a novel that shows how love and marriage can simultaneously offer inspiration and encumbrance.”—The New York Times Book Review

In his latest novel, Mo Yan—arguably China’s most important contemporary literary voice—recreates the historical sweep and earthy exuberance of his much acclaimed novel Red Sorghum. In a country where patriarchal favoritism and the primacy of sons survived multiple revolutions and an ideological earthquake, this epic novel is first and foremost about women, with the female body serving as the book’s central metaphor. The protagonist, Mother, is born in 1900 and married at seventeen into the Shangguan family. She has nine children, only one of whom is a boy—the narrator of the book. A spoiled and ineffectual child, he stands in stark contrast to his eight strong and forceful female siblings. Mother, a survivor, is the quintessential strong woman who risks her life to save several of her children and grandchildren. The writing is picturesque, bawdy, shocking, and imaginative. The structure draws on the essentials of classical Chinese formalism and injects them with extraordinarily raw and surprising prose. Each of the seven chapters represents a different time period, from the end of the Qing dynasty up through the Japanese invasion in the 1930s, the civil war, the Cultural Revolution, and the post-Mao years. Now in a beautifully bound collectors edition, this stunning novel is Mo Yan’s searing vision of twentieth-century China.

Join Kateri and her little brother, Shawnee, as they prepare and celebrate their great-grandfather's eightieth birthday party along with Kateri's best friend, Clawdena. It is a day filled with adventure from seeing a young buffalo and great bald eagle to watching clouds, butterflies, holograms, and catching lightening bugs. See Clawdena float in a chair across the sky over a game of Eagle and have fun painting, Guinevere, Shawnee's pet horse. Kateri and Clawdena even get to meet their favorite rock group the 'Mohawk Girls'. Ending the day with spectacular fireworks. One must only remember that great-grandfather only wants the gifts of hugs, kisses, and wisdom on his special day! Proceeds from this book go to the Tekakwitha Indian Missions, the Southwest Indian Foundation, and the St. Joseph's Indian School, a residential facility for Lakota (Sioux) children.

Twelve-year-old Sky, a horse whisperer like her father, must put her own troubles aside when a devastating sickness strikes the foals at the multimillion dollar horse farms where they work.

When an injury prevents him from joining the college basketball team, Chip keeps busy serving as an emergency replacement coach for the high school and participating in an important basket shooting tournament.