Australia War

It is 1885. After a decade spent fighting for Queen and Country across the globe, Colonel Ian Steele is enjoying the quiet life in the colony of New South Wales, reunited with his friend Conan Curry and watching over his children and numerous business enterprises. But the British Empire's pursuits are ceaseless, and when the colony's soldiers are required to assist a campaign in Sudan, North Africa, Ian's son Lieutenant Josiah Steele heeds the call, despite an ultimatum from the love of his life, Marian.

A new beginning. And old enemy. A perilous choice. When Yakov Holtzman arrives in Melbourne - about as far away as he can possibly get from the graveyard that is Europe - he puts behind him the years he spent in the forests of Lithuania as a leader of the resistance, fighting the Nazis. He has...

Lost for 13 months in the wilds of Afghanistan, this is the dramatic, heart-warming and truly amazing story of Sarbi, the Army's most famous explosives detection dog - the miracle dog of Tarin Kot. Powerful, dramatic, heartwarming, this is the true story of Sarbi, the scruffy black Labrador-cross trained by the Australian Army as an explosives detection dog for the most dangerous combat mission imaginable. Thirteen months after Australia's most famous canine warrior went missing in action in 2008, she was found by an American Special Forces officer patrolling a village....

Discover the story of Australia in the Great War through the eyes and stories of John Murray - a would-be journalist, aspiring artist, and young soldier. John’s dairies capture the history, events, and experiences of Australians, as each instalment builds to tell the story of Australia’s journey from peacetime through to the war’s end. Share a young Australian’s hopes, his insights, and his pain, as war changes the fabric of his world and his family.

In the second half of the 19th century, Melbourne is a veritable boom town, as hopefuls from every corner of the globe flock to the gold fields of Victoria. And where people crave gold, they also crave entertainment....

In the history of Australian diplomacy, the Jakarta post between 2004 and 2007 looms larger than any other. In the span of just a few years, a terrorist bomb attack partially destroyed the Embassy compound, killing eleven; the Boxing Day tsunami wreaked havoc on an almost incomprehensible scale; a bombing in Bali killed twenty, including four Australians; Schapelle Corby divided public opinion; members of the Bali Nine were executed; and a Garuda flight crashed and exploded in Yogyakarta, killing twenty, including members of the Australian diplomatic corps.

Lachlan Macquarie is credited with shaping Australia's destiny, transforming a harsh, foreboding penal colony into an agricultural powerhouse and ultimately a prosperous society. He also helped shape Australia's national character. An egalitarian at heart, Macquarie saw boundless potential in Britain's refuse, and under his rule many former convicts went on to become successful administrators, land owners and businesspeople.

Powerfully written by Australia's leading military historian, Saving Port Moresby commemorates the 80th Anniversary of the Battles in New Guinea. Japanese Major General Horii Tomitarō, commanding the South Seas Force, was tasked, after taking Kokoda Plateau in late July, with entering the Owen Stanley Range to capture Port Morseby. After the battles for Deniki and Isurava, his troops were pushing south through the mountains. The Australians under Brigadier Arnold Potts, however, were not in route, but were involved in a determined fighting withdraw.

It is 1914, and the storm clouds of war are building on the horizon. In Sydney, Josiah Steele is the new head of the family and grappling with his two very different sons - David, upstanding, decent and heir to the family enterprises; and Benjamin, wayward, restless and a magnet for trouble. To...

1845, a village outside Sydney Town. Humble blacksmith Ian Steele struggles to support his widowed mother. All the while he dreams of a life in uniform, serving in Queen Victoria's army. 1845, Puketutu, New Zealand. Second Lieutenant Samuel Forbes, a young poet from an aristocratic English family, wants nothing more than to discard the officer's uniform he never sought. When the two men cross paths in the colony of New South Wales, they are struck by their brotherly resemblance and quickly hatch a plan for Ian to take Samuel's place in the British army.

From the bestselling author of The Girl from Munich and Suitcase of Dreams comes an unforgettable tale of love, courage and betrayal inspired by a true story Berlin, 1943 As the Allied forces edge closer, the Third Reich tightens its grip on its people. For eighteen-year-old Susanna Göttmann...

It's 1911, and 21-year-old Evelyn Northey desperately wants to become a doctor. Her medico father forbids it, withholding the inheritance that would allow her to go to university. At the outbreak of World War I, Evelyn disobeys her father: she enlists as an army nurse bound for Egypt to care for the wounded from the disastrous Gallipoli campaign.

1932. Ernie and Lily Hass and their daughter, Girlie, have lost almost everything in the Depression; all they have keeping their small family together are their secrets. Abandoning their failing wheat farm and small-town gossip, they make a new start on the west coast of Australia, where they begin to build a summer guesthouse. But forming new alliances with the locals isn't easy. Into the Hasses' new life wanders Lily's shell-shocked brother, Tommy, after three harrowing years on the road following his incarceration.

It is 1857. Colonial India is a simmering volcano of nationalism about to erupt. Army surgeon Peter Campbell and his wife, Alice, in India on their honeymoon, have no idea that they are about to be swept up in the chaos. Ian Steele, known to all as Captain Samuel Forbes, is fighting for queen and country in Persia. A world away, the real Samuel Forbes is planning to return to London - with potentially disastrous consequences for Samuel and Ian both. Then Ian is posted to India, but not before a brief return to England and a reunion with the woman he loves.

Longlisted for the 2022 Indie Book Awards. Longlisted for the Australian Political Book of the Year Award. Chosen as a ‘Book of the Year’ in The Australian, The Australian Financial Review and The Australian Book Review. In a quiet Sydney street in 1937, a seven year-old immigrant boy...

For months during 1943 there was no night in Hellfire Pass. By the light of flares, carbide lamps and bamboo fires, men near-naked and skeletal cut a passage through stone to make way for a railway. Among these men were some of the 22,000 Australian soldiers taken prisoner by the Japanese during World War II. In camps across Asia and the Pacific, they struggled, died, and survived with a little help from their mates.

March 1942: The world is at war. Too old to fight and with jobs scarce at home, Tom Phelps found work as a carpenter in the goldfields of the New Guinea Highlands. No one expected the Japanese to attack in the Pacific. But they did. Tom and his mates weren't going to hang around and wait to be killed. With escape routes bombed by the Japanese, their only option was to try to reach safety by foot, through some of the most rugged terrain on Earth - the Bulldog Track. Back home in Sydney, Rose Phelps, their son, George, and three daughters, Joy, Shirley and Ann, waited for news of Tom's fate.

At the most magical time of the year, will Mary choose independence or love? It's 1909 and Mary Richards has worked hard to gain an education and become a teacher in her close-knit, picturesque village in the Cotswolds, but not everyone approves of her modern ways. When her sister Emily becomes...

A truly comprehensive account of 617 Squadron, RAF, ​who carried out one of the most dangerous and audacious aerial bombing raids of World War II. It was the evening of 16 May 1943. Nineteen modified Lancaster bombers from 617 Squadron RAF, under the command of youthful Wing Commander Guy...

Australia's greatest escape stories from two world wars Australia’s Greatest Escapes is a collection of stories about the most hazardous aspect of the prisoner of war experience – escape. Here is all the adventure, suspense and courage of ordinary Australians who defied their captors...