Opening in a small village on the Chinese-Russian border under Japanese occupation in the final days of World War Two, White Gardenia tells the story of a White Russian mother and daughter whose lives are intersected by history.
From the glamorous nightclubs of Shanghai to the harshness of the Siberian wasteland, from a desolate island in the South China Sea to a new life in postwar Australia, and finally to Cold War Moscow, White Gardenia sweeps across cultures and continents.
Both mother and daughter must make sacrifices to survive. But is the price of survival too high? Most importantly of all, can they ever find each other again?
‘captivating’ – Sunday Telegraph
‘a passionate and powerful family saga’ – Australian Women’s Weekly
‘impossible to put down’ – NW
White Gardenia was first published in Australia in November 2002. It has since sold more than 40,000 copies in Australia and New Zealand, an extraordinary result for a first-time author. White Gardenia has been sold around the world, with editions forthcoming in Germany, France, Poland and the Netherlands.
‘Impossible to put down’ – NW
The national bestseller about a mother and daughter separated by war.
‘Depicts vividly the powerful, lifelong bond between mothers and daughters’
– Paullina Simons, author of The Bronze Horseman
Belinda Alexandra is the daughter of a Russian mother and an Australian father. She has lived in New York, California, Sydney and Melbourne. She has an MA in creative writing from the University of Technology, Sydney, and a BA in Asian studies from the University of California. She is currently studying French and jazz ballet while working on her next novel. Belinda lives in Turramurra, Sydney.
Belinda Alexandra’s new novel, Wild Lavender, will be published by HarperCollins in November 2004.
Roy Kyle was a typical Australian soldier, gripped by patriotism to defend King and country during the First World War. It was the war to end all wars.
Enlisting early and underage, Roy celebrated his eighteenth birthday in the trenches of Lone Pine, Gallipoli where over two and a half thousand Australians were killed or wounded. He was one of the last to be evacuated.
A young woman’s struggle to save her family and her soul during the most extraordinary year of 1666, when plague suddenly visited a small Derbyshire village and the villagers, inspired by a charismatic preacher, elected to quarantine themselves to limit the contagion.
This is a story of extended family, the treatment of Aboriginals, and history lost and found. Nan, the author's grandmother, wants to "forget" about her heritage. She teaches her grandchildren about birds and bullfrogs to make sure they know nature's side of life and instils in them a certain distrust of white people, but she won't talk about her past.
Hugh Lunn is on a mission to bring rich colour back to the Australian language. By exploring the phrases of his early years, Lunn doesn’t simply bring back hundreds of funny, apt, poignant and cutting sayings, he evokes a lost world of Australia; one that anyone, whatever their age, will enjoy.
