Category: Titles

Grace Pemberton is loved by two men, one her husband Charles and the other Ralph Cooper, her husband’s business partner. As a young married woman with two small children Grace is convinced to come to old Sydney Town in the year 1857 on the clipper, the Catherine Adamson. Good fortune shines down on them as Grace’s family is spared the disaster that beset the ship entering Sydney Harbour with more than half the lives lost.
Grace is then pursued by Ralph as he has fallen hopelessly in love with her. She does everything to quell his ardour. Ralph is in a loveless marriage and never gives up trying to win Grace’s heart. Eventually Grace and Charles grow apart and this throws Grace into Ralph’s clutches and she finally succumbs. Their actions have dire consequences for the next generation. The story follows the twists and turns of Grace’s life in the
colony and she ends up living in Manly.
For the Love of Grace covers the period from the 1850s to the 1890s in The Rocks and Manly with journeys to the fledgling suburb of Newport.

A Story of Persistence!

Come with Me is a story of true service to others in war time. Joan Fisher was only a young girl of 21 when she enlisted to become a voluntary aid. Little did she know that her journey would take her on a hospital ship, to the Atherton Tablelands and finally to Borneo where she nursed the prisoners of war after the war was over. Joan felt privileged to nurse wounded soldiers back to health with love and devotion. Life after the war was difficult for these ladies and settling down to civilian life took time. Joan finds love and marries and follows her teacher husband around many small country schools with two young boys.
Joan’s story is truly inspirational and she has given of herself to others all through her life.

My life has truly been blessed. From my wonderful family, my friends and my work colleagues, my life has been an incredible journey and one that I am proud to relate here.
The journey has had its ups and downs of course, but one thing is for sure, there has never been a dull moment.
There are many inscriptions on my parchment of life and they are all covered in this book – well nearly all anyway!
As most of you would know, I am a straight shooter… I pull no punches… I leave nothing in the bag… and that’s the way I have written this book!
Life is what you make of it and I have approached life with this attitude. Through it all there remains one enduring and constant theme… God is faithful… Just hold on.

The Vietnam War on a Tourist Visa is a story from the Vietnam war as you’ve never heard it told before. Written in an easy conversational style and reading more like a modern adventure story, The Vietnam War on a Tourist Visa is the factual account of the misadventures of a 20 something Australian civilian who suddenly finds himself caught up in a contract with the U.S. Air Force in Vietnam in 1968.
This is the autobiography of Graeme Mann who found himself being unceremoniously dumped into the middle of the Vietnam War in a most extraordinary position of responsibility, having to support a country-wide computer network which was vital to the U.S. Air Force’s ability to successfully prosecute their appointed tasks during that conflict.
Just being able to travel from one location to another proved to be a death defying exercise; coping with the bureaucracy of the U.S.A.F. proved to  be another. Fighting the enemy was, apparently, quite incidental.

Flight to a Lady is a unique account of Arthur Butler’s amazing solo fl ight in 1931 in a tiny open aeroplane across half the world, with only the sun, stars, an unreliable compass and, on occasions, his instinct to guide him.
The adventures and near catastrophies met on the way were a test of great endurance and bravery. (Anna Yeats)
I had the privilege of reading this manuscript whilst Arthur was still alive, so am delighted that this story of blood, sweat and tears of early aviation has been published. (Nancy Bird)

Papua New Guinea, Milne Bay, Queensland, 1942-46 : No. 10 Repair & Salvage Unit, RAAF Unit history

When Peter Golding was first given the task of writing a daily column in the Melbourne Argus his aim, as he recounts in this book, was “to make it light, amusing, topical… a pleasant interlude before facing up to the politics and other crimes in the day’s news; something easy to digest with the corn flakes or help to relieve the boredom of the train, bus or tram ride to work”.
This retrospect of his life isn’t of course topical nor is it suggested that it could share space with the sugar and milk on the breakfast table but in his approach to it he has in a sense followed the same sort of philosophy. The book is light and amusing and it is easy to digest with or without cornflakes and it could be OK reading on public transport on the way to work if, of course, you could get a seat.
The author doesn’t pretend that Just a Chattel of the Sale is more than a nostalgic stroll down his own particular memory lane. Fortunately for him, and hopefully for the reader, on the way the stroll was enlivened by bumping into some interesting people and having some interesting experiences.
He hopes you enjoy the stroll.

Crossing the Rubicon is a story of a Dutch-born Australian who cast off his European roots to begin  a new life in Australia. Arriving in 1951 with the required £100 landing money, a family, an innate merchant flair and an indomitable will to succeed, he single-handedly built from the ground a business that laid the solid foundation for what has become the largest importing and marketing business of international food brands in Australia. Simon Manassen was born in 1920 in The Netherlands. His parents were Jewish wholesale and retail meat traders and being the firstborn son it was expected of Simon to follow in their footsteps. But fate intervened. In September 1939 World War II broke out. In May 1940 when Simon was 20 years old the Germans invaded Holland and the Nazi persecution of the Jews forced the family to go underground. Risking his own life, Simon was instrumental in securing the survival of his immediate family.  

In 2002, this book received the Alexander Henderson Award from the Australian Institute of Genealogical Studies in Victoria for the best family history published in Australia and submitted for the award. The book traces eight full generations of the Body family over 300 years, and documents their movements all over Britain and eastern Australia, based on the recurring theme that opportunities are sometimes    born out of adversity. The story moves from its beginnings in Devon in 1700 to London proper, where, in 1849, the central character Frederick Body is convicted of forgery and transported to NSW on the ship Hashemy. Frederick Body’s sons then move around the state and experience success in commerce and the pastoral industry in Trangie in northern NSW, Jindabyne and Inverell, especially in the merino sheep breeding industry.