The Tying of Threads

by Joy Dettman

  ‘You can’t fail to enjoy this portrait of rural Australian life . . . with its many sorrows, joys and challenges’ WOMAN’S DAY

  MORE BESTSELLING TITLES FROM JOY DETTMAN

  Mallawindy

  Ann Burton was born on a river bank the night her father tried to burn their house down.

  Six years later her sister Liza disappears while they are staying at their uncle’s property. What Ann sees that day robs her of her memory and her speech.

  A stroke of unexpected humanity releases Ann from her world of silence, and she escapes her anguished childhood, finding love and a new life away from Mallawindy.

  But there is no escape from the Burton family and its dark secrets. Ann must return to Mallawindy and confront the past if she is ever to be set free.

  ‘We ride the crests and troughs of the Burtons’ 30-year history with open mouths and saucer eyes . . . Dettman is an adept storyteller’ THE AGE

  ‘A highly competent and confident debut novel’ SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

  ‘A compelling story, well told . . . it holds promise of further enthralling fiction from its author’ CANBERRA TIMES

  ‘A stunning debut; a rich and engrossing read; a tale of page-turning suspense and mystery; a postmortem of family ties; all this and more, Mallawindy will grab you hook, line and sinker’ QUEENSLAND TIMES

  Jacaranda Blue

  For forty-four years Stella Templeton has been a dutiful daughter and a good citizen, living in Maidenville, population 2,800, a town where nothing happens. Until one hot summer afternoon . . .

  An ugly act has lifted the respectable skirts of Maidenville and mystery starts to surround the daughter of the local minister. Then the disappearance of a sixteen-year-old boy adds to the neighbourhood’s confusion. Does something sinister lurk behind the neatly trimmed hedges and white picket fences that divide this sleepy town?

  No one comes close to knowing the horrifying truth – but after forty-four years of self denial and duty, Stella Templeton is finally beginning to blossom.

  From the best-selling author of Mallawindy, comes a tale of dark secrets, shameful lies and unexpected salvation.

  Goose Girl

  Sally De Rooze is almost thirty. She has survived the accident that killed her father and brothers. Her mother never forgave her for that. But she survived her mother too. Surviving is what she does best.

  Farmer Ross Bertram, who offers her his acres and safety, is the answer for a while. Until he starts pushing for a wedding. Sally wants . . . wants more. Wants to know great love. Wants to find herself. One year. That’s what she wants. One year of freedom in the big, bad city.

  Her survival skills are tested in the urban sprawl and she discovers more about herself than she had ever dared to imagine.

  From the bestselling author of Mallawindy and Jacaranda Blue, comes a moving story about being set free.

  ‘. . . a can’t-put-it down story’ NW

  ‘Goose Girl is not just a story to read about – it’s one to think about’ THE EXAMINER

  ‘Dettman knows how to tell a story’ THE SUNDAY AGE

  Yesterday’s Dust

  Only the strong survive Mallawindy. Some get away, but even they fight to escape the town’s dark legacy.

  Jack Burton escaped. For six years he has been missing, presumed dead. Still, memories of him continue to dominate the lives of his family.

  His wife, Ellie, stands at the gate each night, waiting for him to return – until a man’s body is found.

  Once again, the Burtons’ turbulent history will be unearthed . . .

  ‘At the heart of this absorbing tale . . . is the writer’s ability to interweave the country-town propensity for rumour and allegation into a gothic narrative . . . Yesterday’s Dust is lightened by its pinpoint descriptions of people and places, as well as the occasional touch of humour, some of it with a country flavour and some delightfully black’ AUSTRALIAN BOOKSELLER & PUBLISHER

  ‘Is there such a thing as winter beach reading? If so, Joy Dettman’s Yesterday’s Dust fits the bill nicely . . . an author who’s well in tune with her subject and audience’ WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

  The Seventh Day

  The world as it was has been all but destroyed. Those few who survived the Great Ending are now ruled by an all-powerful group known as the Chosen, whose walled city encloses a diminishing population riddled with plague and threatened with extinction. Desperate to repopulate, the Chosen send searchers to capture every surviving female still living in the wild lands beyond the city for their new breeding stations.

  There is a girl with a name neither of her companions can remember, who is found by the Chosen’s searchers living on a remote property. Since then, she has known little more than the life they enforce – a life dominated by their breeding program and genetic experimentation – while they immunise her and prepare to take her to their city.

  Then one afternoon a son of one of the Chosen arrives at the girl’s farm, a boy who has fled from a life that he has come to find unbearable. His arrival sets in motion a chain of events which change the girl’s life in ways she could not possibly have imagined – offering her a chance to regain the unthinkable – freedom.

  Henry’s Daughter

  ‘She had felt a sad pulling feeling in her stomach that day as the car had driven off, like there was a bit of elastic tied around her insides, sort of joining her to those brothers like it went right through that door, and as the car had driven further up the road, that elastic got pulled so tight, it hurt.’

  Lori Smyth-Owen is balancing on the edge of adolescence but feeling years older. She has eleven brothers, nine living at home and the twins, who were stolen by Aunty Eva . . . which was lucky for them because there is never enough of anything to go around, except Mavis, Lori’s mother, who is so overweight she can barely move. That doesn’t stop her plotting to get those twins back. She’ll do anything to get them home.

  Then tragedy strikes and the Smyth-Owen children take desperate measures to save themselves . . . and in so doing, discover that blood ties mean everything.

  From the best-selling author of Mallawindy, Jacaranda Blue, Goose Girl, Yesterday’s Dust and The Seventh Day, comes a story of love and rescue.

  One Sunday

  Early one Sunday, the town of Molliston wakes to the news that a young bride is dead. The year is 1929. The Great War with Germany has been fought and won, but at an immense cost to the small community.

  Death is too familiar here. So many sons were lost. So many daughters would never be wives; so many grandchildren would never be born.

  Racial hatred is like a bushfire in the belly of some. And the dead girl is found only yards from the property of old Joe Reichenberg, a German. Tom Thompson, the local cop, lost his two sons in Gallipoli. He believes he has come to terms with his bereavement – until that Sunday.

  Slowly, the true face of Molliston is exposed. By midnight, a full moon is offering its light – and a glimmer of hope.

  Diamonds in the Mud and Other Stories

  ‘Joy Dettman is a natural-born storyteller whose dark tales of rural life are addictive’ (The Age)

  At the beginning of her writing journey, Joy Dettman’s charming, irascible, melancholy, wisecracking characters appeared in over twenty unique tales, many of which have won awards, many of which have never been published. Now, for the first time, Diamonds in the Mud and Other Stories is the complete collection of Joy Dettman’s exquisite short stories.

  We meet an old coot in a rusty ute who picks up a hitchhiker, a neighbour reaches across the language divide to lend a helping hand, a grave digger might just have saved a young man’s life, an exhausted farmer’s wife lusts after a china cup, Granny Jordan is losing her marbles and an author is troubled by rats under the floorboards.

  Since Joy’s first novel, Mallawindy, was published in 1998 she has attracted a growing number of readers who are entertained and shocked by her array of unforgettable characters populating the Australian landscape. This
anthology will not disappoint the voracious fans of her distinctive narrative and adroit storytelling.

  First published 2014 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited

  1 Market Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 2000.

  Copyright © Joy Dettman 2014

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

  This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.

  Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available

  from the National Library of Australia

  http://catalogue.nla.gov.au

  EPUB format: 9781743518021

  Typeset by Midland Typesetters

  Cover design by XOU Creative

  Cover images: Thinkstock

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, institutions and organisations mentioned in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously without any intent to describe actual conduct.

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