Pick up something from the Tasmanian scene with either of these two new fiction titles…
The Bus Ticket – Susan Walker
Tasmanian author
Walker’s prose is interspersed with letter like formatting to create an absorbing layout that reflects her inspiration of a true Tasmanian story. The Bus Ticket is her debut into writing; the title was inspired by a collection of ANZAC documents and paraphernalia she mysteriously received at a dawn service in 2015.
It is a beautiful testament to the journey and sacrifice of families then and now, a century on. Much like a lot of work involving such a personal connection to our country’s history, The Bus Ticket will pull at your heart strings with its deep roots in reality.
A cryptic message and a mysterious photograph fall from a century-old box full of letters, papers and trinkets – an inheritance that sparks the unravelling of a tragedy kept hidden for a lifetime.
Inspired by true lives and events, The Bus Ticket is a moving story of prosperity, love and innocence lost to war, lives forever changed by events a world away, a toll paid by past generations that those of today, one century on, are still trying to understand.
The Orchardist’s Daughter – Karen Viggers
Set in Tasmania by an Australian author
Viggers is no stranger to creating a strong sense of place and connection to Tasmania’s iconic wilderness. Her previous novel The Lightkeeper’s Wife was also set in Southern Tasmania. In The Orchardist’s Daughter she has captured believable protagonists and the essence of small-town life; also inevitably scraping the surface of the anti-deforestation VS logging debate with the plot taking place in some of Tasmania’s old-growth forests.
Sixteen-year-old Mikaela has grown up isolated and homeschooled on an apple orchard in southeastern Tasmania, until an unexpected event shatters her family. Eighteen months later, she and her older brother Kurt are running a small business in a timber town. Miki longs to make connections and spend more time in her beloved forest, but she is kept a virtual prisoner by Kurt, who leads a secret life of his own.
When Miki meets Leon, another outsider, things slowly begin to change. But the power to stand up for yourself must come from within. And Miki has to fight to uncover the truth of her past and discover her strength and spirit.
“A captivating read that reflects the real Tasmania”
