Events with Paperbark Merchants
PBBC July - Safe Haven : in conversation with Shankari Chandran
The new novel from the Miles Franklin award-winning author of Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens.
It was a beautiful evening. The wind gathered speed, lifting the frangipanis from the grove behind him, pink and yellow petals defying gravity. Beyond the trees, hidden by the foliage and rows of towering palm trees, the detention centre slept fitfully in the heavy summer heat. The palms blocked the ocean gust that now swirled around him, filling his lungs with the taste of temple flowers and salt. It reminded him of home. He took a deep breath, stepped off the escarpment and felt the red sand rush up towards him.
Arriving in Australia seeking asylum, Fina dedicates herself to aiding the refugees who are held in Port Camden, a remote island outpost. Over time she settles into a life within a community of like-minded people, finding a new family, far from her original home. After she speaks out for those being detained, Fina becomes the focus of a media storm that leads to her arrest, and the threat of deportation.
When a security officer dies under suspicious circumstances, Lucky, a special investigator, arrives to uncover the truth. The mystery is tied to Fina’s fate—and the secrets she reveals will divide the town and the nation.
Safe Haven is about displacement and seeking refuge—but ultimately it is a story about finding home—and the lengths you’ll go to find safety and love.
PBBC August - Shadows of Winter Robins : in conversation with Louise Wolhuter
Sometimes you must shine a light on the dark places to see what was always there.
‘Nancy won’t be coming home.’
And there it is: that pip of a moment. That instant. That fraction of a second. That weightless stillness at the very top of a ball’s bounce, between its going up and falling down.
My brother and I held hands, suspended somewhere in between the life we’d led as Nancy’s children, and the one we were destined to live thereafter.
Winter Robins is a happy enough child, growing up in the north of England, with parents who love her and the constant companion of a twin brother, but a cold wind blows through when her mother dies. Her father turns to the bottle, her grandmother struggles to cope, and she and her brother are sent to live in Western Australia with family their mother had never mentioned.
Although Winter quickly settles in Australia and comes to love her life and the people in it, she notices strange happenings in the shadows of her new home. When a news story prompts her to look back as her past, she begins to wonder whether things were as idyllic as she had thought at the time.
As she uncovers secret after secret, she realises a much darker narrative may have been – and perhaps still is – playing out ...
PBBC September - The Venice Hotel : in conversation with Tess Woods
Set over the twelve days of Christmas at a boutique Venice hotel, this deliciously twisty novel by acclaimed Australian author is ideal for fans of Nine Perfect Strangers and The White Lotus.
When the lives of four very different women become entangled in a boutique Venice hotel, dark secrets unravel and not everyone who checked into the hotel will check out again.
Signora Loretta Bianchi, the world famous cook at Venice’s Hotel Il Cuore, is forced to choose between once-in-a-lifetime passion and her devoted husband.
Sophie, on assignment in Venice as a food writer, finds a lot more than Signora Bianchi’s secret recipes to love, but what is the charming Rocco hiding?
Law graduate Elena is sinking just like the endangered city she’s returned home to, and she’ll stop at nothing to be free from her marriage.
Grandmother Gayle’s dream Venetian holiday turns sinister as she finds herself embroiled in a life or death escape.
Set against a backdrop of the romance and tragedy of magical Venice, The Venice Hotel explores the powerful bonds that develop between women in times of crisis, and the healing power of female connection.
PBBC October - Cutler : in conversation with David Whish-Wilson
Paul Cutler is a former undercover operative, now working off the books for his handler, Malik Khalil. When Cutler is tasked with investigating the disappearance of an Australian marine scientist on a Taiwanese distant water fishing vessel, Cutler realises that the apparent murder he’s investigating points to a slew of much darker crimes. Onboard, Cutler discovers that the vessel’s crew members are kept as slaves, subject to brutal punishment and forced to work long hours with little rest. And when he learns of the recent massacre of the crew of an Indonesian fishing vessel in the same waters, he realises his quest for the truth will be meaningless if he cannot escape with his life.
Book Launch - Milk : with Matthew Evans
We are delighted to announce that Matthew Evans will be joining Paperbark Merchants at 6 Degrees to launch his new book Milk!
Matthew is an Australian chef and food critic turned farmer-food activist and will be celebrating his latest book "Milk: The truth, the lies and the unbelievable story of the original superfood".
About Milk
Milk. It's in our coffee, on our cereal. We see it in processed form – yoghurt, butter, cheese, skimmed and lactose free. It's there in almond form, or made from oats or soy, and is as lauded as the 'perfect' food or lambasted as not fit for human consumption and a toxic planet killer, depending on who you trust. Which type you drink, whether you were raised on breastmilk, what you think of it, is affected by culture, biology and fashion. How you view it is driven by your gender and your politics, as well as your geography.
The miracle liquid has suffered an image problem. It has been used to keep people poor, to keep women subjugated, and to build corporate and medical careers. It's been blamed for climate change, the breakdown of human health, and an enabler of the industrial revolution. From perfect food to pariah, milk's role in life has often been debased.Milk celebrates the majesty of this noble liquid, and delves into the many pretenders to its throne, from formula to mylk. It looks at the transformation of what a milk-producer eats into one of the most nutrient dense foods available, and how that can be transformed again into the butter, cheese and clotted cream that we know and love today. It's an exploration of the science, history and politics of what makes mammals different from every other life form on earth.