BOHEMIA BEACH
Catherine Bell, a famous concert pianist, is struggling to hold on to her career in a competitive international arena that spans the classical music capitals of the world. After a disastrous show in Copenhagen, Cathy is about to attempt her first concert performance without alcohol in Prague when her marriage implodes, her terminally ill, Czech-born mother goes missing from her London hospital, and a much needed highly paid recording deal falls through. Cathy finds herself coping in the only way she knows how: grasping a glass of forbidden pre-performance champagne and flirting with Tomas, a stranger in a Prague nightclub. While her therapist Nelly advises her to abstain, Cathy’s relationship with drink and Tomas draws her deep into a whirlpool of events as mysterious, tense and seductive as Prague itself. Justine Ettler’s discipline in the writing is as controlled as Cathy is out of control – the novel brilliantly references classics such as Wuthering Heights – and as with Rachel in The Girl on a Train, the reader is drawn into the protagonist’s predicament with moving and palpable intensity. Bohemia Beach is an edge of your seat ride, a compelling story of addiction, passionate love and the power of art. It heralds the return of one of Australia’s most distinctive authors.
THE RIVER OPHELIA
I met Sade at a party. I was standing next to the fridge reading the assembled crowd face by face when a man with porcelain blue eyes motioned for me to join him from the other side of the room.
A disturbing tale about a young university student who loses herself in a destructive relationship, The River Ophelia will provoke, sadden and engage. Unconventional, compelling and controversial, this postmodern account of domestic violence deservedly became an instant best-seller making its author a household name.
MARILYN'S ALMOST TERMINAL NEW YORK ADVENTURE
Never say no to adventures, even when they threaten to become terminal...
It all began the night that Marilyn met Virginia Woolf at Durrell's New Year's Eve party and they decided to go to New York.
Then Marilyn saw Twentiethcentury on television and realised she had to meet him because he was the first person she'd ever wanted to tell her whole life story to.
In Manhattan, she gets her wish. And learns the secrets of hand-blow-dried real potato French fries, gets past the Door at a club so hip it doesn't open til 4.a.m, enjoys assorted white powders, meets Humphrey, Liz and Elvis, is miraculously cured of her allergy to television, and discovers herbality.
Breathless, exhilarating, surreal... Justine Ettler has produced a trippy anti-romance about a modern girl searching for love ... and adventure.