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  • Published: 1 July 2009
  • ISBN: 9781741664461
  • Imprint: Woolshed Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 240
  • RRP: $22.99

Dust




Evocative and earthy . . . from a powerful new Australian voice

Evocative and earthy . . . from a powerful new Australian voice.

Twelve-year-old Cecilia Maria was named after saints and martyrs to give her something to live up to. Over my dead body, she vows.

In the blinding heat of 1970s Queensland, she battles six brothers on her side of the fence, and the despised Kapernicky girls, lurking on the other side of the barbed wire. Secrets are buried deep, only to surface decades later when Cecilia drags her own reluctant teenagers back home to dance on a grave and track down some ghosts.

Warm but tough-minded, Dust glitters with a rare and subtle wit, illuminating the shadows that hang over from childhood and finding beauty in unexpected places.

  • Published: 1 July 2009
  • ISBN: 9781741664461
  • Imprint: Woolshed Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 240
  • RRP: $22.99

About the author

Christine Bongers

Christine Bongers was born and bred in Biloela, Central Queensland. She left to attend university and has worked as a broadcast journalist in Brisbane and London, written two environmental television documentaries and run her own media consultancy. She completed a Master of Arts in youth writing in 2008.

Her first novel, Dust, was a Children's Book Council of Australia Notable Book for Older Readers. Her second novel, Henry Hoey Hobson, was shortlisted for the CBCA Book of the Year for Younger Readers, the WA Premier's Book Awards and the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards. Her most recent novel, Intruder, won the 2015 Davitt Award for Best Debut Crime Book and was shortlisted for the CBCA Book of the Year for Older Readers.

Christine lives in Brisbane and shares her life with husband Andrew, children Connor, Brydie, Clancy and Jake, and their dog, Huggy, the Derek Zoolander of Beagles (really, really, really good looking, but not very bright).

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Praise for Dust

Powerful, evocative and warm.

Notebook

Astonishing and fascinating . . . Christine Bongers has created a gripping and intriguing story which is difficult to put down and even more difficult to forget.

Townsville Bulletin

In language as stark as the landscape of drought, Bongers paints an utterly convincing picture of bullying and ostracism, the ugly anguish of the victim and the even uglier triumph of the smug majority . . . As well as the story and the issues it raises there is Bongers' delightful use of language, including some entertaining and very convincing dialogue.

Viewpoint

The dialogue is tight, the characters are realistic, the tone is believable.

Bookseller + Publisher

Young adults will appreciate its racy humour, its fluid narrative, and its page-turning suspense. Above all, they will respond to its depiction of a world that, though removed from the present by more than 30 years, nevertheless will resound forcefully with their own experience of adolescence. Older adults will appreciate the novel for its faithful recreation of the recent past, and its hard-nosed depiction of life in rural Queensland.

www.ourbrisbane.com

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