In the 1930s, two opportunities existed for boys of Balmain, a working-class Sydney suburb: to be selected into Fort Street Boys School or to excel as a sportsman. At just sixteen years Danny Dunn has everything going for him: brains, looks, sporting aptitude – and luck with the ladies. His parents run the favourite local watering hole, and the whole of Balmain is proud of Danny’s sporting prowess. His mother, though, steers Danny towards a university education; but with just six months of his degree to go he signs up for the AIF, driven by a desire to serve his country and plain wanderlust. Danny serves in south-east Asia, spends three and a half years as a POW, and returns a broken man, embittered and facially disfigured. He has told no one of his return, and as he sails towards the Balmain ferry terminal he knows his life in beloved Balmain will have nothing to do with the life he led before the war, and he is scared and overwhelmed by the need to sort himself out, find out who the hell he is…Review"From gritty pre-war Balmain to the death camps of Singapore and back to 70s Sydney, this is an epic from a superlative storyteller." -- Harper's Bazaar

In this sweeping novel of Africa, in all its power, beauty and savagery, Bryce Courtenay captures the life of a child and the life of a nation. Whitethorn is a book about tragedy and joy, about love and hatred, and about a boy called Tom who will not rest until justice is done. From the author of Brother Fish and The Power of One comes another moving story you won't forget.

Brother Fish is an Australian saga spanning eighty years and four continents. Inspired by real events, Bryce Courtenay's new novel tells the story of three people from vastly differing backgrounds. All they have in common is a tough beginning in life. Jack McKenzie is a harmonica player, soldier, dreamer and small-time professional fisherman from a tiny island in Bass Strait. Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan is a strong-willed woman hiding from an ambiguous past in Shanghai. Larger than life, Private Jimmy Oldcorn was once a street kid and leader of a New York gang. Together, they reap a vast and not always legitimate fortune from the sea. Brother Fish is an inspiring human drama of three lives brought together and changed forever by the extraordinary events of recent history. But most of all it is about the power of friendship and love.

Nicholas Duncan is a semi-retired shipping magnate who resides in idyllic Beautiful Bay in Indonesia, where he is known as the old patriarch of the islands. He is grieving the loss of his beautiful Eurasian wife, Anna, and is suffering for the first time from disturbing flashbacks to WWII, the scene of their first meeting and early love. His other wartime lover is the striking Marg Hamilton, a powerful and influential political player in Australia who has remained close to Nick. Marg suspects Nick is suffering the onset of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and organises for a specialist to meet with him in Sydney. But when they meet, Tony Freedman stirs long-buried emotions in Nick and the two men don?t hit it off. Nick leaves in an explosion of anger and finds himself in hospital after being hit by a car. Tony visits and encourages Nick to write as a form of therapy ? to write about Anna.So he sets about writing about the woman who has inspired him since his late teens, and in doing so draws us into the compelling tale of the life he has lived post war-hero days building a shipping empire, navigating international corruption, supporting his wife's third-world education crusade and loving the women who inspire him.

It is 1942 in the Dutch East Indies, and Nick Duncan is a young Australian butterfly collector in search of a single exotic butterfly. With invading Japanese forces coming closer by the day, Nick falls in love with the beguiling Anna van Heerden. Their time together is brief, as both are forced into separate, dangerous escapes. They plan to reunite and marry in Australia but it is several years before their paths cross again, scarred forever by the dark events of a long, cruel war. In The Persimmon Tree, Bryce Courtenay gives us a story of love and friendship set against the dramatic backdrop of the Pacific during the Second World War.About the AuthorBryce Courtenay was born in 1933 in Johannesburg, South Africa, and has lived in Australia for over forty years. Bryce wrote his first book, The Power of One, at the age of fifty-five. It has now sold nearly three million copies worldwide! His other bestselling titles include Tandia, April Fool's Day, The Potato Factory, Tommo & Hawk, Jessica, Solomon's Song, Smoky Joe's Cafe, Four Fires, Matthew Flinders' Cat, The Family Frying Pan, Brother Fish, Whitethorn and Sylvia. From AudioFileWhen the Japanese invade Indonesia in 1942, 17-year-old Australian Nick Duncan escapes by sailing a yacht across the ocean. It's a harrowing journey made manageable, in part, by Nick's hope that his new love, Anna, is safely on her way to Australia. Unfortunately, Anna is stuck in Indonesia, a prisoner of the Japanese. This love and adventure story is overlong. However, Humphrey Bower's narration makes it a pleasure. His skills should be a model. He reads with anticipation--so that a line written as a laugh or a sob is read as a laugh or a sob without being overdramatized. His characterizations reveal personality and motive, and hold steady throughout the book. And his pacing keeps us interested even when the plot is predictable. A.C.S. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine