'an outstanding piece of writing...a powerful novel...' Reading TimeFriendship is a slippery notion. We lose friends as we change and our friends don't, or as we form other alliances, or as we betray our friends or are ourselves betrayed... Set against the backdrop of World War II, four teens growing up in the pearling town of Broome form a deep friendship that will change their lives forever. Hartley and Alice Penrose are the children of a pearling master. Mitsy Sennosuke is the daughter of a Japanese diver. Jamie and his family have just moved to town. Together, they unconsciously cross the boundaries of class and race, as they swim, joke and watch films in the tin cinema on Sheba Lane. Soon, two of them will fall in love.But these happy, untroubled times end when lives are lost in a terrible cyclone, and townsfolk turn against the Sennosukes. When Japanese bombs begin to fall in northern Australia, loyalties are divided and friendships take on an altogether different form... In this beautifully written novel, Garry Disher evokes a war-devastated Australia and its effects on young adults forced to leave their childhood behind.

 

 

This book is the winner of numerous awards

This book has been graded for interest at 12-17 years.

There are 160 pages in this book.

It is aimed at Young Adult readers. The term Young Adult (YA) is used for books which have the following characteristics: (1) aimed at ages 12-18 years, US grades 7-12, UK school years 8-15, (2) around 50-75k words long, (3) main character is aged 12-18 years, (4) topics include self-reflection, internal conflict vs external, analyzing life and its meaning, (5) point of view is often in the first person, and (6) swearing, violence, romance and sexuality are allowed.

This book was published in 2020 by Hachette Australia .

Garry Disher is one of Australia s best-known novelists. He s published over forty books in a range of genres, including crime, children s books, and Australian history. His Hal Challis and Wyatt crime series are also published in the United States by Soho Crime. He lives on the Mornington Peninsula, southeast of Melbourne.