First Tuesday Book Club February 2025, with guest authors!

We hope you'll join us for our First Tuesday Book Club meeting for February 2025

Hazel Edwards

Maryrose Cuskelly

Melanie La'Brooy

Anna Johnston

Geoff Parkes

Wasted? explores a mid-ocean Garbage Patch state where asylum seekers recycle bio fuel for visas, led by 16 y.o Head of Government known as The GG.

Hazel’s Australian Antarctic expeditioner experience was relevant for the ‘Wasted?’ setting and also the earlier ‘Antarcticaʼs Frozen Chosen’. Plus she relied on scientific experts who helped with her research and possible scenarios. In addition to conversations with innovative Asylum seekers and refugees. And trial readers of various ages and interests.

It is Hazel’s third published work that is her best known, the children’s picture book classic, ‘There’s a Hippopotamus on Our Roof Eating Cake’. This special imaginary friend has been cherished by children and parents alike and led to the dubious honour of Hazel being referred to as ‘the Hippo Lady’.

Personal note from Hazel:

I was published at 27 when I had my first book and first baby. So in 2025, I’m calling myself a ‘ vintage’ author. Best known as ‘The Hippo Lady’ for ‘There’s a Hippopotamus on our Roof Eating Cake’ series which has been in print for 45 years, translated and performed on stage and in film and gets fan mail, still. But I also write adult mysteries, non-fiction, scripts and like to learn new media. ‘Wasted?’ my YA #Clific novel launched at Write Around the Murray Festival in 2024.

Ideas risk-taking, and coping successfully with being different are themes in my work. I’ve been an Australian Antarctic expeditioner and use participant-observation for research: going and doing and then writing afterwards. Contributes to a non-boring life. My family has always been supportive of my writing and often travelled with me, or tested stories. Widowed mid Covid, I have 4 grandsons ranging from 3-25 and I wrote them stories for their birthdays until they could write their own. ‘Go!Go!Gecko’ including AI for 2 D and Indonesian translations resulted from this.

I’m patron of the Society of Women’s Writers (Vic) and formerly on the Board of the Australian Society of Authors. www.hazeledwards.com has resources for aspiring writers.

As an educator-author-speaker- mentor I have Authorpreneur on my business card. Those I’ve mentored to publication call themselves Hazelnuts. That’s why as a readaholic, your book club appeals for recommendations of new authors I can follow.

An engrossing and provocative exploration of privilege, hypocrisy and justice by the bestselling author of The Cane.

A compelling and revealing novel, The Campers shows what neighbours will do when anarchy and misrule threaten their cosy community.

Maryrose’s second novel, THE CAMPERS explores what can happen when our professed values slam into a perceived threat to our quality of life.

Leah has a good life. She lives on The Drove, an inner-city cul-de-sac, with her husband Moses and their two children. She and her neighbours - the drovers - look out for each other. Theirs is a safe, community-oriented enclave and that's the way it's going to stay.

When itinerants set up camp in 'their' park, some of the drovers are unsettled, some are outraged, and all of them want the campers to move on. Not even Sholto, the campers' charismatic leader, can put their fears to rest.

'Dark, gripping and twisty.' Better Reading

Maryrose Cuskelly is the best-selling author of The Cane, shortlisted for Best Crime Fiction Debut in the 2022 Davitt Awards. Her book Wedderburn: A true tale of blood and dustwas longlisted for Best Debut and Best True Crime in the 2019 Davitt Awards and in 2016, she was awarded the New England Thunderbolt Prize for Crime Writing for her essay on the 1972 abduction and M**der of MarilynWallman.

The Wintrish Girl: Talismans of Fate Book 1 (CBCA Notable Book 2023)

A wildly fun debut about not quite belonging, forging your own path and finding your true home.

The Lost History: Talismans of Fate Book 2

The enthralling sequel to the multi-award-winning fantasy epic The Wintrish Girl - perfect for fans of Nevermoor and Discworld

Melanie La’Brooy writes funny and action-packed fantasy adventure novels for middle-grade readers that tackleserious themes. For fourteen years Melanie travelled the world, living in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. She previously wrote five books for adults, which were published in Australia and internationally, before realising that writing for kids was 100 times more fun (and 1000 times harder). Her debut novel for children, The Wintrish Girl, won the Aurealis Award for Best Children's Fiction and the inaugural DANZ (Diversity in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand) Children's Book Award. It was also shortlisted for the Readings Children's Prize and was a CBCA Notable.

The Lost History, which is the sequel to The Wintrish Girl and Book Two in the Talismans of Fate series, is out now. Melanie has written for The Age on politics and social justice issues and her Talismans of Fate series mirrors these interests. Readers will find all the hallmarks of fun fantasy adventures in her books, such as impossible escapes from terrifying villains, wildly imaginative travel portals and a highly-sensitive dragon but they will also encounter real-world issues such as racism, colonialism and book banning.

Melanie’s surname is pronounced La-Broy, like boy but with an r. It’s confusing, she knows.

The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife is a warm, life-affirming debut about a bizarre case of mistaken identity that allows a lonely old man one last chance to be part of a family.
'A sincere, heartfelt and laugh-out-loud debut . . . a genuinely delightful read.' The Australian

Anna Johnston is a former baby, aspiring octogenarian and emerging Australian author with a love for the heartfelt and hilarious. She grew up in country Victoria before moving to Melbourne where she lives joyously with her husband and daughters by the beach. Anna left an imminent career in medicine to follow her heart into her grandfather's nursing home where she became the social support coordinator, taking great delight in shaking up the usual program. When injury left her unable to continue working in aged care, she began to write about it, channelling her love for older people onto the page. Anna has enjoyed a life-long passion for screenplay, theatre and creative ageing.

A missing woman . . . a townful of suspects. The haunting debut crime novel that transports the reader back to the 1980s and a small rural town in New Zealand.

'She wasn't the first and she wouldn't be the last; swallowed into the deep, dark recesses of the King Country bush, never to be seen again.'

Geoff was born and raised in rural New Zealand’s King Country where the story is based. His experiences growing up in the area and working as a wool presser have informed this novel (without the M**der of course!). For the last twelve years he’s written a weekly opinion column for The Roar, Australia’s leading on-line sports website. Geoff now lives in Melbourne.

Dymocks Tooronga

• Email: [email protected]
• Phone: (03) 9045 9845

There will be no door sales, so please secure your tickets early to avoid disappointment. Book with confidence, knowing that a full refund will be provided if we need to postpone or cancel the event for any reason. (Unless the event is cancelled, refund requests are only available until 24 hours before the event. Tickets are not transferable to later dates.)

Sign-in will start 6.15pm, for everyone to be seated by 7pm for the author presentations to start.

We look forward to seeing you at the Rivoli Cinemas.

Host or Publisher Dymocks Tooronga