Dust

(Paperback)

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Description

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.

Author Bio

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. Her work was short-listed for the 2006 Varuna Manuscript Development Awards. She completed a Master of Arts in youth writing in 2008. Dust is her first novel. Christine shares her life in Brisbane with husband Andrew, children, Connor, Brydie, Clancy and Jake, their ageing cat Al, a platoon of water dragons, a parliament of tawny frogmouths and an embarrassment of geckos that fall at odd moments onto her kitchen bench.