This is the story of a woman who vanished without trace from Brisbane's Central Station in November 1938. Before her disappearnce, she wet up an elaborate series of Deceptions that has made it impossible for anyone to establish her fate. This fresh analysis of her known and possible movements on that day suggests that her disappearance stemmed from a sinister plot planned at hight police and political levels. It highlights suspicions that efforts were made deliberately to suppress important evidence at an in quest that unsuccessfully investigated her undoubted death at the hands of an abortionist, and that vital evidence never heard by a court sill exists. A proper examination of this evidence today might yet solve the Marjorie Norval mystery.

Reginald Wingfield Spence Brown is delighted when his first granddaughter is born. But just after the little girl's first Christmas, her loved and respected grandfather disappears from family life. Reg Brown does not willingly desert his family. The accountant simply takes the bus to work and apart from a police escorted visit, never again returns to his home in St Lucia, a middle-class, riverside suburb of Brisbane. He is arrested for the sexually motivated murder of his typist, Bronia Armstrong. This is a book about the investigation into what became known as the 'Arcade Murder', led by Sub-Inspector (later Police Commissioner) Frank Bischof. The 'big fella' liked to wrap up a case quickly. Just days after a life sentence is handed down to Reg Brown, his emaciated body is removed from a Boggo Road Gaol cell, along with a handwritten note declaring his innocence. The authors, two of Reg Brown's granddaughters, search for answers as they navigate a path through the archived records, revealing numerous anomalies; police and Crown prejudice; a lack of accountability and suppressed evidence. Well known Queensland identities are unexpectedly discovered in the fabric of this tale. Personal memories breathe life into court transcripts and police files and a heart-breaking story evolves. Bronia Armstrong is a vivacious and beautiful 19 year old again and Reg Brown speaks with a voice he has long been denied.

Home Education consists of six lectures by Charlotte Mason about the raising and educating of young children (up to the age of nine), for parents and teachers. She encourages us to spend a lot of time outdoors, immersed in nature, handling natural objects, and collecting experiences on which to base the rest of their education. She discusses the use of training in good habits such as attention, thinking, imagining, remembering, performing tasks with perfect execution, obedience, and truthfulness, to replace undesirable tendencies in children (and the adults that they grow into). She details how lessons in various school subjects can be done using her approach. She concludes with remarks about the Will, the Conscience, and the Divine Life in the Child. Charlotte Mason was a late nineteenth-century British educator whose ideas were far ahead of her time. She believed that children are born persons worthy of respect, rather than blank slates, and that it was better to feed their growing minds with living literature and vital ideas and knowledge, rather than dry facts and knowledge filtered and pre-digested by the teacher. Her method of education, still used by some private schools and many homeschooling families, is gentle and flexible, especially with younger children, and includes first-hand exposure to great and noble ideas through books in each school subject, conveying wonder and arousing curiosity, and through reflection upon great art, music, and poetry; nature observation as the primary means of early science teaching; use of manipulatives and real-life application to understand mathematical concepts and learning to reason, rather than rote memorization and working endless sums; and an emphasis on character and on cultivating and maintaining good personal habits. Schooling is teacher-directed, not child-led, but school time should be short enough to allow students free time to play and to pursue their own worthy interests such as handicrafts. Traditional Charlotte Mason schooling is firmly based on Christianity, although the method is also used successfully by secular families and families of other religions.

This is the fascinating story of Mary Maguire, a 1930s Australian ingenue who sailed for Hollywood and a fabulous life, only to have her career cut short by scandal and tragedy. Packed with celebrity, history and gossip, AUSTRALIA'S SWEETHEART is perfect for readers of SHEILA and THE RIVIERA SET. Mary Maguire was Australia's first teenage movie star and she captivated Hollywood in the mid 1930s. Mary lived on three continents and was celebrated in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Los Angeles and London. Her life was lived in parallel with seminal incidents of the twentieth century: the Spanish Flu; the Great Depression; the Bodyline series; Australia's early radio, talkies and aviation; Hollywood's Golden Era; the British aristocracy's embrace of European fascism; London's Blitz; and post-war American culture and politics. Mary knew everyone, from Douglas Jardine, Don Bradman, Errol Flynn and Ronald Reagan, to William Randolph Hearst, Maureen O'Sullivan, Judy Garland and Queen Elizabeth II. AUSTRALIA'S SWEETHEART in an irresistible never-before-told story that captures the glamour of Hollywood and the turbulent times of the twentieth century, with a young woman at its centre. If you loved THE AMAZING MRS LIVESEY, Robert Wainwright's SHEILA and MISS MURIEL MATTERS, you will adore AUSTRALIA'S SWEETHEART.