From the author of the multi-award-winning bestseller Between a Wolf and a Dog, a powerful collection of previously unpublished stories.A sister is haunted by the consequences of a simple mistake. A daughter searches for certainty as her mother's memory degrades. An encounter at a house party changes the course of a life.In We All Lived in Bondi Then, beloved Australian author Georgia Blain returns to her resonant themes of relationships and family, illness and health, love and death. Composed in Blain's final years, these nine stories grapple with large questions on a human scale, brimming with her trademark acuity, nuance, and warmth.

What happens when the life you choose involves denying everyone you love?In her final year at school, Caitlin meets Fraser, a Satya Deva devotee, on the bus. Her life is instantly changed, and she gives up everything to be with him and to follow his faith. Her past means nothing to her - all that matters is that she is with her new family, a family who can give her what she needs as she pursues a path that involves denying the person she once was and the people she once loved.Her parents, Liam and Sharn, have reached an impasse. Sharn spends her days resenting Liam and his inaction; Liam spends his watching video footage of his family in happier times. With Caitlin's sudden disappearance, the relationship is stretched even further, almost to breaking point.When Sharn finally tracks Caitlin down, what she discovers will force her to take matters into her own hands. If her daughter won't come home, she'll make her.

Outside, the rain continues unceasing; silver sheets sluicing down, the trees and shrubs soaking and bedraggled, the earth sodden, puddles overflowing, torrents coursing onwards, as the darkness slowly softens with the dawn. Ester is a family therapist with an appointment book that catalogues the anxieties of the middle class: loneliness, relationships, death. She spends her days helping others find happiness, but her own family relationships are tense and frayed. Estranged from both her sister, April, and her ex-husband, Lawrence, Ester wants to fall in love again. Meanwhile, April is struggling through her own directionless life; Lawrence’s reckless past decisions are catching up with him; and Ester and April's mother, Hilary, is about to make a choice that will profoundly affect them all. Taking place largely over one rainy day in Sydney, and rendered with the evocative and powerful prose Blain is known for, Between a Wolf and a Dog is a celebration of the best in all of us — our capacity to live in the face of ordinary sorrows, and to draw strength from the transformative power of art. Ultimately, it is a joyous tribute to the beauty of being alive.

In these thirteen short stories, Georgia Blain examines human nature in all its richness: our motivations, our desires and our shortcomings. The men in these tales frequently linger at the edges — their longings and failures exerting a subterranean pull on the women in their lives. In 'The Secret Lives of Men', a woman revisits her hometown and learns a long-held secret about her first boyfriend. In 'The Bad Dog Park', a man's devotion to his dog ultimately forces him to confront his true hopes and fears. And in 'The Other Side of the River', we watch as a woman makes a snap decision about her life's future direction, with devastating consequences for her family. Written in Blain's trademark unadorned yet powerful prose, these stories resonate long after they are finished.The Secret Lives of Men is an exceptional collection by one of Australia's leading writers.

Amanda Clarke is dead. Her body was found floating facedown by the riverbank, and no one knows what happened. As rumours fly and fear grows, it seems that everyone suspects Lyndon, one of Amanda's friends. He's known for his temper, his cruelty and his criminal family - and now the police want to talk to him. It's the end of summer, 1973, the heat is enough to melt asphalt and a sleepy riverside suburb is losing some of its innocence. Fifteen-year-old Winter went to the same school and hung out in the same places as Amanda. As she finds herself alone in trying to defend Lyndon, Winter learns that you can never really know someone - and the answers she has been looking for are closer than she has ever wanted to believe.

A brutally honest account of love, marriage, families and death.It wasn't until years later that I realised the obvious - the difference between us and the mythical normal family I was certain existed, was in fact the fiction... There is always so much more and it swims, shimmering beneath the surface, glittering with all the inherent contradictions of who we are, the changes that time brings and the very elusiveness of a life slipping through our fingers. Births Deaths Marriage is about life and how we really live it. These true tales move from visits to nudist communes, to losing your virginity; to going to couples' counseling and coping with death in the family. From a bohemian childhood in the seventies to becoming a mother and a writer, Georgia Blain explores a new land - true life in all its extraordinary richness - taking us deep into the heart of how we love, learn, fail, and try to learn again.

The place, the impetuousness of youth, the heat of a desolate town. Choices made unthinkingly. Young lives that would never be the same again, and the secrets that come to light years after.Ursula's childhood is marked by a summer holiday in Candelo, a sleepy south coast town. It's the seventies and her mother takes foster boy, Mitchell, away with them. Charismatic, charming and troubled, Mitchell finds his way into their lives, his brief time with them altering who they are - forever.Years later, when she hears of Mitchell's death, Ursula is forced to confront heartbreaking truths about herself and her family - and to realise the strength and sadness of family ties stretched to their limit.

I am a Lotto Girl. I should not be here. Why haven't they come for me? Fern Marlow is alone, datawiped and in hiding. Her mobie says she's Delia Greene, a ReCorp refuse sorter. Every day she queues to work, to earn just enough to stay alive. Every night she dreams of the past and the life she's meant to be living, back at Halston, an exclusive school for those wealthy enough - or lucky enough - to be genetically designed. Her rescuers said her former life was a lie, that she can trust no one. They also said they'd come back for her, and they haven't. Fern doesn't know who to believe. To uncover the truth, and save herself, Fern must answer the one question she can't face. Is she special? An alarming glimpse into our future from acclaimed Australian author Georgia Blain. 'Terrifying, prophetic and beautiful' - James Bradley, author of CLADE

Freya writes uncomfortable domestic dramas. Her friends work in theatre and film, show in galleries, talk politics and are trying new ways of having children with friends. These are the people who are slowly gentrifying the next ring of inner-city suburbs while praising their diversity. As the stultifying heat of summer descends, Shane, an Aboriginal man, moves up the road. He was once close to Matt, Freya's partner, and he not only brings with him a different approach to life, he also has news of a boy who might be Matt's son. Despite wanting to embrace all that Shane represents and the possibility of another child in their life, Freya and Matt stumble, failing each other and their beliefs.

Something happened that day on the jetty ... A haunting novel of family secrets.Twenty years have passed since that day on the jetty but it is only now that Elise has found the strength to go back and face the events of her past. And so she begins to unravel all that has been tying her up, picking through that day, piece by piece, from beginning to end. Over and over again.But sometimes what you uncover is not what you were searching for, and Elise finds herself face to face with a truth she had not expected...Closed for Winter is a gripping novel that will haunt you to the very end, and a powerful, positive story about the pain of letting go.

The Blind Eye captures brilliantly the enervating spirit of an emptied town.' - The AgeSilas is haunted by the vision of a luminous, surreal garden on the outskirts of Port Tremaine, a desolate country town. In this garden lives Constance, as beautiful as the morning and as blind as the night. They say Constance can see the truth at the heart of things to which others are blind - but where does truth begin and blindness end?When Silas leaves Port Tremaine, he is unable to live with his memories of the garden and unable to make sense of his fractured life. He goes to Daniel for healing, but he is not the only one who needs to be healed. As Silas learns to come to terms with what he saw and what he refuses to see, Daniel, too, begins to recognise his own habitual blindness and learns to open his eyes to the truths about his own past.The Blind Eye is a shimmering tale of nature and artifice, love and obsession, vision and sight, and memory and forgetting.