Gallipoli
Street by Mary-Anne O’Connor is now available in print in the UK! Read on for
more details…
Gallipoli Street
By Mary-Anne O’Connor
An Anzac tale of three families whose destinies are entwined by war,
tragedy and passion.
At
17, Veronica O’Shay is happier running wild on the family farm than behaving in
the ladylike manner her mother requires, and she despairs both of her secret
passion for her brother’s friend Jack Murphy and what promises to be a future
of restraint and compliance.
But this is 1913 and the genteel tranquillity of rural Beecroft is about to change forever as the O’Shay and Murphy families, along with their friends the Dwyers, are caught up in the theatre of war and their fates become intertwined.
From
the horrors of Gallipoli to the bloody battles of the Somme, through love lost
and found, the Great Depression and the desperate jungle war along the Kokoda
Track, this sprawling family drama brings to life a time long past… a time of
desperate love born in desperate times and acts of friendship against
impossible odds.
A
love letter to Australian landscape and character, Gallipoli Street celebrates
both mateship and the enduring quality of real love. But more than that, this
book shows us where we have come from as a nation, by revealing the adversity
and passions that forged us.
A
stunning novel that brings to life the love and courage that formed our Anzac
tradition.
Links for Purchase
About
the author
Mary-Anne
O'Connor nee Best grew up in Wahroonga in the Bushland Shire of
Hornsby-Kuringai, northern Sydney, Australia. The youngest of six children, her
childhood was spent exploring the local bushland and playing music with her
siblings and close neighbours. An avid reader, she devoured her mother Dorn's
extensive library and was often found trying to finish a chapter by torchlight
late at night. She also began to fill every blank piece of paper in the house
with stories and drawings of her own and dreamt of becoming a writer one day.
When she was twelve her father Kevin Best left his established career in the stock-market to become one of Australia's best-loved artists. The perseverance and ultimate triumph she witnessed during those years left her inspired to follow in his footsteps and pursue her own creative aspirations. A colourful marketing career followed, along with the completion of education/arts degree and during this time she also co-wrote two books with her father, A Brush with Light andSecrets of the Brush. Work then began on her first major novel, Gallipoli Street. This work gained critical acclaim and finished at #3 for debut novels in Australia in 2015. It has recently been voted #4 for all Australian Authors, 2016, and #13 for all books, including international titles, in Better Reading’s Top 100 poll, 2016. Her second novel Worth Fighting For is under new release and her third war story Warflower is due out in 2017.
Mary-Anne has drawn on her love of the Australian bushland, her fascination with her own family history and her deep, abiding respect for the Anzac generation and their children to produce these novels. It was written in her office at home, surrounded by her grandfather's war memorabilia and beneath a long window that overlooks her beloved gum trees.
Mary-Anne still lives in the Bushland Shire with her husband Anthony, their two sons, Jimmy and Jack and their very spoilt dog, Saxon.
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See you on your next coffee break!
Take Care,
Mary Anne xxx