Chloe and Alli will be talking about their new books ‘The Occupation’ by Chloe Adams and A Woman’s Voice’ by Alli Sinclair.

The Occupation.

In the autumn of 1949, two women convene in the parlour of an upmarket Melbourne hotel. Tess is married and childless. Mary, unwed and pregnant. Over thirty minutes, Mary agrees to a life-altering pact: to hand over her child.

One year earlier, Mary had arrived in the ruined port of Kure, where thousands of Australians had established an occupation of the Hiroshima prefecture. Among the rubble, she finds a surreal expat world of picnics, parties and uneasy privilege, while the local population struggles to rebuild.

A Woman’s Voice.

When violin virtuoso Laura Hartley’s priceless instrument is stolen, her celebrated European career collapses and with it, her rare gift of seeing music in colour. Fleeing to her grandmother’s home in the Australian outback, Laura discovers an extraordinary legacy woven through sheets of music: a powerful symphony born from the revolutionary hearts of suffragettes who refused to be silenced, their voices rising above the doomed decks of the Titanic.