Sutherland Shire Libraries News

The work of women on the home front during World War One cannot be underestimated.  One of the ways help was provided was care for returning wounded soldiers.  Providing them with a healthy and caring environment to recover was one of the roles of the Red Cross.  The first Red Cross convalescent home for returning wounded soldiers in New South Wales was set up in Cronulla and was entirely managed by  Cronulla members of the Voluntary Aid Detachment or VAD.  Rosa Piper a local resident was the commandant when the home was opened on 20 July 1915.

The Voluntary Aid Detachment was part of the Australian Red Cross.  Modelled on the British organization, VADs were formed to provide a way for women who were not trained nurses to work as voluntary labour for the Red Cross.  The women who served were usually of independent means with an enthusiasm to assist in the war effort.  Trained nurses could enlist however the only other way for women to actively participate was to join patriotic organizations which sprang up all over Australia.

Duties in convalescent homes for soldiers included cleaning wards, washing and feeding patients, rolling bandages, sorting linen and essentially anything else the matron or other trained staff required of them.

Rosa Piper was the daughter of James and Elizabeth Piper from Tamworth.  Her home "Calala" was located in Parramatta Street near the corner of Gerrale Street.  It was part of the "Heart o' Cronulla" Estate made available for sale in 1908.

Rosa Piper made her cottage available as a convalescent home due to its location near the sea.  It was described as being "beautifully and conveniently situated" and was in "every sense a home".  In July 1915 sick and wounded soldiers started returning from active service.  Although the cottage was located near the beach not many of the soldiers wanted to go to Cronulla at first.  Six boys were sent initially and within a week the word had passed around the base hospital of how pleasant it was and then all were keen to go to Cronulla.


 The home was only open for a short time closing in December 1916. This was not unusual as most other convalescent homes for soldiers located elsewhere in the state were also closing.  By this time the military were better able to provide the accommodation for soldiers. The service provided by VADs however was invaluable and their work was acknowledged and honoured at the end of the war with such public events as their participation in Peace Marches.




Rosa Piper's cottage was sold in 1923 to Agnes King and Rosa left the district.  Her connection with the Red Cross however continued.  In 1920 she was asked to undertake the task of organizing and conducting after care for soldiers and their dependents.  The services of the department were for those soldiers who did not receive support from other agencies.

Not long after she started in this role it was stated that she had "her organization in working order" and was considering "ways and means of starting an invalids' comforts and children's clothing fund".  She was honoured with an MBE in 1935 for her indefatigable work for the Red Cross.  At that time Rosa had risen in the ranks to senior commandant for the Voluntary Aid Detachments for all of New South Wales.  She spent much of her later years giving talks on the Red Cross to interested groups.  According to one newspaper she "impressed her listeners with a quiet and efficient manner so fitted to her task".  One gathering stated that their meeting was "only representative of all those Voluntary Aides who will keep Miss Piper in their hearts forever".  After moving from Cronulla she lived in Epping for the rest of her days where she died in 1951.  She will always be remembered for her contribution to the local area and the war effort.

In a dark, dark wood by  Ruth Ware
Nora hasn’t seen Clare for ten years. Not since Nora walked out of school one day and never went back.

In a dark, dark wood there was a dark, dark house

Until, out of the blue, an invitation to Clare’s hen do arrives. Is this a chance for Nora to finally put her past behind her?

And in the dark, dark house there was a dark, dark room

But something goes wrong. Very wrong.

And in the dark, dark room…

Some things can’t stay secret for ever.

The ice twins by S.K. Tremayne
One of Sarah's daughters died. But can she be sure which one? A terrifying psychological thriller that will chill you to the bone. A year after one of their identical twin daughters, Lydia, dies in an accident, Angus and Sarah Moorcraft move to the tiny Scottish island Angus inherited from his grandmother, hoping to put together the pieces of their shattered lives.But when their surviving daughter, Kirstie, claims they have mistaken her identity – that she, in fact, is Lydia – their world comes crashing down once again.As winter encroaches, Angus is forced to travel away from the island for work, Sarah is feeling isolated, and Kirstie (or is it Lydia?) is growing more disturbed. When a violent storm leaves Sarah and her daughter stranded, Sarah finds herself tortured by the past – what really happened on that fateful day one of her daughters died?

Jack of spades by Joyce Carol Oates
When a successful writer is accused of plagarism his life - and sanity - begins to unravel.
From one of the most highly regarded writers of her generation, Jack of Spades is an exquisite, psychologically complex thriller about the opposing forces within the mind of one ambitious writer, and the line between genius and madness. Andrew J. Rush has achieved the kind of commercial success most authors only dream about: a top agent, publisher in New York, and twenty-eight mystery novels to his name. He has a loving wife, three grown children, and is well-known in his small New Jersey town for his generosity. But Andrew's hiding a dark secret. Under the pseudonym Jack of Spades, he had penned another string of novels - dark, violent, masochistic tales of murder, lust and madness. When a court order arrives accusing him of plagarism, Rush fears his secret may be exposed. Unbidden, in the back of his mind, the Jack of Spades starts plotting his survival.

A good killing by Allison Leotta
Former federal prosecutor and critically acclaimed author Allison Leotta’s spellbinding thriller follows prosecutor Anna Curtis as she heads home to Michigan to defend her sister in a case that will bring her to her knees.

How far would you go to save your sister?

Anna Curtis is back in her hometown just outside of Detroit. Newly single after calling off her wedding, Anna isn’t home to lick her wounds. She’s returned to support her sister, Jody, who has been wrongfully accused of murder after their old high school coach, a local hero, dies in a suspicious car crash.

But maybe Jody isn’t so innocent after all. The police are convinced that Jody was having an affair with the married coach and killed him out of jealousy. As Anna investigates with the help of her childhood friend Cooper Bolden, an Afghan War veteran with a secret of his own, she slowly peels back the facade of her all-American town and discovers that no one is telling the truth about the coach, not even the people she thought she knew best. When the town rallies against them, threatening not just Jody’s liberty but both sisters’ lives, Anna resolves to do everything she can to save her sister and defend the only family she has left.

Luckiest girl alive by Jessica Knoll
Ani FaNelli is the woman you love to hate. The woman who has it all. But behind the meticulously crafted facade lies the darkest and most violent of pasts ...When a documentary producer invites Ani to tell her side of the chilling and violent incident that took place when she was a teenager, she hopes it will be an opportunity to prove how far she's come since then. She'll even let the production company film her wedding to the wealthy Luke Harrison, the final step in her transformation. But as the wedding and filming converge, Ani's immaculate facade begins to crack, and she soon realises that there's always a price to pay for perfection.


The hand that feeds you by A. J. Rich
Morgan's life seems settled - she is completing her thesis on victim psychology and newly engaged to Bennett, a man more possessive than those she has dated in the past, but also more chivalrous and passionate.

But she returns from class one day to find Bennett savagely killed, and her dogs - a Great Pyrenees, and two pit bulls she was fostering - circling the body, covered in blood. Everything she holds dear in life is taken away from her in an instant.

Devastated and traumatised, Morgan tries to locate Bennett's parents to tell them about their son's death. Only then does she begin to discover layer after layer of deceit. Bennett is not the man she thought he was. And she is not the only woman now in immense danger ...

Charlie Martz and other stories by Elmore Leonard
A collection of fifteen stories, eleven of which have never been previously published, from the early career of bestselling American master Elmore Leonard.
Over his long and illustrious career, Elmore Leonard was recognized as one of the greatest crime writers of all time, the author of dozens of bestselling books—many adapted for the big screen—as well as a master of short fiction. A superb stylist whose crisp, tight prose crackled with trademark wit and sharp dialogue, Leonard remains the standard for crime fiction and a literary model for writers of every genre.
Marked by his unmistakable grit and humor, the stories in Charlie Martz and Other Stories—produced early in his career, when he was making his name particularly with westerns—reveal a writer in transition, exploring new voices and locations, from the bars of small-town New Mexico and Michigan to a film set in Hollywood, a hotel in Southern Spain, even a military base in Kuala Lumpur. They also introduce us to classic Leonard characters, some who recur throughout the collection, such as aging lawman Charlie Martz and weary former matador Eladio Montoya.
Devoted Leonard aficionados and fans new to his fiction will marvel at these early works that reveal an artist on the cusp of greatness.

Orient by Christopher Bollen
A gripping novel of culture clash and murder: as summer draws to a close, a small Long Island town is gripped by a series of mysterious deaths—and one young man, a loner taken in by a local, tries to piece together the crimes before his own time runs out.
Orient is an isolated town on the north fork of Long Island, its future as a historic village newly threatened by the arrival of wealthy transplants from Manhattan—many of them artists. One late summer morning, the body of a local caretaker is found in the open water; the same day, a monstrous animal corpse is found on the beach, presumed a casualty from a nearby research lab. With rumors flying, eyes turn to Mills Chevern—a tumbleweed orphan newly arrived in town from the west with no ties and a hazy history. As the deaths continue and fear in town escalates, Mills is enlisted by Beth, an Orient native in retreat from Manhattan, to help her uncover the truth. With the clock ticking, Mills and Beth struggle to find answers, faced with a killer they may not be able to outsmart.

A pleasure and a calling by Phil Hogan
You won't remember Mr Heming. He showed you round your comfortable home, suggested a sustainable financial package, negotiated a price with the owner and called you with the good news. The less good news is that, all these years later, he still has the key.

That's absurd, you laugh. Of all the many hundreds of houses he has sold, why would he still have the key to mine?

The answer to that is, he has the keys to them all.

William Heming's every pleasure is in his leafy community. He loves and knows every inch of it, feels nurtured by it, and would defend it - perhaps not with his life but if it came to it, with yours...

Speaking in bones by Kathy Reichs
Forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan investigates what looks to be a typical missing person case, only to find herself digging up bones possibly left by a serial killer, a cult, or perhaps something not entirely of this world.

The guest artist at Sutherland Library during July and August is Cheryl Kirby.
Cheryl is a longtime resident of Sutherland Shire. After leaving school at 15 Cheryl's first job was as an airbrush artist at the Empire Art Company in Darlinghurst. Part of her job was to attend East Sydney Technical College Art School, something that she really loved.

Cheryl's later career saw her move into commercial advertising in magazines and newspapers.  She took a break from paid work to raise a family but continued to study art part time at the School of Fashion and Art at Gymea Technical College. Cheryl also ran a small business designing and printing from home. Cheryl joined Friends of Hazelhurst in 2014.

Come to Sutherland Library and see a selection of acrylics, graphite and water colour pencil works by this very talented local artist.

My grandmother sends her regards and apologises / Fredrik Backman ; translated from the Swedish by Henning Koch
Everyone remembers the stories their grandmother told them.

But does everyone remember their grandmother flirting with policemen? Driving illegally?

Breaking into a zoo in the middle of the night? Firing a paintball gun from a balcony in her dressing gown?

Seven-year-old Elsa does.

Some might call Elsa's granny 'eccentric', or even 'crazy'. Elsa calls her a superhero. And granny's stories, of knights and princesses and dragons and castles, are her superpower. Because, as Elsa is starting to learn, heroes and villains don't always exist in imaginary kingdoms; they could live just down the hallway.

As Christmas draws near, even the best superhero grandmothers may have one or two things they'd like to apologise for. And, in the process, Elsa can have some breath-taking adventures of her own . . .


Circling the sun by Paula McLain
Paula McLain, author of the phenomenal bestseller The Paris Wife, now returns with her keenly anticipated new novel, transporting readers to colonial Kenya in the 1920s.

Brought to Kenya from England as a child and then abandoned by her mother, Beryl is raised by both her father and the native Kipsigis tribe who share his estate. Her unconventional upbringing transforms Beryl into a bold young woman with a fierce love of all things wild and an inherent understanding of nature’s delicate balance. But even the wild child must grow up, and when everything Beryl knows and trusts dissolves, she is catapulted into a string of disastrous relationships.

Spirits of the Ghan by Judy Nunn
It is 2001 and as the world charges into the new Millennium, a century-old dream is about to be realised in the Red Centre of Australia: the completion of the mighty Ghan railway, a long-lived vision to create the 'backbone of the continent', a line that will finally link Adelaide with the Top End.

But construction of the final leg between Alice Springs and Darwin will not be without its complications, for much of the desert it will cross is Aboriginal land.

Hired as a negotiator, Jessica Manning must walk a delicate line to reassure the Elders their sacred sites will be protected. Will her innate understanding of the spiritual landscape, rooted in her own Arunta Heritage, win their trust? It's not easy to keep the peace when Matthew Witherton and his survey team are quite literally blasting a rail corridor through the timeless land of the Never-Never.

When the paths of Jessica and Matthew finally cross, their respective cultures collide to reveal a mystery that demands attention. As they struggle against time to solve the puzzle, an ancient wrong is awakened and calls hauntingly across the vastness of the outback . . .


Those girls by Chevy Stevens
They wanted him gone . . . Then it was their turn to disappear.

The three Campbell sisters, Dani, Courtney and Jess, had always dreamed of a day when their dead-beat alcoholic father would disappear . . . But when their dream becomes a reality, the consequences are more frightening than they ever imagined. Assuming new identities, they have to permanently forget the past.

Eighteen years later, Jess, who now goes by the name Jamie, is faced with a serious problem. Her own teenage daughter is asking too many questions; to answer them will involve her unveiling long-buried secrets about her youth, truths she has spent so long trying to forget. Because why did they all run away that night? And what really happened to their father?

Will those girls ever be able to leave the past behind or is it doomed to haunt them for ever?


All the little pieces by Jilliane Hoffman
She could have stopped an awful crime. She could have saved a life. She tried to forget about it. But now, the truth is out.

Faith Saunders is the perfect wife, mother and sister – loved and admired by all who know her. One night will change everything.As she drives home in the pouring rain, a dishevelled young woman appears out of nowhere, pleading for help. The isolated stretch of road is dark, and with her four-year-old daughter Maggie asleep in the backseat, Faith refuses to let the stranger in. What she sees next will haunt her forever.When the missing-person posters go up, Faith's guilt consumes her. Then the girl's body turns up, and her perfect life begins to unravel. Because it turns out Maggie wasn't asleep that night and – unlike her mother – she's not afraid to speak up.Maggie's testimony leads to an arrest, but Faith is the only one who can identify a second man who was at the scene of the crime. She has one chance to convince a jury of what happened. If she fails, two murderers will go free – two men who have killed before and who will undoubtedly kill again.And they know exactly where to find Faith and her family…

 I saw a man by Owen Sheers
An utterly stunning novel of love, loss, the insidious nature of secrets, and the transformative power of words. I Saw a Man fulfills the promise of Owen Sheers’s acclaimed novel, Resistance.

When journalist Caroline Marshall dies while on assignment in Pakistan, her grief-stricken husband, Michael, leaves their cottage in Wales and returns to London. He quickly develops a friendship with his neighbors, Josh and Samantha Nelson, and their two young daughters. Michael’s becoming close with the family marks the beginning of a long healing process.

But Michael’s period of recovery comes to an abrupt end when a terrible accident brings the burden of a shattering secret into his life. How will Michael bear the agonizing weight of guilt as he navigates persistent doubts on the path to attempted redemption? The answer, revealed poignantly in Sheers’ masterly prose, is eloquent, resonant, and completely unforgettable.

The turning point by Freya North
The unputdownable, tear-jerking new novel from Freya North.

Over one short weekend, when Canadian musician Scott Emerson and British children's author Frankie Shaw meet by chance, a profound connection is made. Their homes are thousands of miles apart: Frankie and her children live by the coast of North Norfolk while Scott's roots lie deep in the mountains of British Columbia. Against all advice, they decide to see where this might go. Over oceans and time zones, they make sacrifices and take risks, discovering along the way new truths about love and family. For the first time in a long while, it seems life could be very good. But fate has a tragic twist in store, one that could destroy all that was hoped for. Poignant, engrossing and moving, The Turning Point is a novel about the importance of seizing happiness and trusting that love will always find a way.


The truth according to us by Annie Barrows
Quirky, loveable, and above all human, this novel of small-town life in the 1930s is an immersive experience that will leave readers reeling and wanting more.

In the summer of 1938, Layla Beck is forced out of the lap of luxury and sent by her Senator father to work on the Federal Writers' Project, a New Deal jobs program. Assigned to cover the history of the little mill town of Macedonia, West Virginia, Layla envisions a summer of tedium.
However, once she secures a room in the home of the unconventional Romeyn family, she is completely drawn into their complex world.
At the Romeyn house, twelve-year-old Willa is desperate to acquire her favourite virtues of ferocity and devotion, but her search leads her into a thicket of mysteries, including the questionable business that occupies her charismatic father and the reason her adored aunt Jottie remains unmarried.
Layla's arrival strikes a match to the family's veneer, bringing to light buried secrets that will tell a new tale about the Romeyns and their deep entanglement in Macedonia's history. As Willa peels back the layers of her family's past, and Layla delves deeper into town legend, everyone involved is transformed – and their personal histories completely rewritten.

Orient  by Christopher Bollen
Suspenseful and haunting, Bollen's thrilling novel Orient is a provocative take on the troubled American dream, in the vein of Lionel Shriver or AM Homes.

At the eastern edge of Long Island, far from the hustle of New York City, stands Orient, a village that has been home to a few families for hundreds of years and is now - reluctantly - opening up to wealthy weekenders and artists from the city.
On the last day of summer, a young man with a hazy past appears, and not long after comes a series of events that shatters the peace in this isolated community. A strange, twisted creature washes ashore on the Sound and then a human corpse is found floating in the water. A woman dies in bizarre circumstances and a house fire erupts out of nowhere. Fear and suspicion mount until everyone's secrets threaten to be exposed. But who is Mills Chevern? What is his real name and why is he here? As all eyes shift towards the orphan drifter, Mills elicits the support of Beth Shepherd, an Orient native who is hiding a secret of her own.

The Beast's garden by Kate Forsyth
A retelling of the Grimms' Beauty and The Beast, set in Nazi Germany.

It's August 1939 in Germany, and Ava's world is in turmoil. To save her father, she must marry a young Nazi officer, Leo von Löwenstein, who works for Hitler's spy chief in Berlin. However, she hates and fears the brutal Nazi regime, and finds herself compelled to stand against it.
Ava joins an underground resistance movement that seeks to help victims survive the horrors of the German war machine. But she must live a double life, hiding her true feelings from her husband, even as she falls in love with him.
Gradually she comes to realise that Leo is part of a dangerous conspiracy to assassinate Hitler. As Berlin is bombed into ruins, the Gestapo ruthlessly hunt down all resistance and Ava finds herself living hand-to-mouth in the rubble of the shell-shocked city. Both her life and Leo's hang in the balance.