The Garden on Sunset

The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet, and she is dying.

And the story begins again today, half a world away, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio's back lot-searching for the mysterious woman he last saw at his hotel decades earlier.

What unfolds is a dazzling, yet deeply human, roller coaster of a novel, spanning fifty years and nearly as many lives. From the lavish set of Cleopatra to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Walter introduces us to the tangled lives of a dozen unforgettable characters: the starstruck Italian innkeeper and his long-lost love; the heroically preserved producer who once brought them together and his idealistic young assistant; the army veteran turned fledgling novelist and the rakish Richard Burton himself, whose appetites set the whole story in motion-along with the husbands and wives, lovers and dreamers, superstars and losers, who populate their world in the decades that follow. Gloriously inventive, constantly surprising, Beautiful Ruins is a story of flawed yet fascinating people, navigating the rocky shores of their lives while clinging to their improbable dreams.

This beautifully written and gripping debut is as moving as it is frightening, and as heartbreaking as it is tender.

Tom and Jordy have been living with their gran since the day their mother, Loretta, left them on her doorstep and disappeared.

Now Loretta’s returned, and she wants her boys back.

Tom and Jordy hit the road with Loretta in her beat-up car. The family of three journeys across the country, squabbling, bonding, searching and reconnecting.

But Loretta isn’t mother material. She’s broke, unreliable, lost. And there’s something else that’s not quite right with this reunion.

They reach the west coast and take refuge in a beachside caravan park. Their neighbour, a surly old man, warns the kids to stay away. But when Loretta disappears again the boys have no choice but to ask the old man for help, and now they face new threats and new fears.

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'Suspenseful,  tough and moving, this book had to be written. I can see see the film already.' Robert Drewe

'...a powerhouse of a book, one of those novels that is so evocative of the Australian landscape that it seems almost to be part of it. A pitch-perfect capturing of characters who are instantly recognisable, effortlessly rendered and irresistibly pathos-inducing.' Australian Womens Weekly

'Utterly convincing. These boys are so real, you will lie awake worrying about them, hoping that somehow they will find their way through it.' Cate Kennedy

[Romy Ash’s debut] is full of heart. Her voice is already strong, her writing assured….It is the unusual way that Ash describes their world that captures the reader’s imagination…Reminiscent of Favel Parret’s recent Past the Shallows, and as Australian as Kenneth Cook’s Wake in Fright, it’s a cracking debut.’ Louise Swinn, Weekend Australian

'After finishing this amazing debut novel I felt as if someone had ripped my heart out, stomped on it and put it back in. It is a very emotional novel...Romy Ash's talent as writer is obvious from the novel's opening pages. Her debut novel is perfectly precise and devastatingly amazing. The plight of Tom and Jordy will break your heart but you will stick by them until the end.' Jon Page, Bite the Book

'Ash’s novel deftly captures the fading innocence of a boy who witnesses more than he understands; what he leaves unsaid is as revealing as what he articulates. Floundering blends spare but elegant prose with a gripping plot and an assured sense of place. It’s an impressive first novel that heralds the arrival of a talented new voice in Australian literary fiction. 4 stars.' Australian Bookseller & Publisher

'The writing in Floundering is impressive. The voice of the young narrator rings consistent and true, the characters feel honestly portrayed, and the countryside and unrelenting heat are depicted so clearly that they almost become supporting characters, shaping the story as strongly as any person.' Australian Book Review

'The writing is visceral and observant, and clearly brings to life the intensely focused gaze of childhood….Floundering is a strong, resonant debut that hopefully signals what’s to come.' Readings Monthly

Though Joanna's freedom proved short-lived -- she was forcibly returned by slave catchers to Josiah Chester's plantation in Virginia -- she left the Bergstrom family a most precious gift, her son. Hans and Anneke Bergstrom, along with maiden aunt Gerda, raised the boy as their own, and the secret of his identity died with their generation. Now it falls to Sylvia -- drawing upon Gerda's diary and Joanna's quilt -- to connect Joanna's past to present-day Elm Creek Manor.

Just as Joanna could not have foreseen that, generations later, her quilt would become the subject of so much speculation and wonder, Sylvia and her friends never could have imagined the events Joanna witnessed in her lifetime. Punished for her escape by being sold off to her master's brother in Edisto Island, South Carolina, Joanna grieves over the loss of her son and resolves to run again, to reunite with him someday in the free North. Farther south than she has ever been, she nevertheless finds allies, friends, and even love in the slave quarter of Oak Grove, a cotton plantation where her skill with needle and thread soon becomes highly prized.

Through hardship and deprivation, Joanna dreams of freedom and returning to Elm Creek Farm. Determined to remember each landmark on the route north, Joanna pieces a quilt of scraps left over from the household sewing, concealing clues within the meticulous stitches. Later, in service as a seamstress to the new bride of a Confederate officer, Joanna moves on to Charleston, where secrets she keeps will affect the fate of a nation, and her abilities and courage enable her to aid the country and the people she loves most.

The knowledge that scraps can be pieced and sewn into simple lines -- beautiful both in and of themselves and also for what they represent and what they can accomplish -- carries Joanna through dark days. Sustaining herself and her family through ingenuity and art during the Civil War and into Reconstruction, Joanna leaves behind a remarkable artistic legacy that, at last, allows Sylvia to discover the fate of the long-lost quilter.

"Mr. Patterson is a natural storyteller....Fast moving...A handsome job."--The New York Times