{"title":"Rebecca Starford","description":"\u003cp\u003eDiscover the captivating works of Rebecca Starford, a talented author whose writing spans multiple genres, offering something for every reader. Known for her compelling narrative style, Starford's repertoire includes a mix of \u003cem\u003eBiography \u0026amp; Memoir\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eFiction\u003c\/em\u003e, reflecting her versatility and keen insight into human nature.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eStart your exploration with \u003cstrong\u003eBad Behaviour\u003c\/strong\u003e and its \u003cstrong\u003eTV tie-in edition\u003c\/strong\u003e—an evocative memoir that delves into the complexities of adolescence and the formation of identity. This insightful account is a must-read for anyone interested in personal stories with profound emotional depth.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIf fiction beckons, \u003cstrong\u003eThe Imitator\u003c\/strong\u003e is an enthralling addition to the \u003cem\u003eCrime \u0026amp; Thriller\u003c\/em\u003e genre, offering a gripping glimpse into espionage during World War II. It's a meticulously researched tale that keeps you on the edge of your seat.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFor lovers of \u003cem\u003eGeneral Fiction\u003c\/em\u003e, both \u003cstrong\u003eNew Australian Fiction 2020\u003c\/strong\u003e and \u003cstrong\u003eThe Visitor\u003c\/strong\u003e showcase Starford's flair for storytelling. These works highlight her ability to craft intriguing narratives with compelling characters, engaging themes, and vivid settings. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eRebecca Starford's collection is a testament to her skill as a writer and her ability to captivate readers across different genres. Dive into her books and experience them for yourself!\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"the-imitator-by-rebecca-starford-9781761067051","title":"The Imitator","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Imitator\u003c\/em\u003e gripped me to the end: I devoured it ... What a rare treat to find a novel that offers both white-knuckled suspense \u003cem\u003eand\u003c\/em\u003e evocative, beautiful prose. I loved it.' - Hannah Kent, author of \u003cem\u003eBurial Rites\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThe Good People\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e'We trade in secrets here, Evelyn. There's no shame in having a few of your own. Our only concern is for who might discover them.'\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOut of place at boarding school, scholarship girl Evelyn Varley realises that the only way for her to fit in is to be like everyone else. She hides her true self and what she really thinks behind the manners and attitudes of those around her. By the time she graduates from Oxford University in 1939, ambitious and brilliant Evelyn has perfected her performance.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWar is looming. Evelyn soon finds herself recruited to MI5, and the elite counterintelligence department of Bennett White, the enigmatic spy-runner. Recognising Evelyn's mercurial potential, White schools her in observation and subterfuge and assigns her the dangerous task of infiltrating an underground group of Nazi sympathisers working to form an alliance with Germany.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBut befriending people to betray them isn't easy, no matter how dark their intent. Evelyn is drawn deeper into a duplicity of her own making, where truth and lies intertwine, and her increasing distrust of everyone, including herself, begins to test her better judgement. When a close friend becomes dangerously ensnared in her mission, Evelyn's loyalty is pushed to breaking point, forcing her to make an impossible decision.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA powerfully insightful and luminous portrait of courage and loyalty, and the sacrifices made in their name.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'Starford's control of the plotting is exceptional, her dialogue is precise, and her ability to evoke London at that time is superb. A highly recommended, cracking read.' - \u003cem\u003eGood Reading\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'A beguiling and compelling tale with a finely attuned sense of time and place.' - Thuy On, \u003cem\u003eThe Sydney Morning Herald\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46533113184492,"sku":"9781761067051","price":26.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/28057453482814.jpg?v=1749371514"},{"product_id":"bad-behaviour-by-rebecca-starford-9781760292683","title":"Bad Behaviour","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIt is night. They move with such stealth they could be almost floating along the road. I can't see faces, just the outline of their movement. But when the moon drifts out from behind a cloud, bathing the road in an urgent sort of light, I see how they're all gazing up towards me.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e'They're coming back,' I murmur. I turn to Kendall, and she puts her sewing aside, eyes on me. They never waver.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIt was supposed to be a place where teenagers would learn resilience, confidence and independence, where long hikes and runs in the bush would make their bodies strong and foster a connection with the natural world. Living in bare wooden huts, cut off from the outside world, the students would experience a very different kind of schooling, one intended to have a strong influence over the kind of adults they would eventually become.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFourteen-year-old Rebecca Starford spent a year at this school in the bush. In her boarding house, sixteen girls were left largely unsupervised, a combination of the worst behaved students and some of the most socially vulnerable. As everyone tried to fit in and cope with their feelings of isolation and homesickness, Rebecca found herself joining ranks with the powerful girls, becoming both a participant—and later a victim—of various forms of bullying and aggression.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBad Behaviour\u003c\/em\u003e tells the story of that year, a time of friendship and joy, but also of shame and fear. It explores how those crucial experiences affected Rebecca as an adult and shaped her future relationships and asks courageous questions about the nature of female friendship.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMoving, wise and painfully honest, this extraordinary memoir shows how bad behaviour from childhood, in all its forms, can be so often and so easily repeated throughout our adult lives.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46542679671020,"sku":"9781760292683","price":26.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/20313773482814.jpg?v=1749715991"},{"product_id":"bad-behaviour-tv-tie-in-edition-by-rebecca-starford-9781761470158","title":"Bad Behaviour TV tie-in edition","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eNOW A MAJOR TV SERIES STREAMING ON STAN\u003c\/b\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eUnflinching . . . riveting. At once self-critical, intelligent and beautifully written. Unforgettable.\u003c\/em\u003e — HANNAH KENT\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIt was supposed to be a place where teenagers would learn resilience, confidence, and independence, where long hikes and runs in the bush would make their bodies strong and foster a connection with the natural world. Living in bare wooden huts, cut off from the outside world, the students would experience a very different kind of schooling, one intended to have a strong influence over the kind of adults they would eventually become.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFourteen-year-old Rebecca Starford spent a year at this school in the bush. In her boarding house, sixteen girls were left largely unsupervised. As everyone tried to fit in and cope with their feelings of isolation and homesickness, Rebecca found herself joining ranks with the powerful girls, becoming a participant in — and later a victim of — various forms of bullying and aggression.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBad Behaviour\u003c\/em\u003e is the story of that year, a time of friendship and joy, but also of shame and fear.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46542683504876,"sku":"9781761470158","price":26.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/4002733482815.jpg?v=1749716087"},{"product_id":"the-visitor-by-rebecca-starford-9781761471148","title":"The Visitor","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eGhosts live in the sunshine too.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFor most of her adult life, Laura has lived in the UK, her ties to her Brisbane upbringing all but severed. When her parents, Bruce and Eliza, perish in mysterious circumstances in the Queensland outback, she and her family must return to settle their affairs and sell the now-dilapidated house of her childhood.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBut as the renovations progress, Laura starts to experience strange happenings in the house that cannot be explained away. Is it haunted? Or is the woman next door, who had inveigled her way into Bruce and Eliza's lives, testing her as she copes with the grief and trauma of their deaths?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFourteen-year-old Tilly, alarmed by her mother's increasingly erratic behaviour, is drawn into the disturbing atmosphere of the house as the distance between them grows. And with both of them seeing things, Laura realises that unless she unearths what drove her parents to flee the house, they will never be free of the past.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Visitor\u003c\/em\u003e is a compelling exploration of intergenerational trauma, dispossession and the ghosts we can't outrun, from the bestselling author of \u003cem\u003eThe Imitator\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'A masterfully wrought study of expatriate hysteria and disorientation. A riveting tale of Australian Gothic in which the fetid heat of subtropical Brisbane and the harsh Antipodean sunlight can be made to seem as sinister as the dark.'\u003cbr\u003e AMANDA LOHREY, author of \u003cem\u003eThe Labyrinth\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThe Conversion\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'A suspenseful, atmospheric and deliciously Gothic tale that is genuinely impossible to put down.'\u003cbr\u003e ELIZA HENRY-JONES, author of \u003cem\u003eSalt and Skin\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46593492254956,"sku":"9781761471148","price":36.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781761471148.jpg?v=1751005515"},{"product_id":"new-australian-fiction-2020-by-rebecca-starford-9780994483362","title":"New Australian Fiction 2020","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe stories in this collection explore how characters respond to some of the most intriguing and urgent issues of our time, including genetic experimentation, nuclear fallout, and ongoing and destructive white-settler colonialism. These are also stories about human connection, finding empathy with the natural environment and each other, and the enduring spirit of our society.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew Australian Fiction 2020\u003c\/i\u003e features brilliant writers with distinct experiences, voices, and styles from all corners of Australia. Together they showcase the strength and diversity of Australian short fiction at its best.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eContributors include:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMAAME BLUE - CLAIRE G. COLEMAN - ELIZABETH FLUX - KATERINA GIBSON - JACK KIRNE - DARIA LEBEDYEVA - DONNA MAZZA - LAURA MCPHEE-BROWNE - SOPHIE OVERETT - KA REES - MIRANDI RIWOE - MYKAELA SAUNDERS - LAURA STORTENBEKER - JESSIE TU - JACK VENING - MADELEINE WATTS\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'If you need any reminder about why fiction matters, read this collection, and join me in grateful awe of these authors.' - Ceridwen Dovey\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eNew Australian Fiction 2019\u003c\/i\u003e:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'The stories in this collection are nuanced, captivating and accomplished. With the briefest of brushstrokes, they reveal vivid and complex worlds. Australian short fiction is indeed alive and well.' - Maxine Beneba Clarke\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'Like the best short fiction should, these stories leave room for interpretation, and echo the despair of the modern age while still providing a glimmer of something close to hope.' - \u003ci\u003eSaturday Paper\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'A consistently high-quality collection...the sort of fiction that is firmly grounded in character and narrative.' - \u003ci\u003eThe Age \/ The Sydney Morning Herald\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'This volume truly has something for everyone, and is a wonderful way to discover some excellent emerging Australian writers.' - Readings\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eListen to the podcast celebrating the launch here\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46713068388588,"sku":"9780994483362","price":29.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/1555443482542.jpg?v=1754316064"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.pro\/collections\/rebecca-starford.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}