The Last Of The Bonegilla Girls

The war is over, but their fight for a new life in Australia is about to begin…

1954: When sixteen–year–old Hungarian Elizabeta arrives in Australia with her family, she is hoping to escape the hopelessness of life as a refugee in post–war Germany.

Her first stop is the Bonegilla Migrant Camp on the banks of the Murray in rural Victoria, a temporary home for thousands of new arrivals, all looking for work and a better life. There, Elizabeta becomes firm friends with the feisty Greek Vasiliki; quiet Italian Iliana; and the adventurous Frances, the daughter of the camp's director.

In this vibrant and growing country, the Bonegilla girls rush together towards a life that seems full of promise, even as they cope with the legacy of war, the oppressive nature of family tradition and ever–present sorrow. So when a ghost from the past reaches out for Elizabeta and threatens to pull her back into the shadows, there is nothing that her friends wouldn't do to keep her safe.

But secrets have a way of making themselves known and lies have a way of changing everything they touch. Can the Bonegilla girls defeat their past? Or has it finally come to claim them?

1 in 20 Australians are related to or descended from someone who went through the Bonegilla Migrant Camp.
In the tradition of Joy Rhoades' The Woolgrower's Companion and Nicole Alexander's Wild Lands Victoria Purman is a multi-published, award-nominated author. Victoria has worked in and around the Adelaide media for nearly thirty years as an ABC television and radio journalist, a speechwriter to a Premier, political adviser, editor, media adviser and private sector communications consultant. She is a Vice President of Romance Writers of Australia, and a long-standing member of the SA Writers Centre Board and the Carclew Youth Arts Board. She is a regular guest at writers festivals and has been nominated for a number of readers' choice awards.

The Last Of The Bonegilla Girls
HQ Fiction
Author: Victoria Purman
RRP: $29.99