Felicity Volk - Desire Lines

Set against the uneasy relationship society has with its own truth-telling in history, war and politics, Felicity Volk's Desire Lines is an epic story of love and the lies we tell ourselves to survive. 

Felicity is joined in-conversation by author Pip Smith.    

This is a FREE event. Drinks and nibbles provided.  

About the Book

Are you still a liar? The crafting of those five words, even without dispatch, left her chilled. 

Arctic Circle, 2012. On a lightless day at the end of the polar winter, landscape architect Evie Waddell finds herself exhuming the past as she buries Australian seeds in a frozen mountain vault - insurance against catastrophe. 

Molong, 1953. Catastrophe is all seven-year-old Paddy O'Connor has known. Shipped from institutional care in London to an Australian farm school, his world is a shadowy place where lies scaffold fragile truths and painful memories. To Paddy's south in Canberra, young Evie is safe in her family's embrace, yet soon learns there are some paths from which you can't turn back; impulses and threats that she only half understands but seems to have known forever.

Blue Mountains, 1962. From their first meeting as teenagers at a country market, Paddy and Evie grow a compulsive, unconventional love that spans decades and crosses continents, taking them in directions neither could have foreseen. 

Set against the uneasy relationship society has with its own truth-telling in history, war and politics, Desire Lines is an epic story of love and the lies we tell ourselves to survive - and a moving reminder that even truths which seem lost forever can find their way home.

Praise

'Felicity Volk is the real deal' - Nikki Gemmell 

'Epic, tender, heart-rending - a story resonating in its spectacular landscapes' - Inga Simpson

'Genuinely tender, passionate and devastating' - Books+Publishing 

'One to savour. Felicity Volk never puts a foot wrong in this beautiful story. I didn't want to leave Evie and Paddy behind!' - John, Better Read Than Dead. 

About the Author

Felicity Volk studied English literature and law at the University of Queensland before joining Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). After diplomatic postings in Bangladesh and Laos, and following the birth of her two daughters, she began writing for publication while continuing to work at DFAT. An award-winning writer of short stories, her first novel, Lightning, was described as 'astonishing ... a propensity of storytelling talent, a bolt of brilliance'. 

Felicity lives in Canberra, dividing her time between the world of foreign policy, writing, painting murals, tending the family menagerie and a forbearing garden and the gentle contemplations offered by a soothing pot of tea.