John Curtin became Australia's Prime Minister eight weeks before Japan launched war in the Pacific. Curtin's struggle for power against Joe Lyons and Bob Menzies, his dramatic use of it when he took office in October 1941, and his determination to be heard in Washington and London as Japan advanced, is a political epic unmatched in Australian experience. As Japan sank much of the Allied navy, advanced on the great British naval base at Singapore, and seized Australian territories in New Guinea, Curtin remade Australia. Using much new material John Edwards' vivid, landmark biography places Curtin as a man of his times, puzzling through the immense changes in Australia and its region released by the mighty shock of the Pacific War. It shows Curtin not as a hero and certainly not as a villain but as the pivotal figure making his uncertain way between what Australia was, and what it would become. It locates the turning point in Australian history not at Gallipoli or the Western Front or even Federation but in the Pacific War and in Curtin's Prime Ministership. This two volume work is a major contribution to Australian biography, and to how we understand our history. In this first part, Edwards takes Curtin's story from the late nineteenth century socialist ferment in Melbourne through to his appointment as prime minister and a Japanese onslaught so complete and successful that within a few months of launching it military leaders in Tokyo debated between the options of invading Australia, or sealing it off from Allied help. --

At 17 she landed a journalism cadetship on Adelaide's daily newspaper, The Advertiser. In 2001, her work as the paper's Youth Affairs Reporter earned her both the South Australian and National Young Journalist of the Year Awards. That was a good year. Next, she did what so many young Aussies do and moved to London for a year - but accidentally stayed for five. Many of Laura's experiences in the UK, including working as an entertainment reporter for several London newspapers and becoming (a somewhat inept) godmother to a close friend's baby daughter, helped to inspire Be My Baby. London also provided Laura with a dashing English husband, and together they moved to Sydney in 2007. She worked as a book publicist and editor of a women's magazine before striking out as a freelance journalist in 2009. As well as continuing to write for many of Australia's best-known magazines, Laura now spends her time matchmaking feisty fictional women with irresistibly sexy leading men. Laura lives on Sydney's Northern Beaches with her family, as well as two incorrigible (but seriously cute) dogs. Her continuing Anne of Green Gables fixation is matched only by her dog obsession, which is why you will always find at least one four-legged friend in Laura's books.