The Briny Cafe

Brimming with warmth and wit, Susan Duncan's first novel is a delicious tale of friendship and love, and the search for a place to call home...

Ettie Brookbank is the heart and soul of Cook's Basin, a sleepy offshore community comprising a cluster of dazzling blue bays. But for all the idyllic surroundings, Ettie can't help wondering where her dreams have disappeared to.

Until fate offers her a lifeline - in the shape of a lopsided little café on the water's edge.

When Bertie, its cantankerous septuagenarian owner, offers her ‘the Briny’ for a knockdown price, it's an opportunity too good to miss. But it's a mammoth task - and she'll need a partner.

Enter Kate Jackson, the enigmatic new resident of the haunted house on Oyster Bay. Kate is also clearly at a crossroads - running from a life in the city that has left her lonely and lost.

Could a ramshackle cafe and its endearingly eccentric customers deliver the new start both women so desperately crave?

PRAISE FOR SALVATION CREEK:

‘Beautiful, dreamy writing and gut-wrenching honesty’ Australian Women’s Weekly

‘Told with humour, honesty and brilliance. Don’t miss it’ Woman’s Day

‘A wonderful read. Ruthlessly honest, passionate, gutsy and funny. I couldn’t put it down’ Maggie Tabberer

Reading Group Book Questions

1. How important are strong communities (or groups such as book clubs!)) in our lives?
2. Have we all become too willing to hand over responsibility for our well-being to authorities (government, police etc) instead of standing up for what we believe in?
3. Do miracles happen?
4. Is Artie right to stick to his independence even if it means taking much greater risks?
5. Would YOU like to live in a place like Cook's Basin?

About the Author

After a 25-year career spanning radio, newspaper and magazine journalism, including editing two of Australia's top selling women's magazines, THE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN'S WEEKLY and NEW IDEA, SUSAN DUNCAN woke up one morning and chucked in her job. The decision followed the deaths of her husband and brother. After struggling to begin again, she finally found her own patch of paradise on earth only to discover it might already be too late when she was diagnosed with cancer herself.

Today Susan lives with her second husband, Bob, on the shores of Pittwater at Tarrangaua, the beautiful home built for poet Dorothea Mackellar in 1925. Susan's bestselling memoir, SALVATION CREEK, won the 2007 Nielsen BookData Booksellers Choice Award and was shortlisted for the prestigious Dobbie Award, part of the Nita B Kibble awards for women writers. She has now turned her hand to fiction, with her first novel THE BRINY CAFE, set in a fictional Pittwater.