BALLARAT BEGONIA FESTIVAL | 8 - 10 March 2025. Related...
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In Conversation with Tea Cooper
$10
Humffray Room
The Golden Thread
Tea Cooper.
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Intricate threads from the past and the present bind together a yellow silk dress, lost gold and a missing grandmother in a twisty historical mystery from the bestselling author of:
The Talented Mrs Greenway.
Maitland, 1889
When nineteen-year-old Constance Montague wakes one Wednesday she expects the day to unfold like any other. Breakfast with her grandmother Nell and her mother Faith, a meeting in Maitland with the ladies of the Benevolent Society, perhaps a gentle stroll along the banks of the Hunter River. But this Wednesday is different. Nell has vanished.
Concerned, Connie determines to track Nell down and follows a lead to Old Government House in Parramatta, now a guest house. There, to her astonishment she finds her grandmother holding court.
When Nell introduces her as her companion to a varied cast of colourful guests, including a frail but observant old lady, a travelling salesmen, a bearded lothario, a clever articled clerk, a lively seamstress and an enigmatic housekeeper who is connected with Nell’s past, Connie begins to realise that her grandmother is not who she seems. Nell is looking for something and following a thread stitched long ago, a thread that leads from some missing gold, to a damask dress and the attic of Government House. As the story unravels so do the secrets of the past, secrets that surface into the present to threaten not just Nell, but Connie too.
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Tea Cooper is an award-winning Australian author of historical fiction.
In a past life she was a teacher, a journalist and a farmer. These days she haunts museums and indulges her passion for storytelling. She is the internationally bestselling author of several novels, including The Talented Mrs Greenway, The Butterfly Collector, The Naturalist’s Daughter, the USA Today-bestselling The Woman in the Green Dress, The Girl in the Painting and The Cartographer’s Secret, winner of the prestigious Daphne du Maurier Award.
Enquiries: Any event specific enquires should be direct to library@ballaratmi.org.au
$10 per person plus booking fee & gst includes light refreshment. All proceeds go to the Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute to support the staging of our author events.
Book on-line or contact Rosemary at the Libary via email library@ballaratmi.org.au or phone (03) 5331 3042
Collins Booksellers, Ballart on Lydiard
will be handling book sales for the event.
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This event takes place on Wadawurrung Country. Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute acknowledges the Wadawurrung People of the Kulin Nation as the first inhabitants and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we work, learn and create. Always Was, Always Will Be, Aboriginal Land.
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