WELCOMES YOU TO HER
THREE EXCITING
QUALITY COMMERCIAL
CRIME FICTION NOVELS.
AUSTRALIAN THROUGH AND THROUGH
WITH
INDEPTH COMPLEX CHARACTERS,
GREAT CHAPTER HOOKS
TO KEEP YOU GUESSING,
and
AN UNEXPECTED CONCLUSION.
KERRY ANNE
IS PROUD TO PRESENT
BOOK 1
OF HER
'THIEVES OF INNOCENCE' TRILOGY.
KERRY ANNE SULLIVAN
'SECRETS WILL SURFACE'
PLEASE FOLLOW ME ON
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"Secrets Will Surface" has been completed to the Draft 8 stage and is just under 100,000 words.
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It is a crime novel suitable for both male and female readers, with a reading age range of 18 to 85 years.
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Set in Melbourne and Victoria, Australia, it features currently rarely spoken of serious social issues, high drama, and achievements beyond what our protagonist, Kas Murphy Goldman could have ever dreamed. Kas is the type of woman many of us would like to be—fearless, smart, determined, and an award-winning artist who, like any capable country woman, has pulled herself up by her G string to find love, and make a success of herself as a business woman in Melbourne. But she has always yearned to discover why, only she has, for her entire lonely life, been persecuted and ostracised by her narrow minded family. So she decides to find out why her father refused her sister and herself to contact his family. After her father's demise, she discovers the Murphy clan in the Mallee but when a headless body washes up on the side of the local lake, things get complicated, leading Kas to retreat to her Melbourne studio and paint for the Archibald Art Prize.
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On the night she wins the prestigious Archibald, the many pieces of the puzzle fall into place, in an exceptional last-minute turn of events.
Interested Literary Agents
and
Publishers
Please submit your interest
via my email address:
sullivankerryanne1@gmail.com
KERRY ANNE
IS PROUD TO PRESENT
'West of Sunrise'
BOOK 2
OF
'THIEVES OF INNOCENCE' TRILOGY
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West of Sunrise has been completed to the Draft 3 stage. Approximately 120,000 words
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A Crime Novel, suitable for male and female's read, age range, 18 to 85 years
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Set in Melbourne, and rural Victoria Australia,
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Featuring high drama.
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The story includes the same protagonists, antagonists, and the main characters as in Book 1
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An expose of the possible dangers and vulnerability of Melbourne, Australia, in the 2020s to an act of terrorism, as seen through the eyes of the main characters. It is a great impacting story of heartache, tragedy and our infamous Australian resilience, which, however, questions our ability to cope as a society, inclusive of the consequent devastation of our Australian way of life on so many levels.
KERRY ANNE
IS PROUD TO PRESENT
BOOK 3
OF
'THIEVES OF INNOCENCE' TRILOGY
'ON THE WINGS OF A DRAGONFLY'
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'On the 'Wings of a Dragonfly,' has been completed to Draft 3.
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It is a continuation of the Murphy Family saga following on from Book 1 'Secrets Will Surface' and Book 2 'West of Sunrise'
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It is set in picturesque British Columbia, Canada, Vancouver Island, the Rocky Mountains, as well as in Seattle, USA, and Victoria Australia.
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It is a galloping, tense, nail biting, Crime Novel with an unusual beginning and unexpected conclusion.
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It is primarily a woman's read.
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Age range of readers is 15 to 85 years.
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It is 130,000 words in length at this point in time.
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The protagonist Kas Goldman, her husband Sam, and her niece Felicity, along with a contagion of interesting characters become caught up in a tangle of crime, murder, drug running bikies, a corrupt politician, and his cohorts who are protected by international political inertia.
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The aims of the major characters and her family is not only to find Felicity, but to get her safely home to Australia. After which they set a plan..... to catch the 'crooks.'
PLEASE NOTE
"All images of my novels in my 'Thieves of Innocence' Trilogy have been designed and produced entirely by myself, primarily for the purpose of creating a mental image that will help them remember the content of that particular novel. They are by no means professional images, and when the book goes to press, I am sure the publishers will want to change them."
A LITTLE OF MY LIFE'S FOOTPRINTS IN THE SAND
have given me the credentials to write these amazing stories
I was born in a tiny town in the Mallee area of north-west Victoria in Australia and lived the first half of my life on a farm with my family. Life was tough, no electricity, money or entertainment, but lots of hard work as we were all expected to help on the farm and in the house.
Unfortunately, I was born with an invisible disease called Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, an inflammatory autoimmune disease for which no cure has ever been found. I looked like a big, robust, healthy child, but as I grew, I was always tired, with aching joints and limbs. I found it hard to focus, and when other kids were still full of energy, all I wanted to do was lie down. As well, my immune system was so challenged when I started school that I caught every bug going around. Numerous days were spent at home recovering, and I fell further and further behind in my reading and writing.
But that was not my major problem. Even though I tried as hard as I could and listened intently to my teacher, phonics and word recognition simply made no sense to me, and my progress was pathetically slow.
When I had to repeat Grade 3 because I could not read or write, I was so ashamed and upset. Mum and Dad had their own problems, so there was little sympathy or help coming from them, except for......
'You had better pull my socks up, my girl, or you'll end up being a ning nong and a no-hoper.'
I didn't know what a ning nong was, but I sure as heck knew it sounded pretty awful. After Dad's prophecy, I spent a lot of my time trying to figure out how I could avoid it.
But I was not only hurt and humiliated at having to repeat Grade 3, but also as angry as a hessian bag full of half-drowned kittens. And I was damn well not going to accept that I was DUMB....... because I knew I wasn't !! I could figure things out, like measurements, money, addition and subtraction, multiplication, and even long division. Times tables were easy for me, so why couldn't I learn to read, spell and write?
It wasn't until many years later, when I was at teacher's college, that 'dyslexia' became a word that caught everyone's attention. And when I found out what it was, I knew that was what had been my problem. Moving on a few years to when my daughter, now a Research Scientist, working in oncology, showed signs of dyslexia, I tried so hard to give her the help I was never given. Years passed, and intense research into what caused Dyslexia enlightened me. Diagnosis of auditory agnosia, which is the inability to recognise or understand sounds, even if the physical hearing is intact. And after that, Cortical deafness was diagnosed as a similar condition in which the brain could not process auditory signals, resulting in hearing loss despite the ears functioning normally. Then I found out about oculomotor dysfunction, which Google describes as any problem with eye movement control, affecting tasks like reading, writing, and tracking.
Ha, ha, begad and begorrah!!...... YES... finally.... as a grown, mature woman, I had finally figured out why I was unable to learn to read and write like the other kids. I was no longer' thought of myself as 'DUMB.'
But I transgress..... just how did I manage to learn to read and write when I was only eight years old?
In my childish mind, the one thing I knew I had that was above average was my memory. So I looked for other attributes in my personality, of which I had many: 1. my dogged determination, 2. my great memory, and 3. my absolute desire to achieve and 4. my utter stubbornness - to never give in, and never give up, no matter what.
A year before I figured everything out, our house burned down when the kerosene fridge exploded. Devastated, my parents had little time to consider my need for books to further my plan. So each afternoon after school, I would sit and attempt to read the simpler words in the *Sun* and *Weekly Times* newspapers that Dad had delivered twice a week to the farm. I also had my school reader, which I would read every evening. After that, I would sit at the kitchen table under the light of the old hurricane lamp, trying to read from the newspapers while Mum prepared the evening meal. I would spell out the words I couldn’t sound out or understand to her. Little by little, the number of unfamiliar words decreased, and my reading skills slowly improved.
The other thing I decided would be a great help to my reading, and especially my writing, was using my excellent memory to become a 'you beaut' top speller. So each evening after I went to bed I would memorise, the shape, the sequence of the letters of my ten words on my daily spelling list and repeatedly spell them over and over until I fell asleep. The next morning at school, if I didn't get one hundred per cent correct, I would, as soon as I arrived home, practise writing the words I mispelt over and over until I made no mistakes. Over time, I became a 'word nerd'. And when I went to boarding school, my entertainment after I had finished my homework was to scroll through my dictionary, all the time testing myself on spelling, and discovering the meaning of recently acquired words. And it worked.......
I can read, and I can write, and I think pretty damn well.
In adulthood, I became a primary school teacher, teaching mostly on a casual basis in many Mallee rural schools, after which I became a farmer's wife and partner in running a few thousand acres of wheat and sheep for 23 years. It was during this time that I went back to what I had loved as a child, drawing and eventually painting seriously, learning all I could about Art from books on loan from the library bus that came to our tiny town once a month. I had three beautiful children, then after leaving the marriage and the farm, due to continual episodes of domestic violence I decided to go on an 'art crawl' around the world to educate myself about all facets of art, visiting artists' studios, fine art printers, print manufactures, exhibitions, and so much more, as I drove myself across Canada and the USA in a 1974 Ford Econoline Van I called 'The Radisson'. Wow, what an amazing trip that was. During that time, I spent a lot of time on Vancouver Island and in British Columbia, not realising that I would one day write Book 3 of my trilogy, "On the Wings of a Dragon Fly," about that fascinating, beautiful place.
After six months instead of the planned twelve months, I returned home to Australia because an Art Gallery I had hoped to buy had finally come on the market. After I bought Kerry Anne's Akoonah Park Gallery, I spent four years having the privilege of promoting many of Australia's major artists, writing editorials and advertising major Australian artists, writing editorials, designing advertising and promotional articles for many regional and city magazines and papers. Working seven days a week caused my Hashimoto's to become dangerously high and my energy levels to drop drastically, so I decided to downsize, sell the real estate and move the business/gallery into Toorak, where "Kerry Anne's Fine Art' traded until I met my 'good husband,' Paul.
Back in 1993, when I first left my marriage, I turned again to writing poetry, and it was then that I began to write my first novel about my life in the Mallee, involving twenty-three years of domestic violence, with few women's rights and constant generational male bigotry and dominance. This book went through numerous titles until I settled on "After Dark Comes Light". Unfortunately, threats from my ex 'to sue the pants off me' forced me to put that novel to rest to wait for a better time further down the track. Then, in 2005, I began writing my trilogy called 'Thieves of Innocence'
PLEASE FOLLOW ME ON
KA' S POETRY
I have been writing poetry since I was in high school. I have had a great love of Banjo Patterson's colourful Australian ballads since being coached to recite' The Man From Iron Bark' in primary school [which I still love.] Chaucer, Elliott, Browning, and our Australian Poet ?? are but a few who have inspired me over the years
The Aussie Fly
Have you ever sat a cursin’ in the blazin’ Mallee heat?
As the flies arise and settle on ya freshly butchered meat.
You swat and curse and wave about but all to no avail,
As another squadron zeros in and settles on the tail.
They’re in ya eyes and in ya mouth and up ya nose as well
Until at last in sheer despair ya give a lusty yell
They’re persistent little beggars and they’ll drive you really nuts
And there’s nothing they like better than getting in ya cuts.
To start a mass infection that will really lay ya low
So the Spray is the only answer to really make them go.
If this method is a failure there’s the trusty plastic swatter.
Which is always used a lot more as the weather it gets hotter.
And when it is a ‘undred and the blowies are a buzzin’
You’ll be exterminating the little bastards, ten to the dozen.
Our Aussie wave is famous right across this land
For friends and foes alike, we’ll always raise our hand
Not in salutation but in a bid to brush away
Those foul filthy flies that really want to stay.
For our Aussie fly is friendly a persistent little pest
Who arrives at all our functions as an uninvited guest,
To buzz amongst the pav and cakes and sit upon the snags
And what it does to a sausage roll is enough to make you gag.
So it's hit’ em high and hit ‘em low and blast them with the sprayer
So our outings will be fly-free and blow the ozone layer!
For this land of ours is a paradise for a fly and all his rellies
And the only place in this wide world where grown men keep tallies.
At the National Fly-swatting Championship is held here every year,
When the fellers all gather ‘round and swat and swill their beer.
In one mighty hand is their stubbie and in the other the old fly swatter
And it heard as the sun climbs high – ‘I’ve got the little rotter.”
At the end of a long hard day the final count is done,
And to declare that a new world record and championships been won.
However, it is only a brief respite from our friendly little pests
That multiply in the wink of an eye and I think you know the rest.
By Kerry Anne Sullivan
Come into My Parlour
“Come into my parlour”
Said the spider to the fly
I only speak the truth,
You know I wouldn’t lie.”
The poor old fly looked wary
And he knew not what to say,
He wanted to make a run for it,
He didn’t want to stay.
“Come in and sit a while my friend,”
Said Spider to the fly.
“You’re looking very well dear boy,
Oh my you do have style.”
Poor old Fly gulped nervously,
He looked around in fright.
He knew it was the gospel truth
That spiders like to bite.
He took one shaky step,
Then all at once he saw,
That Spider had the table set
And had securely locked the door
Fly, he edged around the room
He knew that Spider was his foe
He tried to look relaxed and cool
But his face was full of woe.
Now Fly, he knew he had a chance
To make a break, and go.
So he edged along quite cautiously,
To the window, deep and low.
Spider turned around in haste and saw
The fly breaks glass.
The Spider threw his legs up
And truly looked aghast
As Fly flew out to freedom
He knew Spider would try again,
For a coup that would be perfect.
This, indeed, was not the end.
By Kerry Anne Sullivan
By the Lake
The sun is sinking in the west as it silhouettes the trees,
That grow along the lakeside and nod gently in the breeze.
As I sit beside the water in the coolness of the eve,
I watch the birdlife gather as, at dusk, they start to feed.
The pelicans fly over in search of flashing fish,
And graceful swans turn turtle for some illusive tasty dish.
To the sound of magpies chortling the light begins to fade,
Then down beside the bank I spy a water rat that wades,
To get his evening meal he swims, across the mirrored lake,
And breaks the polished surface with his quickly widening wake.
It’s a peaceful scene upon the lake, as darkness comes to stay,
As streetlights then begin to blink and so ends another day.
By Kerry Anne Sullivan
The Sunflower
The flowers that came from her fertile womb
Have now bloomed and drifted away to gardens of their own,
Around her, only the weeds presently flourish.
She stands alone and withered
And fragile to the whipping winds.
No one cares as she is no longer a joy to behold, just something windswept
And alone, her head drooped earthwards.
Her only friends are the birds that,
Like the parasites of Life, peck at her cadaverous flesh
Hoping to find sustenance.
But she takes joy from these birds,
As they bring to her the songs of her youth
And remind her of days when she stood tall and proud and colourful
In the centre of all the other flowers in the garden.
How proud she was then!
How beautiful, how happy,
And how popular; everyone wanted to stand next to her.
Now only the birds, the weeds and the ants wish to be seen in her company
She had given all and has nothing left,
Only her emaciated fragile self.
Was it worth it?
Oh yes, God help those poor souls
Who never stood in the sunshine so important,
For in the Autumn of their lives, they cannot stand tall and remember their triumphs.
They just fall amongst the weeds and crumble back to dust,
Unloved, unseen, uncared for,
And unmissed.
By Kerry Anne Sullivan
The Wedgetail
Fingers are feathered with hot thermals
Rising from the red ochre plains.
I soar higher
And feel dizzy with the euphoria of flight.
Spiraling,
I skydive down invisible shafts of warm air rising.
Eyes pinpoint and probing,
I locate the red earth movement far below.
Power kamikazing down,
Radaring in on the prey.
The rabbit sits stock still
Statured against the saltbush and sand red.
Talons tightened,
Taut in anticipation.
Whoosh, squeal and flap,
Lunch is served.
By Kerry Anne Sullivan
'The Old Mysia Store'