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THE BOOKS

 

Leone's writing is open and honest. Her style is spare and simple but constantly displays a willingness to confront and examine both the joyful and the darker aspects of human emotions and relationships. 

Jamie

ISBN-13-978-0992560201

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Jamie longs for love and acceptance. A debilitating childhood illness has left him with physical disabilities but he believes that some day someone will look beneath the surface, see his inner worth and love him for his true self. Despite constant rejection he continues to see every girl who crosses his path as the potential answer to his search for a loving life companion. 

Coins for the Ferryman

ISBN-13-978-0992560164

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At forty and divorced a woman journeys from Australia to Europe on a voyage to freedom and discovery. Her escape is from the past – from the demanding social and sexual roles which have trapped her all her life. In distancing herself she is at last free to examine her childhood, adolescence and marriage, to see with a new clarity her inner compulsions and driving sexuality. This is the story of one woman’s liberation, told with wit and an eccentricity of observation. It is her realization that in the Stygian passage through life she has paid more than her due, and the rest of the journey is free. COINS FOR THE FERRYMAN is a startling first novel from a talented writer.

Mother's Day

ISBN-13-978-0992560171

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Two powerful and controversial novellas comprise this ironically-titled book, in which very bizarre mother- child relationships are explored. 
The characters in MOTHER’S DAY all believe that perfection is possible, that destiny can be controlled, that disorder can be kept at bay, and that actions occur without consequences. 


MOTHER’S DAY is disturbing and disconcerting; its uncluttered and direct style adds to its rawness. The writing is individual and makes for gripping reading. It makes us examine our lives to see how far we manage to keep disorder at bay by ignoring it. And it makes us wonder how narrowly we have escaped fates similar to theirs. 
This is LEONE SPERLING’S second book, originally published in 1984 by Wild & Woolley, Produced by Redress Press.

Oasis

ISBN-13-978-0992560195

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‘Wanted – A man in his forties; good-humoured, tolerant, affectionate, sensual, intelligent.’ 

When Sophie meets John she enters his strange closed world. With him she finds eroticism, comfort and escape. He is her oasis. 
These three interlinked novellas explore the strands of Sophie’s life and her capacity to love; the powerful love that binds her to her children, the poignant love for ageing parents, and the driving search for a loving relationship with a man.

What About Love?

ISBN-13-978-0992560218

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What powerful love relationships lie beneath the surface of a conventional, middle class, Jewish family? How do the dynamics of a family’s emotional life shape the choices that are made as adults? 
We follow two sisters, Naomi and Ruth, as their lives unfold in Sydney from the 1950s to the 1980s. The spare and simple style of this family saga fearlessly probes and examines the nature and complexity of love relationships.

The Book of Life

ISBN-13-978-0992560225

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This is a collection of primarily personal writing consisting of both published and unpublished pieces. There are newspaper articles dealing with family life, short stories that have been published in Australian anthologies and newspapers and an essay that I was asked to provide for a book about fathers. The subject matter is, therefore, varied. I have written about my parents, my children, single parenting and the somewhat frequent failure of my relationships with men. 

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