The books, old and musty, were stashed at the back of a cupboard for want of shelf space. They’d been there for quite a while. A friend of my mother had owned them once, but had passed them on, suggesting vaguely that “Michelle might like them.” I was in primary school, probably, an avid reader but not much tempted by the heavy, old-fashioned tomes, with no dust jacket or blurb to hint at what lay within.

Not tempted until boredom drove me, one weekend, to dig out those books. Reader, I was transported.

My newest favourite character, Norah Linton, lived with her widowed father and beloved older brother on a huge and prosperous farming property, called…well you know what it was called.

But if you want to know more about Billabong, and about the woman who wrote the best selling Billabong books, you’ll have to travel to Bill’s blog, called the The Australian Legend, where I’ve written a guest post. The Billabong books, in their original unedited form, remain readable, funny and even entertaining. They are also profoundly disturbing.