Books by Susanna De Vries

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THE BIOGRAPHY WITH ALL THE EXCITEMENT OF A NOVEL ABOUT NELL TRITTON, QUEENSLAND’S INTERNATIONAL HEROINE

Nell Tritton, daughter of the owner of Tritton’s, Brisbane first department store, was determined to embrace a life of adventure after her siblings died in the 1919 Spanish flu pandemic. Nell became Brisbane’s first female journalist., won prizes for rally driving before moving to Paris to perfect her French. Under very romantic circumstances Nell fell in love with a penniless Tsarist officer but divorced when he turned out to be a fortune hunter. Nell’s spy novel To Moscow with Love, with the background of the 1918 ‘Lockhart plot’ to kill Lenin was deemed too dangerous to publish as the British government were determined to cover up the failed plot.

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Royal Marriages : Diana, Camilla, Kate & Meghan and princesses who did not live happily ever after

From the author of Royal Mistresses and sixteen entertaining and informative biographies of interesting women comes this is an uncensored account of bizarre royal marriages and the cruelty of nine centuries of marriages of Princes of Wales and monarchs to titled virginal European princesses and teenage aristocrats who they did not love. Princes married to gain huge dowries from their wives or military alliances with powerful countries but often preferred seductive mistresses to their wives who, as Princess Diana observed on her 'Secrets' videotape, were used as 'baby factories.' Young Princess Isabella of France was a romantic and was shocked to discover her new husband in love with gay Sir Piers Gavaston. His homosexual relationship caused so much jealousy at court and Gaveston was murdered. Equally, young and romantic Princess Anna of Denmark found her middle-aged husband King James I in love with the charismatic handsome courtier ennobled as Duke of Buckingham. Both these royal husbands spent long periods ignoring their arranged brides and only visited their bedchambers to fulfill their duty and attempt to sire 'the heir and the spare' so their dynasty would carry on the line. 

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AUSTRALIAN HEROINES OF WORLD WAR ONE

These are the real life stories of eight courageous women told through their letters, secret diaries, maps and original photographs; Australia’s first women war correspondent and her daring escape from the Germans and seven army nurses from every Australian State including Queensland's Grace Wilson. This young attractive matron whose nursing staff were devoted to her was ordered to set up a hospital for Gallipoli casualties on Lemnos Island. When Grace and her nurses arrived on the island they found that a War Office blunder had sent all medical supplies, tents and bedding to Egypt. There were no sanitary arrangements and very little drinking water but Grace was an inspiring leader and the 'hospital from hell' only lost 2% of its patients. These women had the courage of the Anzacs they nursed and the compassion that women bring to war. Fascinating war diaries published are of nurses Hilda Samsing and Muriel Wakeford serving on a hospital ship between Anzac Cove and Alexandria who reveal the truth about the bungled evacuation of the wounded from Gallipoli with an introduction by Major General John Pearn of the Australian Army Medical Reserve. 

*A PowerPoint Presentation containing 75 images is available for schools from the author. PRICE $150 including postage

REVIEWS

The Australian
The Sunday Mail (Qld)
Illawarra Mercury

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ROYAL MISTRESSES OF THE HOUSE OF HANOVER-WINDSOR
The genuine love match between Prince William and Kate Middleton has rekindled enthusiasm for the monarchy. All these arranged loveless marriages between Princes of the House of Hanover-Windsor and German princesses or aristocrats ensured vacancies for royal mistresses.

In the past princes were made to marry for dynastic reasons or for money. Loveless royal marriages ensured princes and kings took mistresses.

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FEMALES ON THE FATAL SHORE
Fettered and Free

This is the story of the lives of 14 significant women who sailed to the Australian colonies in its founding years.

The first to arrive was Esther Abrahams, a 16-year-old Jewish girl transported for shoplifting two cards of lace. Esther and other female convicts landed on ‘the fatal shore’ in a storm and she and many other female convicts were set upon by sex-starved men who had been awaiting their arrival for two weeks.

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A collector's edition
with two extra plates.

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ETHEL CARRICK FOX
Travels and Triumphs of a Post-Impressionist

In 1996 Ethel Carrick Fox became Australia's highest-priced woman artist when her painting of a French flower market sold at auction for $105,500. She had been ignored for decades - some of her unsigned works had been attributed to her more famous husband, Emanuel Phillips Fox, by unscrupulous art dealers who also accused her of forging her husband's name on her works in order to sell them at a higher price.
 

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HEROIC AUSTRALIAN WOMEN IN WAR
Astonishing tales of bravery from Gallipoli to Kokoda

Nancy Wake remarked: 'The exploits of Australia's women at war have been sadly neglected for years.’ Yet women have suffered, strengthened and defied fear in extraordinary acts of bravery.
 

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BLUE RIBBONS, BITTER BREAD
The life of Joice NanKivell Loch - Australia’s most heroic woman

JOICE LOCH was an extraordinary Australian. She had the inspired courage that saved many hundreds of Jews and Poles in World War II, the compassion that made her a self-trained doctor to tens of thousands of refugees, the incredible grit that took her close to death in several theatres of war, and the dedication to truth and justice that shone forth in her own books and a lifetime of astonishing heroism.
 

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REBEL WOMEN WHO CHANGED AUSTRALIA
Visionaries, pioneers, activists and artists - women who made a difference to Australia

An updated and condensed edition of Susanna de Vries' Great Australian Women, this is a celebration of women who broke the mould, crashed through the ceilings, and shaped the nation in the fields of medicine, law, the arts and politics.

From Lillie Goodisson, pioneer of family planning, to Eileen Joyce, world-famous pianist, Enid Lyons, our first female cabinet minister, Stella Miles Franklin, who endowed our most celebrated literary prize, and Catherine Hamlin, who has given hope to thousands of women through her fistula hospitals in Africa, these are women who have made a difference. They are the women who helped to forge the Australia we know today.

This book can be purchased directly from Harper Collins Publishers here

Susanna de Vries is an international author and former lecturer at the Queensland University. She writes full time and lectures in public libraries and to branches of ADFAS, the Australian Fine and Decorative Art Society.

Many of Susanna's books are available as e-books, audio books and Blue Ribbons is a print on demand book from Dennis Jones Associates, Melbourne.

AWARDS
Order of Australia (AM) for services to literature
Winston Churchill Fellowship

Tyrone Guthrie Fellowship, Ireland and non-fiction prize
Sligo Writers Festival

Alice Award, New South Wales Society of Women Writers 2012

The Alice is a prestigious award for any author as it is awarded by a jury of fellow writers. Previous winners have included major names in Australian literature like Dame Mary Durack, Judith Wright, Ruth Park, Kylie Tennant, Kate Grenville and Brenda Niall. The bronze statuette is awarded for 'an outstanding long-term contribution to Australian literature.
Alice Award Winner 2012