Nine Days — Toni Jordan

Inspired by a wartime photograph, Nine Days is an incredibly moving story spanning three generations of one Australian family.


It is 1939 and although Australia is about to go to war, it doesn't quite realise yet that the situation is serious. Deep in the working-class Melbourne suburb of Richmond it is business -- your own and everyone else's -- as usual. And young Kip Westaway, failed scholar and stablehand, is living the most important day of his life.


Kip's momentous day is one of nine that will set the course for each member of the Westaway clan in the years that follow. At the heart of all their stories is Kip, and at the centre of Kip's fifteen-year-old heart is his adored sister Connie. They hold the threads that will weave a family.


In Nine Days Toni Jordan has harnessed all the spiky wit, compassion and lust for life that drew readers in droves to Addition and Fall Girl. Ambitious in scope and structure, triumphantly realised, this is a novel about one family and every family. It is about dreams and fights and sacrifices. And finally, of course, it is -- as it must be -- about love.


Toni Jordan has a BSc. in physiology and qualifications in marketing and professional writing. Her debut novel, Addition, was shortlisted for the Barbara Jefferis Award and longlisted for the Miles Franklin in 2009, and has been published in sixteen countries. Toni lives in Melbourne.


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'Toni Jordan has written a beautiful novel which captures the loves and fears of an ordinary Australian family through hard times and better times. It reminded me of Elizabeth Stead's books.'  Australian Bookseller & Publisher


'A brilliant piece of writing...The picture [ Jordan] builds is compelling, engaging and will bring tears to the eyes...' Sunday Star Times (NZ)