Between Us

From the award-winning author of Nona & Me comes a stunning new novel about two teenagers separated by cultural differences, their parents' expectations and twenty kilometres of barbed-wire fence. Is it possible for two very different teenagers to fall in love despite high barbed-wire fences and a political wilderness between them? Anahita is passionate, curious and determined. She is also an Iranian asylum seeker who is only allowed out of detention to attend school. On weekdays, during school hours, she can be a 'regular Australian girl'. Jono needs the distraction of an infatuation. In the past year his mum has walked out, he's been dumped and his sister has moved away. Lost and depressed, Jono feels as if he's been left behind with his Vietnamese single father, Kenny. Kenny is struggling to work out the rules in his new job; he recently started work as a guard at the Wickham Point Detention Centre. He tells Anahita to look out for Jono at school, but quickly comes to regret this, spiraling into suspicion and mistrust. Who is this girl, really? What is her story? Is she a genuine refugee or a queue jumper? As Jono and Anahita grow closer, Kenny starts snooping behind the scenes ... 'An urgent, compelling and transcendent love story of our times.' —Alice Pung 'I want everyone to read this book right now.' —Fiona Wood 'A beautiful, raw and timely book.' —Melina Marchetta Clare Atkins has worked as a scriptwriter for many successful television series, including All Saints and Home and Away . Her debut novel, Nona and Me , won the 2016 Book of the Year in the NT Literary Awards, and was shortlisted for the 2015 Children's Book Council of Australia Awards, longlisted for the 2015 Inky Awards, and highly commended for the 2015 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards. Jono is athletic, musical and self-assured. He sees himself as 100% Australian, despite his Vietnamese heritage. He's had girls keen on him before and hasn't been interested, but Anahita is different. He doesn't know that she lives in a three by three metre room with her mother, and shares a bunk bed with her younger brother. He doesn't know that she has to participate in activities to earn credits to buy a phone card to call him for half an hour. Or that she's allocated an hour of internet time a day, with guards patrolling behind her to make sure she's only doing homework. And she doesn't want to tell him either. She wants to try to maintain the feeling of having something special, something secret, between them. It's one area of her life in which she can pretend to be relatively normal, but for how long? Is it possible for two teenagers to fall in love despite high barbed-wire fences and a political wilderness between them? Anahita is an Iranian asylum seeker who is only allowed out of detention to attend school. Jono needs distraction: in the past year his mum has walked out, he's been dumped and his sister has moved away. Kenny is trying to work out the rules in his new job as a guard at Wickham Point Detention Centre. As Anna and Jono grow closer, Kenny spirals into mistrust and suspicion Ana's in a detention centre and Jono's life is spiralling out of control. Can their growing romance overcome the borders between them?