All Our Shimmering Skies

From the author of Boy Swallows Universe, Trent Dalton, comes All Our Shimmering Skies, a mesmerising and critically acclaimed novel destined to become an Australian classic.

Set against the backdrop of World War II in Darwin, 1942, as Japanese bombs rain down, we follow the captivating journey of motherless Molly Hook, the gravedigger's daughter. Guided by messages from the sky, Molly embarks on a quest to lift a family curse placed by Longcoat Bob, a formidable deep-country sorcerer. Carrying a stone heart and a precious map in her duffel bag, Molly is joined by the most unlikely of companions: Greta, a sharp-tongued actress, and Yukio, a fallen Japanese fighter pilot.

In their journey through northern Australia's magical and wild monsoon landscapes, Molly learns about friendship and love while braving unimaginable challenges. All Our Shimmering Skies is a poignant exploration of the gifts that fall from the sky, the curses we dig from the earth, and the secrets we bury deep within ourselves. It weaves an unforgettable tale of true love, grave danger, light and darkness, bones and blue skies, wrapped in warmth, wit, and wonder.

'A glinting, big-hearted miracle of a book.' – Richard Glover

'A work of shimmering originality and energy, with extraordinary characters and a clever, thrilling plot ... unputdownable.' – Sydney Morning Herald

This odyssey-like narrative is Trent Dalton's heartfelt love letter to Australia and the art of looking up. It's a buoyant, beautiful, and magical novel that is as rich in imagination as it is in emotion.

'Dalton is an author of 19th-century expansiveness, one with a sense that intelligence, talent for characterisation and sheer narrative brio can still be the whole cloth of the writer's ambition ... it is storytelling manna, fallen straight from the Territorian skies.' – The Australian

'Achingly beautiful and poetic in its melancholy, All Our Shimmering Skies is a majestic and riveting tale of curses and the true meaning of treasure.' – Booklist, starred review

'As Australian as outback red dirt and as universal as the sky young Molly Hook's journey takes place beneath, All Our Shimmering Skies is an open-hearted wonder, by turns heartbreaking and full of hope, no less than an instant classic.' – Venero Armanno

'Australia has a new literary hero. Molly Hook – part Cordelia, part Jo March, part Pippi Longstocking – pulls us into a story and a landscape that is mythic, beguiling, and almost hallucinatory in its beauty. And instantly recognisable as our own.' – Kristina Olsson

'This is storytelling at its absolute purest, a truly courageous expression of longing, hope and love ... against unimaginable odds.' – Asher Keddie

'All Our Shimmering Skies is the follow-up to Boy Swallows Universe we could have never imagined, but the one Dalton was destined to gift us. It’s a story of heroes and villains, foxes and water buffalo, fighter planes and birds of prey, real magic and real love, epitaphs and aphorisms, lost treasure and lost life. It’s a love letter to the nation. It’s your favourite childhood adventure story dictated by Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman and William Shakespeare, with a score by Franz Liszt. It's dead serious. It's completely ridiculous. It's all of these things and more.' – Booktopia