Today I released a new novel, And the Women Watch and Wait. It is set in Coburg, in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, between 1914 and 1919 and depicts the struggles of ordinary women left to watch and wait and pray during the four long years that their men were away fighting a war on the other side of the world.

The novel is set within the Catholic community, most of whom had Irish ancestry at this time. The characters are from that portion of the Catholic community whose men did enlis...