Against a backdrop of gradually increasing chaos in Hong Kong, tall pale blonde Julia sets sail on serene waters.

Julia is an enigma: daughter of Queensland landed aristocracy, destined for the world of ballet.

Loud-mouthed Lee is straight from the bars and brothels of Kowloon. The two women cement their unlikely friendship making "art movies" and visiting warships at anchor in neutral Hong Kong.

They party hard and sleep with everyone from movie Stars to Naval officers, to Filipino playboys and Russian émigré talent scouts.

They ignore the turmoil around them, the Cultural Revolution in China, the war in Vietnam, but gradually the riots, murders, destructive landslides and typhoons intrude into and encompass the lives of themselves and their men.

Against all odds, they find love.

And experience great loss.

Marya was born in Melbourne, Australia and educated in various state schools and convents in the Victoria countryside.

Hong Kong Lover is her third published book. The Macau Grand Prix and My Part in the Cultural Revolution in China is a memoir of her own experiences in the former Portuguese Province of Macau in 1966/67, published by Ginninderra Press in 1999, reprinting in 2007.

Floating in Foyers: Coralie Wood Lashes Out, a look at the life and back-stage capers of theatrical personality and publicist Coralie Wood. Published by Ginninderra Press in 2006. www.ginninderrapress.com.au

Marya's two one-act plays are Gulf Country and The Ball's Up. Gulf Country is based on an incident which occurred while Marya was on a working holiday in North Queensland. The Ball's Up is her take on life in a publishing house in London, which she set in the football culture of Melbourne. Both plays are published by Ginninderra Press.

Marya spent eight years living in Hong Kong and Macau 1966-74. While Hong Kong Lover is a fiction story with fictional characters, some background events are based on her own experiences.

Marya is a director on the Board of the University Co-operative Bookshop in Australia. She is the producer of a theatre company, The Players Company/UCPlayers.

She has lived in Sydney, Hong Kong, Macau, London, Melbourne, Jervis Bay, North Queensland, Swan Hill and Canberra and she has worked in the rag trade, publishing and bookselling, advertising, newspapers and restaurants.

She now lives and writes in Canberra.

For all books and plays by this author, visit this website:
www.maryaglyndaniel.com.au