Revelation Beach

$32.99

Susan Francis

When Eleanor Freeman’s enigmatic stepmother, Ida, dies in a suspicious fire, a lifetime of secrets begins to unravel. Was Ida an Indonesian spy entangled in the murders of the Balibo Five and unspeakable war crimes?

Haunted by the past and pursued by those who would prefer the truth to remain buried, Eleanor flees to a crumbling lighthouse on the mid-north coast of NSW. There, amid salt-lashed cliffs and gathering shadows, she unearths a decades-old conspiracy of betrayal, silence and bloodshed – one that stretches from the halls of Canberra to the ravaged villages of Timor-Leste.

Revelation Beach dares to expose one of Australia’s most shameful cover-ups, where lives were sacrificed for oil, gas and political expediency. At once a literary page-turner and a powerful reckoning, this novel asks the question: How far would you go to uncover the truth?

_________

Susan Francis spent a year in Indonesia in 1980, where she experienced conversations shutting down when she walked into social settings and witnessed chunks of articles in the newspapers blacked out by the censor’s heavy hand as ongoing resistance by the Timorese filled the media. This led her to years of researching this bloody history. In Revelation Beach, Susan intricately weaves fact with fiction to highlight our crucial relationship with our northern neighbours and the devastation when we chose to look away from genocide. With the fiftieth anniversary of the journalists’ deaths in October 2025, Revelation Beach showcases one of the greatest government cover-ups in Australian history. 

Susan Francis

When Eleanor Freeman’s enigmatic stepmother, Ida, dies in a suspicious fire, a lifetime of secrets begins to unravel. Was Ida an Indonesian spy entangled in the murders of the Balibo Five and unspeakable war crimes?

Haunted by the past and pursued by those who would prefer the truth to remain buried, Eleanor flees to a crumbling lighthouse on the mid-north coast of NSW. There, amid salt-lashed cliffs and gathering shadows, she unearths a decades-old conspiracy of betrayal, silence and bloodshed – one that stretches from the halls of Canberra to the ravaged villages of Timor-Leste.

Revelation Beach dares to expose one of Australia’s most shameful cover-ups, where lives were sacrificed for oil, gas and political expediency. At once a literary page-turner and a powerful reckoning, this novel asks the question: How far would you go to uncover the truth?

_________

Susan Francis spent a year in Indonesia in 1980, where she experienced conversations shutting down when she walked into social settings and witnessed chunks of articles in the newspapers blacked out by the censor’s heavy hand as ongoing resistance by the Timorese filled the media. This led her to years of researching this bloody history. In Revelation Beach, Susan intricately weaves fact with fiction to highlight our crucial relationship with our northern neighbours and the devastation when we chose to look away from genocide. With the fiftieth anniversary of the journalists’ deaths in October 2025, Revelation Beach showcases one of the greatest government cover-ups in Australian history. 

  • October 2025 |  9781925893892  | 252 pages | Paperback | 234 × 153mm | Fiction

  • Balibo Five, Timor-Leste, East Timor, Australian thriller, political conspiracy, espionage, historical fiction, literary thriller, betrayal, government cover-up, Australian fiction, psychological suspense, war crimes, journalism, oil politics, Indonesia, cross-cultural thriller

  • 9781925893892 

  • Start reading the book

Praise for Revelation Beach

“Rich with vivid detail and evocatively drawn, Revelation Beach is a compelling reckoning with a dark chapter in our past.”
— Mark Brandi, award-winning crime writer
“A literary page-turner for thriller lovers and everyone with an interest in Timor-Leste and Australia.”
— Tony Park, best-selling author of adventure thrillers

Susan Francis has taken the tragic story of the Balibo Five as a starting point to create a psychologically intricate cross-cultural thriller with the superbly rendered Eleanor as its complex and unwilling protagonist. Reminiscent of Christopher Koch at his best. 
— Ed Wright, editor and critic 


An exquisitely absorbing thriller that works as equal parts mystery and meditation on Australia’s tangled and ignoble history in East Timor and Indonesia. Susan Francis writes her characters with such depth and believability that you can almost touch them.
—Gordon Peake, award winning writer 'Beloved Land,' international consultant, lecturer, podcaster, former senior advisor to United States Institute of Peace.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the deaths of the Balibo Five - a group of Australian and British journalists - in East Timor. Susan Francis’s new novel Revelation Beach is a timely, insightful and emotional read. A reminder of a dark chapter in Australia’s history and the need for us to do everything in our power, as human beings, not to look the other way.
—Claudine Tinellis, Talking Aussie Books

Based on events surrounding Indonesia's invasion of Timor Leste, Revelation Beach thrusts the reader into the world of a complicit Australian Government's back-room deals, treachery and political intrigue. The betrayal of the journalists known as the Balibo Five, and the brutal slaying of thousands of East Timorese are revealed through the story of an interpreter desperately searching to discover the truth.

More from Susan Francis:

Read reviews in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Brisbane Times, WA Today
Read a review and listen to an interview with Living Arts Canberra
Listen to an interview with Cheralyn Darcey on 2HD


Reader Reviews

Revelation Beach is one of the most vivid and intense books I have read in a long time. Read the full review here.

— Sisters in Crime

This comprehensively researched novel weaves a page turning narrative, which not only exposes the destruction resulting from the 1975 invasion of East Timor and the murder of the ‘Balibo Five’ by Indonesian militia, but also the less than honorable stance and role in the shameful cover up of events at this time, undertaken by the Australian Government. Read the full review here.

— Blue Wolf Reviews


Susan Francis has written a fine thriller that additionally offers a compelling insight into the events of 1975 and yet another example of the government’s ruthless position where economic wealth is in play. Read the full review here.

— Queensland Reviewers Collective