On a mist-draped river bend, Freddy and Joyce set their small raft into the current, unaware that their journey will ripple across generations. From the mast, a parrot cracks a nut and watches with bright, knowing eyes. Mischievous and wise, he is more than a bird; he is the keeper of secrets, the witness to love and betrayal, war and loss, dreams built and broken along the river's edge.
Spanning three generations, Solero blends family saga, love story, and mythic fable into a lyrical tale of memory and resilience. Echoing the spirit of Gabriel García Márquez yet with a voice entirely its own, this novel invites readers of literary fiction, magical realism, and historical sagas into a world where the river remembers everything and the parrot never forgets.

Brien Cole was born in the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, Australia and has been described as; "a unique voice in Australian Writing" Tom Thompson, ETT Imprint and "An imaginative writer of a high order" Rodney Hall, Australian novelist. Solero: A Parrot's Tale is a marvelous illustration of his lyric style. Thirty years in the writing, thirty years in the living, written by a winemaker from the Mornington Peninsula. Solero weaves into a giant fable all the stories told around the headland posts by the old men who went to war, who grew up in the depression shanty towns, witnessed the days of the paddle streamers and the camel teams. Men and women who have watched the great waves of history crash over their lives. This book has river mud on its boots, wears a battered Akubra hat, has a pair of secateurs in its hand and grape sap in its bloodstream.