Showing results by publisher "Penguin Random House Australia Audio" in All Categories

At the age of ten, and just short of four feet tall, a boy from Ballarat named Johnny Day became Australia's first international sporting hero. Against adult competition he wooed crowds across continents as the World Champion in pedestrianism, the sporting craze of the day. A few years later, in 1870, he won the Melbourne Cup on a horse aptly called Nimblefoot, this time impressing British royalty and Melbourne's high society. And then, still aged only fourteen, this already-famous athlete and jockey disappeared without a trace. Robert Drewe picks up where history leaves off.

At age 28, Jane Austen should be seeking a suitable husband, but all she wants to do is write. She is forced to take extreme measures in her quest to find true love - which lands her in the most extraordinary of circumstances. Magically, she finds herself in modern-day England, where horseless steel carriages line the streets and people wear very little clothing. She forms a new best friend in fading film star Sofia Wentworth, and a genuine love interest in Sofia's brother Fred, who has the audacity to be handsome, clever and kind-hearted.

One of the top storylines from the 2021 Tokyo Olympics was the brigade of bandits from Australia throwing down at the freestyle park for the inaugural action-sports events—in particular the young gun from Logan City, Queensland, who took the gold medal off the table before his competitors knew what had happened. But there's been nothing easy about Logan's ascent to the top. A testament to dedication and self-discipline, artistry and courage, Logan Martin has set the bar for what it means to be an international extreme sports athlete.

We are all crazily busy. Yet many of us know that we still need to take the time to learn how to get better. Better at productivity. Better at achievement. Better at running our minds and bodies in the optimum way to enhance our rate of success. So how can we fulfil our potential when there's so much else to do? Win Fast offers succinct, proven strategies in no-nonsense language to help us rise to a new level in our personal and business lives, to be more productive and efficient and to exceed our goals.

Across these twenty fresh and boldly intimate stories, Erin Riley writes about the things that matter most: family, heartbreak, humanity, justice and swimming, and the messy, hard graft of becoming one's authentic self. In weaving together their everyday while questioning society and its structures, Erin gifts us stories that double as a manifesto on how to disrupt and reinvent narrative, identity, love and community.

On the cusp of turning thirty, Prue feels like everyone else is living their best life. Her friends are boasting about everything from their wellness achievements and exciting travel plans to their romantic relationships and newborn babies. Prue on the other hand is struggling to recover from a failed marriage engagement and an abandoned university degree, and her job at Love on the Line counselling lonely people only seems to highlight how truly alone she really feels herself.

Change can turn our plans, our lives and our dreams upside down. Whether you have faced a redundancy, been in an accident, lost a loved one, had a health scare, or been impacted by an economic downturn, your ability to navigate through the change process and create an alternative plan will be the key to your future happiness. Shannah Kennedy, best-selling author of The Life Plan, has created a simple yet powerful four-part guide that is designed to give you the confidence to accept, heal, grow and adapt.

In 2000, Rebekah Robertson gave birth to twin boys, George and Harry. But as they grew older, their preferences began to show, and by the age of three it was clear Georgie was drawn to anything that was pretty or had a skirt that could swirl. Before long Georgie began to insist that she was a girl and became distressed that she had to hide who she really was when she started school. Soon the bullying started, and she would come home in floods of tears, begging her mother to help her.

The jump between primary and secondary school marks one of the biggest transitions in a student's life. It's the point at which a child leaves the relatively safe cocoon of childhood and enters the wide world of adolescence. For both parents and their children, it can be a huge shock, as they encounter a minefield of serious issues to deal with - everything from peer and study pressures to phones, parties and beyond.

Emma Jane has lived a thousand colourful lives. She escaped a small town and a traumatic childhood by moving to Sydney, where she made an indelible imprint on the oppressively blokey mediascape. She played in an all-girl band, married a rock star she hardly knew, had a baby, ditched journalism for academia and changed her name from Emma Tom to Emma Jane. But all the while, she was struggling with her mental health. Then, during the first Sydney lockdown she was accidentally sectioned in a psychiatric ward.

Set between England and India, Faithless tells the story of Cressida, a writer and translator, and her consuming love for Max, an enigmatic older writer—and married man. Faithless charts the course of Cressida's passion for Max from the first giddy rush of sensation when home during her first year of university, to the blossoming of a desire so potent it overwhelms, and the great stunning blows to the heart delivered by a love that she can't share with friends and family.

In 1966, at the age of 10, Martin Flanagan was sent to a Catholic boarding school in north-west Tasmania. Of the 12 priests on the staff, three have since gone to prison for sexual crimes committed against boys in their care. In 2018 and 2019, a series of disclosures about the school appeared on the ABC Tasmania website. Then came the Pell case. What followed was a frenzy of opinions, none of which represented Flanagan's view. The Empty Honour Board is part memoir, a reflection on truth and memory, and what is lost in rushing to judgement.

After sharing their artistic frustrations at the school gate, two women decide to take a risk: to co-write a book about early motherhood. Off-colour, offbeat, off their heads, they begin—but then, what is motherhood if not messy, non-linear, multi-authored and potty mouthed? Together they gather scenes and songs, poems and text messages, insights and ephemera, alive to both the playfulness and the danger of co-creation.

Beautiful, young and privileged, Rose Kingsbury Smith is expected to play by the strict rules of social etiquette, to forfeit all career aspirations and to marry a man of good means. But she has a quietly rebellious streak and is determined to make her own mark on Manhattan's growing skyline. When the theft of a precious heirloom plunges her family into financial ruin, Rose becomes her family's most tradeable asset. She finds herself fighting for her independence and championing the ideal of equality for women everywhere.

It's winter in Melbourne, and Detective Emmett Corban is starting to regret his promotion to head of the Missing Persons Unit, as the routine reports pile up on his desk. So when Natale Gibson goes missing, he's convinced this is the big case he's been waiting for - the woman's husband and parents insist the devoted mother would never abandon her children, and her personal accounts remain untouched. But things aren't all they seem. The close-knit Italian family is keeping secrets - none bigger than the one Natale has been hiding.

Roman Quaedvlieg was always destined to make a mark. As a rookie policeman on the mean streets of Fortitude Valley in the dying days of the Moonlight State, his first arrest was Brisbane's most wanted escapee. Three decades later, he found himself navigating through the corridors of power in Canberra. Tour de Force charts the years in between, during which he truly sees it all.

Penny Carter's quiet life in Southbend, running a nursery with her ex father-in-law, is turned upside down when Lisa, the young daughter of her late husband, is unexpectedly deposited on her doorstep. The unwelcome houseguest stirs up more than just memories of Penny's husband's betrayal, when a cyclone leads to the discovery of a skeleton buried next to the town cemetery.

Danny Mulberry is a man who 'could do better'. Better at life, better at taking on responsibility and most definitely better at being a grown-up. But when a misleading photo of Danny appears in the newspaper, people around the country start to think this apparently enlightened man could be the one with all the answers. Letters begin to flood in from strangers seeking his guidance.

London, 1850. Constance Horton has disappeared. Maude, her older sister, knows only that Constance abandoned the apothecary they call home, and, disguised as a boy, boarded a ship bound for the Arctic. She never returned. 'A tragic accident', the Admiralty called it. But Maude Horton knows something isn't right. When she finds Constance's journal, it becomes clear that the truth is being buried by sinister forces. To find answers - and deliver justice for her sister - Maude must step into London's dark underbelly, and into the path of dangerous, powerful men.

Detective Superintendent Jack Hawksworth is seconded by counter-terrorism to investigate a spate of domestic events. First it was needles in strawberries, then tampering of lipstick samplers and baby formula.