Showing results by narrator "Wren" in All Categories

Whilst living in exile on St Helena, Napoleon exerted an extraordinary influence on young Betsy Balcombe. How did she get from Napoleon's side to the Australian bush? Betsy Balcombe as a young woman lived with her family on St Helena. They befriended, served and were ruined by their relationship with Napoleon. To redeem the family's fortunes, William Balcombe, Betsy's father, betrayed Napoleon and accepted a job as the colonial treasurer of NSW, bringing his family with him.

During a brush with the Sons of the Long Knives, Gwion earns the trust of Keridwen and is offered employment at her Castell in Gwynedd. There the goddess is brewing a potion of prophetic insight and secret wisdom, destined for her monstrous, shape-shifting son, Morvran. But an ill-timed accident on the final day of his task sees Gwion inherit all the potion's supernatural abilities. In a shapeshifting battle, Gwion is swallowed by Keridwen, and upon her return to human form the Goddess discovers that she is pregnant.

Penguin Bloom is an extraordinary true story full of hope and courage, featuring Cameron Bloom's captivating narrative by New York Times best-selling author Bradley Trevor Greive. Penguin the Magpie is a global social media sensation. People the world over have fallen in love with the stunning and deeply personal images of this rescued bird and her human family. But there is far more to Penguin's story than meets the eye.

It's Chrismastime, and Blair and Serena are best friends again and up to their old tricks: partying hard and breaking hearts from Park Avenue to the Caribbean. Blair's mom and Cyrus are having their honeymoon in Salt Key. And when school lets out for the holiday, Blair, Serena, Aaron, and company head down there to blow off steam after their midterm exams.

Ming Qong is convinced that girls have changed the world throughout history. She's faced danger and adventure when Herstory sent her to the past to witness girls' bravery in the incredible feats left out of 'histories'. Now Ming asks Herstory for another time-travelling quest – this time, one that is less confronting. Ming finds herself in relative luxury, heading to an unknown destination on a ship carrying royal Saxon sheep, travelling with the girls who care for them.

In Sam Bloom, Sam tells her own story for the first time - how a shy but determined Australian girl became a nurse and travelled across Africa. How she fell in love with a like-minded free spirit, raised three boys and built a life together on Sydney's Northern Beaches. And then, in a single horrific moment, how everything changed.

It's time to fill out our college applications. Not applying to the Ivy Leagues is not an option, and not getting into them would be a total embarrassment. But I know a few girls who aren't going to let the pressure get them down.

A sweeping historical love story set in Australia during World War I. Newlyweds Ruby and Jimmy Hawkins are sure their love will survive the trauma and tragedy of war. Amid the desperate battles raging in Gallipoli, Jimmy dreams of the future they planned together. In Sydney, Ruby reads his romantic letters full of love and longing. But as weeks slip into months, Ruby must forge her own new life. When she takes a job at a city timber merchant's yard, she is thrown into a man's world fraught with complications.

The adventure of a lifetime...or two, or three. When Sara is gifted a beautiful antique chair as a wedding present, she is completely unaware that it is one of a unique pair. On the other side of the world, the chair's twin is presented to a reclusive artist, Jon, as a birthday gift. The two new owners are thrust into a mind-expanding adventure through the ages - medieval East Anglia, Scotland, France and India.

The Marquis and Marquise de Castillon, together with their young son Jean-Pierre, were forced to flee France for England when the French Revolution broke out in 1789. Jean-Pierre was educated at Eton and only returned to Paris when Napoleon came to power. It was not long before he joined Napoleon's Army, survived the Retreat from Moscow and was badly wounded at the Battle of Waterloo. Whilst in hospital, he became friends with Colonel Hubert Dawlish who was in the next bed.

Twelve years ago budding journalist Geneva Leighton received a phone call that stopped her life in its tracks. Her terrified sister, Amber, was locked in the boot of a moving car and begging Geneva for help. Amber was never heard from again. Since that night, Geneva's days have revolved around caring for her traumatised niece and nephew, despite the unpredictable behaviour of their father ... and keeping the search for her sister alive. But the knowledge it should have been her in the boot of that car haunts her waking hours.

Ming Qong is convinced that girls have changed the world throughout history. History's sister, the mysterious Herstory, believes that the more you know about the past, the better you can understand the future. And so she now sends Ming to work as a maid in an isolated English mansion to see a girl change the world in 1829. But which girl? The young mistress of the house is lying in bed, recovering from the measles. Abandoned by her aristocratic mother and family, she may never walk – or even read and write – again.

When the Balkan Prince Stanislaus demanded an English bride, Queen Victoria decided to send him Lady Lavina, whose family had a slight connection with royalty. Determined to avoid this fate, Lavina threw herself on the mercy of the Marquis of Elswick, a disagreeable man who had turned his back on the world following betrayal by the woman he had loved. Surprisingly, he agreed to help by pretending to be engaged to Lavina, and, with her father, they left to visit her relatives in Scotland.

When Rena's father dies she is alone in the world, forced out of the vicarage that has been her home, with nowhere to go and no money. She seeks help at the large wooden cross standing in the nearby grounds of "The Grange". And there in the earth she finds three golden coins, which she hands over to the new young Earl of Lansdale. They form a friendship, the sweetest one of her life. But her new happiness is threatened by Mr. Wyngate, a wealthy man determined to force the Earl to marry his daughter.

On a hot summer’s day in 1880 the beautiful Lady Rosella is cutting a basket of blooms in her beloved Rose Garden at her aunt’s house in Hampshire. It is her seventeenth birthday and no one remembers it except for Thomas, the gardener’s boy. Later she is driven to Winchester and has an unpleasant encounter with two raucous gentlemen in the local tavern before going on to fit her first ball gown that her aunt has given her the money for just before she died. But who is the lovely masked woman she glimpses in the mirror at the dressmakers, a glorious vision clad in rose-pink silk?

It will soon be another cold winter in the Ukraine. But it's 1941, and things are different this year. Max, the devoted caretaker of an animal preserve, must learn to live with the Nazis who have overtaken this precious land. He must also learn to keep secrets - for there is a girl, Kalinka, who is hiding in the park. Kalinka has lost her home, her family, her belongings - everything but her life. Still, she has gained one small, precious gift: a relationship with the rare wild and wily Przewalski's horses that wander the preserve.

Australia 1948. As a young woman running Amiens, a sizeable sheep station in New South Wales, Kate Dowd knows she's expected to fail. And her grazier neighbour is doing his best to ensure she does, attacking her method of burning off to repel a bushfire. But fire risk is just one of her problems. Kate cannot lose Amiens, or give in to her estranged husband Jack's demands to sell: the farm is her livelihood and the only protection she can offer her half-sister Pearl, as the Aborigines Welfare Board threatens to take her away.

In a wintry landscape in the Swedish countryside, the paths of two women cross. One bleak March evening, Veronika, a young writer, arrives in a small village in pursuit of stillness and solitude to enable her to come to terms with grief and loss, and to complete a novel.

Robert Lyndon, heir apparent to a dukedom and newly spurned lover is desperate to save face amongst the young dandies and court ladies of Regency London society. Handsome, wealthy and decorated for his bravery Robert is recognised as one of the most eligible bachelors in Society. Yet despite his success with the ladies, it seems that he cannot find the perfect wife. Beautiful Rania Temple is living in impoverished gentility in the country. Away from the fashions and trends of the city, she is devoted to her family home and much loved horses.

As bushfires rage outside the city, three women watch a performance of a Beckett play. Margot is a successful professor, preoccupied by her fraught relationship with her ailing husband. Ivy is a philanthropist with a troubled past, distracted by the snoring man beside her. Summer is a young theatre usher, anxious about the safety of her girlfriend in the fire zone.