Showing results by narrator "Ayesha Gibson" in All Categories

For nine-year-old Ruby, travelling the country with her charismatic father Mitch and busking for a living is the only life she's ever known. Mitch has been the centre of Ruby's world since she was a baby, and much as she's curious about her mother who died soon after Ruby was born, talk of her is taboo. When repairs to their ageing Kombi strand them in a small coastal town, Ruby is drawn to the town and its people and gains a glimpse of family life starkly different to her own.

On the eve of her 30th birthday, Wilhelmina Mann is already dealing with more than enough problems, so a birthday misadventure landing her in the lock-up is hardly even a surprise. But that mistake leads to Wil receiving a packet of old letters—letters to Wil from her mother that were written just before she died, back when Wil was a small child. Suddenly, Wil's life is thrown into a new kind of turmoil as she discovers the mother she lost. And while the letters begin as tales of growing up, they soon become a great love story, almost as great as the bond between mother and daughter.

The Hague, 1882, a howling winter's night, Sien and her daughter are on the brink of surrendering to the bitter cold, their exhaustion, their hunger, when a good Samaritan appears. Vincent van Gogh, a struggling artist, provides them with warmth and shelter for the night. Fascinated by Sien - her face, her struggles, her life lived - Vincent offers Sien work sitting for him. From model to muse, the two soon become lovers.

All fourteen-year-old Andromache Peters wants is a normal life. But normal is pretty near impossible when your parents were famous adventurers who saved the world and nobody will let you forget it. On top of this, Andromache's father has been missing and presumed dead since she was only two, and her mother has retreated into grief ever since. So it's no surprise that the last thing Andromache needs is to be reminded of where she came from.

Dark, lanky, and bald, New York-raised photographer Sabre Cumberbatch can’t tell if she’s highly talented or just highly Instagrammable. Up to here with art critics and their gaseous praise, Sabre returns to Barbados, her childhood island home, to water her roots. She needs to quell self-doubt by doing something—anything—profoundly important. Welcoming her with bejeweled open arms is her aunt Aggie, a fearsome high-society attorney eager to show off her famous American niece. When Sabre witnesses Aggie unleash her wrath on the household staff over a minor mistake, Sabre finds her cause.

When Helen Lehndorf moves to the city after a childhood living off the land in rural Taranaki, she can't help but feel different from her peers and professors. She finds solace in long walks foraging weeds and plants along the river, but something inside her still longs for home. Chasing a feeling of ancestral belonging, she travels to England with her new husband. There they learn about nature as the commons, shared between all who encounter it - a source of delight, food, medicine.

This award-winning collection of Barbadian stories showcases the controversial and often hidden aspects of a Caribbean paradise. Love, relationships, and the human condition are explored through surprisingly humorous narratives on politics in the rum shop, sex-tourism, domestic abuse, and much more. Shakirah Bourne writes in a satirical and humorous style that is brilliantly realised through the voice talents of Levi King, Janelle Gilkes, and Ayesha Gibson-Gill.