Showing results by narrator "Danielle Carter" in All Categories

Discover the world of a small homestead perched on the sunburnt farmland of northern Victoria. Meet Elise, whose urbane 1950s glamour is rudely transplanted to the pragmatic red soil of the Mallee when her husband returns to work the family farm. But you cannot uproot a plant and expect it to thrive. And so it is with Elise. Her meringues don't impress the shearers, the locals scoff at her Paris fashions, her husband works all day in the back paddock, and the drought kills everything but the geraniums she despises.

Determined to enjoy her imminent retirement, Adele invites her fellow bibliophiles to help her house-sit in the Blue Mountains. It's a tantalising opportunity to spend a month walking in the fresh air, napping by the fire and, of course, reading and talking about books. But these aren't just any books: each member has been asked to choose a book which will teach the others more about her. And with each woman facing a crossroads in her life, it turns out there's a lot for them to learn, not just about their fellow book-clubbers, but also about themselves.

The origins of Covid-19 are shrouded in mystery. Scientists and government officials insisted, for a year and a half, that the virus had a natural origin, ridiculing anyone who dared contradict this view. Tech giants swept the internet, censoring and silencing debate in the most extreme fashion. Yet it is undeniable that a secretive facility in Wuhan was immersed in genetically manipulating bat-coronaviruses in perilous experiments. And as soon as the news of an outbreak in Wuhan leaked, the Chinese military took control and gagged all laboratory insiders.

Eliza Grayling, born in Sydney when the colony itself was still an infant, has lived there all her 32 years. Too tall, too stern - too old, now - for marriage, she looks out for her reclusive father, Joshua, and wonders about his past. There is a shadow there: an old enmity. When Joshua Grayling is offered the chance for a reckoning with his nemesis, Eliza is horrified. It involves a sea voyage with an uncertain, probably violent, outcome. Insanity for an elderly blind man, let alone a drunkard.

The police force can be a tough place for a woman, but Detective Superintendent Deborah Wallace rose to the top with grace, humour and an iconic sense of style. In her incredible 36-year career with NSW Police, Wallace took on murderers and drug suppliers and dismantled the state's most nefarious gangs. Tenacious, perceptive and sharp, Wallace commanded a range of police crime squads, bringing order to the Wild West of 1990s Cabramatta and busting criminal bikie gangs with Strike Force Raptor until her retirement in late 2019.

Erica Marsden’s son, an artist, has been imprisoned for homicidal negligence. In a state of grief, Erica cuts off all ties to family and friends, and retreats to a quiet hamlet on the south-east coast near the prison where he is serving his sentence. There, in a rundown shack, she obsesses over creating a labyrinth by the ocean. To build it - to find a way out of her quandary - Erica will need the help of strangers. And that will require her to trust and to reckon with her past.

It’s 1947. The world continues to grapple with the fallout of the Second World War, and former war reporter Billie Walker is finding her feet as an investigator. When a wealthy client hires Billie and her assistant Sam to track down her missing husband, the trail leads Billie back to London and Paris, where Billie’s own painful memories also lurk. Jack Rake, Billie’s wartime lover and, briefly, husband, is just one of the millions of people who went missing in Europe during the war. What was his fate after they left Paris together?

World War II has left Billie Walker a widow, but she's determined not to rely on any man for her future, so she reopens her late father's detective agency. Billie's bread and butter is tailing cheating husbands - it's easy, it pays the bills and she has a knack for it. But her latest case, the disappearance of a young man, is not proving straightforward.... Soon Billie is up to her stylish collar in bad men, and not just the cheating kind - these are the murdering kind. Smugglers. Players. Gangsters.

Based on a series of extensive interviews, this audiobook provides an in-depth analysis of the influence of a generation of prominent female politicians on the Australian political system, exploring the part played by the press in their downfall. Almost two decades later, it is evident how little has changed. Revisited and updated, Media Tarts is essential listen from one of our foremost journalists and political commentators, providing a powerful, sobering and incisive insight into how deep the currents of misogyny run and how the media continues to treat female politicians.

The art historian Noah Glass, having just returned from a trip to Sicily, is discovered floating face down in the swimming pool at his Sydney apartment block. His adult children, Martin and Evie, must come to terms with the shock of their father’s death. But a sculpture has gone missing from a museum in Palermo, and Noah is a suspect. The police are investigating. None of it makes any sense. Martin sets off to Palermo in search of answers about his father’s activities, while Evie moves into Noah’s apartment, waiting to learn where her life might take her.

After a shocking discovery, Grace Woods leaves her vast Australian sheep station and travels to tumultuous postwar Paris in order to find her true identity. While working as a mannequin for Christian Dior, the world's newly acclaimed emperor of fashion, Grace mixes with counts and princesses, authors and artists, diplomats and politicians. But when Grace falls for handsome Philippe Boyer, she doesn't know that he is leading a double life, nor that his past might inflict devastating consequences upon her.

Townsville, 1942. Young women aged sixteen and over are obliged by law to join the war effort, and Emma Hatton's world is at last about to change. Longing to escape the humdrum poverty of oceanside Blueholm Bay and the demands of her domineering mother, Emma reaches the bustling wartime mayhem of Townsville where the city streets are filled with glamorous GIs and red lipstick is the colour of the day. Befriending charismatic Cassie O'Byrne, Emma believes her adult life has finally begun.

Giulia is ten. She has never left the tiny island she lives on. She never wants to. Her best friend on the island - besides her older sister - is a donkey. She ties ribbons around his head and thinks she will marry him when the time comes. Her island is one filled with widows. Widows that are watched over by the Shipmaster and his many sons. It is a place that feels stuck in time - verdant, plentiful, happy, peaceful. Until the men arrive. And the vines begin to fail. And everything changes.

The Carvalho brothers - handsome Marcelinho and clever Antonio - are destined to spend their lives hunting whales. But the arrival of an unexpected gift changes both their lives forever. As the younger Carvalho discovers the fascinating world of the whale, a chasm opens between the two brothers, made all the more perilous by their shared passion for the alluring and wilful Margarida Machado.

The Great Barrier Reef is dying. Extreme weather is becoming all too familiar. And the Coalition government is divided and paralysed. In this vivid, urgent essay, Anna Krien explores the psychology and politics of a warming world.

This is laugh-aloud chick-lit that will have you hooked from the opening scene. In this world of Prada, Louis Vuitton, and Bulgari, our heroine, Mim, has to do battle with the Car Park Mafia and the Mothers Superior as she drops her children off at the most prestigious school in Melbourne. But in between keeping up with the Joneses - or, in this case, the Mason-Jacksons - cracks are starting to show in Mim's perfect life.

When Marnie, Tina and Lee share a house in famous Bondi Beach they are young, driven, ambitious. Yet below the surface each has her own agenda. Marnie, strong, confident and privileged, is escaping the stifling conservatism of her hometown - and a father who will forever mark her relationships with men. Tina, driven to overcome her impoverished background, promises herself a home on Sydney harbour by the time she’s 30 - no matter what she has to do to get it. Lee dreams of showbiz success far from a suffocating life in the suburbs.