Showing results by narrator "Rebecca Macauley" in All Categories

When the Coalition government of Australia was overthrown in 2022, it was tempting to portray the loss as a repudiation of Scott Morrison. And when opposition leader Peter Dutton torpedoed the referendum on establishing an Indigenous Voice to parliament, his credibility as a political leader improved at the expense of the prime minister's. That was when, according to Niki Savva, the conservative Coalition thought it had the forthcoming election in the bag. What followed was a sequence of events that resulted in an improbable triumph for Labor and a historic drubbing for the Liberal Party.

Taylor Markham is now a senior at the Jellicoe School, and has been made leader of the boarders. She is responsible for keeping the upper hand in the territory wars with the townies, and the cadets who camp on the edge of the school's property over summer. She has to keep her students safe and the territories enforced and to deal with Jonah Griggs - the leader of the cadets and someone she'd rather forget. But what she needs to do, more than anything, is unravel the mystery of her past and find her mother.

Violet has come to terms with the fact that being part angel, part human, means her life will never be as it was. Now Violet has something Phoenix - the exiled angel who betrayed her - will do anything for, and she has no intention of letting it fall into his hands. The only problem is that he has something she needs, too. With the help of surprising new allies, ancient prophecies are deciphered, a destination set and, after a shattering confrontation with her father, Violet leaves for the islands of Greece without knowing if she will have a home to return to....

Love will kill us all. Angels are real. They aren't always kind. Violet Eden is certain of all this because she is Grigori - part angel, part human. She has felt the influence of both light and dark. When hell unleashes its worst, Violet must embrace every facet of her angel self to save the people she cares about and the world as she knows it. But death is not the worst thing that Violet will face. For her, the endless question "Can love conquer all?" will finally be answered.

Welcome to my world. I'm Amal Abdel-Hakim, a 17-year-old Australian-Palestinian-Muslim still trying to come to grips with my various identity hyphens. It's hard enough being cool as a teenager when being one issue behind the latest Cosmo is enough to disqualify you from the in-group. Try wearing a veil on your head and practicing the bum's up position at lunchtime and you know you're in for a tough time at school.

Alice Hunter is smarting from the raw deal life has thrown her way: suddenly single, jobless and forced to move home to her parents' tiny seaside town. And now she faces an uncomfortable truth. She wants her twin sister Libby's enviable life. Libby's closest friend Jess Dekic has been around the Hunter family for so long she might as well be blood. She's always considered herself a sister closer to Libby than Alice ever could be.

It has been two years since Violet Eden walked away from the city, her friends, her future, and, most importantly, her soulmate, Lincoln. Part angel, part human, Violet is determined to stand by the promises she made to save the one she loves. She survives day to day as a rogue Grigori in London. But when an unexpected visitor shows up at her door, the news he bears about someone she swore to protect leaves Violet with no choice. She's going back to New York....

All Violet wants is to be with Lincoln. But he has a secret so great it could tear them apart. Then there’s Phoenix. He’s intense and enigmatic, but he's always there for her. Caught up in a battle between light and dark - where angels seek vengeance and humans are warriors - Violet must decide who she’s willing to sacrifice and who to trust, because the wrong choice could cost her not only her life, but her destiny.

Freya thought she could relax when Ryan's best mate Jamie got engaged to her best friend Hannah. Two couples, four friends – what could be better than that? But a day before the wedding, Freya is torn between keeping the peace or blowing it up. Hannah's perfect wedding is hours away and she's daydreaming of a honeymoon in Tahiti and starting the family she longs for when she hears the first-responder sirens. Is it a grass fire? Worse? And why aren't Ryan or Jamie answering their phones?

Violet Eden is Grigori - part angel, part human. Her destiny is to protect humans from the vengeance of exiled angels. Knowing who to trust is key but when Grigori reinforcements arrive it becomes clear everyone is hiding something. Even Lincoln. The only thing Violet does know... Phoenix's hold over her is more dangerous than ever. The race to find the one thing that could forever tilt the balance of power takes them all to the sacred mountains of Jordan, where Violet's own powers will be pushed to the extreme. And the ultimate betrayal exposed.

The sudden death of a beloved brother leads a young woman on a quest to find a missing boy and into a tangled web of mystery, blood and fear. Maitland 1892: When Viola Oswald's beloved brother Sebastian dies of a hereditary blood disease, Viola suspects her stepfather, prestigious surgeon Elias...

Buddhism for Mothers explores the potential to be with your children in the all-important present moment; to gain the most joy out of being with them. How can this be done calmly and with a minimum of anger, worry and negative thinking? How can mothers negotiate the changed conditions of their relationships with partners, family and even with friends? Using Buddhist practices, Sarah Napthali offers ways of coping with the day-to-day challenges of motherhood.

Written 20 years ago, Puberty Blues is the best-selling account of growing up in the 1970s that took Australia by storm and spawned an eponymous cult movie. Puberty Blues is about "top chicks" and "surfie spunks" and the kids who don't quite make the cut: it recreates with fascinating honesty a world where only the gang and the surf count. It's a hilarious and horrifying account of the way many teenagers live, and some of them die.

Margaret, the matriarch of the wealthy Jamieson family, has always been as tight-fisted with the family money as she is with her affection. Her daughter, Sarah, is successful in her own right, but she feels compelled to meet Margaret's every demand. Anita, married to Cameron Jamieson, leads a comfortable life, but she fears everything could change in a heartbeat. Ellie, the youngest, has lived a nomadic life, leaving her siblings to care for their ageing mother. As their mother’s health deteriorates, will long-held secrets and childhood rivalries smash this family into pieces?

Tara Hooper is at breaking point. With two young children, a business in a town struggling under an unexpected crime wave and her husband more interested in his cricket team than their marriage, life is a juggling act. Then, when new neighbours arrive and they are exactly the sort of people the town doesn't want or need, things get worse.

Francesca is at the beginning of her second term in Year 11 at an all boy's school that has just started accepting girls. She still misses her old friends, and, to make things worse, her mother has had a breakdown and can barely move from her bed.

The three Chirnwell sisters are descended from the privileged squattocracy in Victoria's Western District - but could a long-held secret threaten their family? Harriett has a perfect life - a husband who loves her, a successful career and a daughter who is destined to become a doctor just like her. Xara has always lived in Harriet's shadow; her chaotic life with her family on their sheep farm falls far short of her older sister's standards of perfection and prestige. Georgie, the youngest sister and a passionate Teacher, is the only one of the three to have left Billawarre.

In 1470 the Wars of the Roses threatens to tear England apart. Overnight a man can find himself set against his brother or unable to trust the woman in his arms. For the beautiful and spirited ward of Warwick the Kingmaker, Margery, freedom is the only prize worth fighting for. Disgraced and banished to a nunnery after the philandering Edward IV seduced her, she is determined that no man will ever decide her fate again.

Meredith established the Copeton Crochet Collective (no knitters please) because it would be like having friends, only with her in charge, and because there would be no men. It comes as a nasty shock, then, when Luke, the handsome grandson of no-nonsense Edith, decides to stay and learn to crochet.

1898, South Australia. At the gateway to the Flinders Ranges lies Kanyaka Station, once a thriving sheep and cattle property, now abandoned and in ruins. But a discovery in her late mother's papers draws recently widowed Marcella Ross out to its remote landscape in search of clues to the disappearance of her Uncle Luca, an Italian immigrant whose fate seems to have been bound up in that of his mysterious partner—also long-since vanished. When Marcella is accosted by a daunting stranger, she discovers he too is entangled in the secrets of the past.