Showing results by narrator "Anna Hruby" in All Categories

Mai and Hikaru went to school together in the city of Nagoya, until Hikaru disappeared when they were 18. It is not until 10 years later, when Mai runs into Hikaru's mother, Hiromi Sato, that she learns Hikaru has become a hikikomori, a recluse unable to leave his bedroom for years. In secret, Hiromi Sato hires Mai as a 'rental sister', to write letters to Hikaru and encourage him to leave his room.

Lauren Ramsey is so concerned about the welfare of a boy in her kindy class, she doesn't realise her own daughter, Skye, needs help. At 14 Skye finds the only person who will listen to her problems is Tamara Thompson, the manager of her favourite clothes shop. Tamara knows what it's like to be a troubled teen, and despite her successful career and loving partner, her sense of worthlessness still threatens to overwhelm her.... Sometimes you have to resolve the past before you can face the future.

In Terror to Triumph, 12 domestic violence survivors describe the terror they experienced and the additional challenges they encountered from a system that was supposed to help them. Most importantly, they tell of the practical steps they have taken - physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually - to journey from darkness to light and build new lives. They tell of continued recovery, and how they have reclaimed self to reach a sense of triumph.

Lori Spyker is taking her kids to school one unremarkable day when a policeman delivers the news that her brother, Scott Green, has been injured and hospitalised following a hit and run. Lori hasn't seen Scott in decades. She appears to be his only contact. Should she take responsibility for him? Can she? And if she does, how will she tell her own family about her hidden history, kept secret for so long? Twenty years before, when she and Scott were teenagers, their lives and futures, and those of their family, had been torn to shreds.

Lizzie Burdett was 18 when she vanished, and Noah Carruso has never forgotten her. She was his first crush, his unrequited love. She was also his brother Tom’s girlfriend. 12 years later, an inquest into Lizzie’s disappearance is looming, and Tom is coming home to give evidence after a decade away. The brothers’ long-held grudges are quickly resurfacing. A few weeks before the inquest begins, Noah meets Alice Pryce on holiday. They fall for each other fast and hard, but Noah can’t bear to tell Alice his deepest secrets.

Armed with an honours degree in Agribusiness, Amanda Greenfield dreams of employing all the skills she's learnt at college to help her father turn the family farm from a debt-ridden, run-down basket case into a thriving enterprise. Then tragedy strikes with the death of Amanda's mother in a car accident. Wracked by grief and guilt, and wearied by the long struggle to keep Kyleena a going concern, Amanda's father argues that they should sell up and get on with their lives away from the vagaries of drought and fluctuating stock and crop yields.

When marketing executive Tessa Mathison leaves London to attend her great-aunt's funeral in Australia, her life is in turmoil. An indiscretion during a boozy night out has resulted in Tessa's name being mud in London's cliquey marketing scene, and soon after she arrives in her homeland she discovers she's been sacked. Tessa's childhood home, Danjar Plains, is an isolated station which holds some bad memories for her. She plans to escape it as soon as the funeral is over, but then an unusual request in her Aunt Violet's will makes it impossible for her to leave.

Anna and Matt Butler were childhood sweethearts with a dream of owning their own land, a dream they achieved through hard work and determination. But as the seasons conspire against them and Matt is involved in a terrible accident, the couple face financial ruin and the loss of their farm. As they fight for everything they hold dear, they suddenly find themselves caught up in events much bigger and more dangerous than they could ever have imagined.

Everything Feels Like the End of the World is a collection of short speculative fiction exploring possible futures from an Australia not so different from our present day to one thousands of years into an unrecognisable future. At the heart of each story is the anchor of what it means to be human: grief, loss, pain and love. These transformative stories are both epic and granular, and forever astonishing in their imaginative detail, sense of revelation and emotional connection. They herald the arrival of a stunning new voice.

With two bright children, a beautiful home and a husband she's always depended on, Lilian Hogarth considers herself blessed. Until, on her son Jamie's final day of high school, he fails to come home. Hospitalised by a coward's punch, Jamie has been the victim of a muck-up day celebration that went too far. Lilian's support is unflinching, even as her world begins to crumble.

After the death of her husband, Adam, in an horrific plane crash, Gemma Sinclair defies community expectations—and Adam's dying words—by deciding to hang on to Billbinya, the 10,000-hectare station he bequeathed to her. As if Gemma's grief and the job of looking after Billbinya aren't enough, a wave of innuendo soon sweeps the community that Adam's plane crash was no accident. Police officers confirm the rumour when they visit Gemma and tell her Adam's death was almost certainly related to his involvement in a cattle and sheep duffing ring.