Showing results by narrator "Brigid Lohrey" in All Categories

In this collection of six short stories, the people of Pride and Prejudice move on, grow up, and explore paths not taken. Time leads these beloved characters down roads of self-discovery, courage, and heartbreak. And sometimes the journey takes them to surprising places.

1883, England: The village of Summerfield is changing. Exciting opportunities abound, and new love fully - and finally - blooms. Genevieve Weston will be the countess of Summerfield one day. A new mother of twins, Genevieve struggles with life after babies. But through her struggles, and in the midst of a crisis, she taps in to her American entrepreneurial spirit and finds a way to utilize her talents - and the talents of those around her.

Along the glittering coast of southern France, a white villa sits atop an earthen terrace-a site of artistic genius, now subject to bitter dispute. Eileen, a new architect known for her elegant chair designs, poured the concrete herself; she built it as a haven for her and her lover, and called it E-1027. When the hulking Le G, a founder of modernist architecture, laid eyes on the house in 1929, he could see his influence in the sleek lines-and he would not be outdone. Impassioned, he took a paintbrush to the clean, white walls . . .

Dana is not in a good place financially or emotionally. So when she finds a bag of money under a bush after dropping her kids off at school, she'd be forgiven for thinking her luck has changed for the better. Unfortunately, things go from bad to worse. She starts getting threatening letters claiming to be from her "number one fan", referring to a time when she was a popular actress on an Australian soap opera. The person writing them knows about the money. Unsure what to do, paranoid and suspicious, Dana is forced to comply with her fan's ever more demanding and bizarre requests.

Trina is starting over after a painful separation from her husband of almost 20 years. Grief and loss force her to return to her hometown, where she has to deal with all of the things she left behind to rebuild her life, piece by piece. A hometown she hasn't visited since she left at the age of 18. When the handsome police officer who lives next door comes knocking with questions about a tragedy from her teenage years, Trina finds herself wondering if everything she thought she knew about the past is a lie.

1882 England: The grand estate of Summerfield needs an influx of cash. Will a marriage to a rich American save the Weston family's legacy--or destroy it? American heiress Genevieve Farrow travels to Summerfield to marry Morgan Weston, the heir to the earldom--a man she's only met in letters. In need of confidence, and under the thumb of an ambitious mother, she struggles to win the heart of the man she's come to love.

Elizabeth Cranwell's children left home, her husband divorced her and dissolved their shared business, and she's set to spend Christmas alone. Without her husband or the thriving business she spent years of her life building, Elizabeth doesn't know who she is or what to do with her days. She's dreading spending her first Christmas alone when her friends convince her to book a holiday at the Waratah Inn.

Harriet Main moves to the beautiful coastal town of Rivers End with a heavy heart. The bookstore she’s opening on the idyllic main street is a small distraction from the pain of her recent divorce, and the guilt over failing her daughter Olive when she needed her most. When Harriet finds an anonymous old diary in a collection of books donated to the store, she’s shocked when the donor refuses to take it back, wanting nothing to do with the tragic book.

Recent years have seen out-of-control wildfires rage across remote Brazilian rainforests, densely populated California coastlines, and major cities in Australia. What connects these separate events is more than immediate devastation and human loss of life. In Global Burning, Eve Darian-Smith contends that using fire as a symbolic and literal thread connecting different places around the world allows us to better understand the parallel, and related, trends of the growth of authoritarian politics and climate crises and their interconnected global consequences.

Ivy Ross left Rivers End ten years ago, vowing never to return. Her heart broken, her trust gone, the father she adored behind bars. But when her sister Jody begs Ivy to return to finalise their inheritance, the majestic Fairview House, she is drawn home. And when she finds a collection of heartfelt letters hidden in her father’s library, everything she thought she knew is called into question. The anonymous letters reveal a heartbreaking love story that force Ivy to rethink the terrible night that tore her family apart.

Longtime feminist activist and writer Lynne Segal searches for hope in her own life and in the world around her, and finds it in our intimate commitments to each other and our shared collective engagements, the two being intertwined. Issues of care, intimacy, education, alongside meaningful work, and social engagement, lie at the core of our ability to understand the world and its possibilities for human flourishing. Segal looks at our shared lifelong dependence on care and the well-being of others.

In Self-Care for Tough Times, Suzy Reading shows the listener how to be their own safe place during periods of stress, grief, loss or change. A gentle yet powerful process is included for developing a self-care toolkit to call on during difficult periods, such as relationship breakdown, illness or death in the family, financial strain or simply feeling completely exhausted by life.

Audrey is the black sheep of the family. Always in trouble. Always causing problems. She's there in her mother's luxury house in the hills above a small rural town. There with her secrets and her issues. Now she's a teenager, things can hardly improve.

One night, Daphne's teenage son Gabriel returns early from a house party, completely distraught. He refuses to let his mother know what's wrong and becomes very reclusive. But Daphne's son is not her only concern. Far from it. Her husband is acting oddly. And she is getting messages from an ex-partner she'd very much rather forget. Her family life seems to be unravelling at the seams, so when Gabriel's classmate Leo gets in touch and promises to help her son, she has hopes she can address at least one problem.

Planning is the trick for succeeding in small business. This process needn't be daunting, especially if you can get the timing right, pick a strategy that works, and chart a sound financial course. And if your best-laid plans go sideways, there's always hope, and a practical way forward, in this book. Getting Started in Small Business for Dummies will help you decide whether small-business ownership is right for you, and assess the viability of your business idea; and more.

Do you love your partner enough to share them with someone else? This is the question facing Laura when a group of close friends, all neighbors living on the same street, decide one night to put their keys in a bowl and swap partners. No one is obliged to do anything but the rules state that what does happen remains under wraps. Not everyone is keen on the idea, though Laura's husband certainly is, but group pressure mixed with alcohol means they run with it. This will set off a chain of jaw-dropping events that will change all their lives forever.

The Singing Cure takes the listener on a thought-provoking and inspiring journey to unlock the secret of the human voice. Amanda Lohrey succeeds in drawing together many threads in this seamless and compelling narrative, which shows her to be a master prose writer at the height of her powers.

It’s been 25 years since Emma graduated from the prestigious Denham House Girls’ School. She thinks she’s finally shaken the shadow of the awkward, neurotic girl she was at school. But as a class reunion approaches, Emma finds herself right back there, moving into the headmaster’s old staff cottage with her daughter while her marriage implodes. It’s here though that Emma finds a photograph that had been hidden away: an explicit image of her school-friend Tessa, staring boldly at the camera, dated the day before her death.

Stories for Work walks you through the science of storytelling, revealing the secrets behind great storytellers and showing you how to master the art of storytelling in business. Stories hold a unique place in our psyche, and the right story at the right time can be a game-changer in business; whether tragedy, triumph, tension, or transition, a good story can captivate the listener and help you achieve your goals.

Margery Blandon was always a principled woman who found guidance from the wisdom of desktop calendars. She lived quietly in Gold Street, Brunswick, for 60 years until events drove her to the 43rd floor of the Tropic Hotel. As she waits for the crowds in the atrium far below to disperse, she contemplates what went wrong. Her best friend kept an astonishing secret from her, and she can't trust the home help. It's possible her firstborn son has betrayed her, that her second son might have committed a crime and her only daughter is trying to kill her.