Showing results by narrator "Kate Hosking" in All Categories

Australian swimmer Petria Thomas won the hearts of millions around the world with her triple gold-medal-winning triumph at the Athens Olympic Games in 2004. Having overcome the pain and anguish of three shoulder reconstructions and two ankle reconstructions over the length of her glittering 12-year career, Petria is admired and respected for her grit, determination, and steely will to win.

Neville 'Pom' Darling is on the hunt for the perfect photograph. Skye Stewart is searching for her long-lost grandfather. It's 1939, and Neville, escaping an unhappy marriage and his memories of the Great War, finds himself in Mackenzie Crossing on the day of the terrible Black Friday bushfires. He meets the beautiful Georgie Mackenzie and in an instant knows that she is the subject he has been looking for. As the heat intensifies, Georgie and Pom begin to wonder if they have a future together, but first they must survive the blaze.

Louie has finished her old life, and stepped into a world of sinners. For her, things are not going to be the same again. This darkly funny, disturbing novel explores a lawless world where morality is a nuisance, everything can be bought, and the prices paid are high.

It's 1931, and Belle Bartholomew has arrived in rural Sweet Wattle Creek to claim her inheritance - a run-down grand hotel formerly owned by Martha Ambrose. Determined to solve the mystery of her birth and the reason why she was bequeathed the hotel, Belle runs into difficulties with the townsfolk and their desire to keep their secrets safe. Sixty years later Sophie Matheson is on a quest to find Belle and her family after discovering the wedding dress. The Sweet Wattle Creek centenary brings more challenges when her past catches up.

"You can't have a party without music," said Dad. "You can't have a fire without smoke," said Whacka. It went from bad to worse after that. A barbecue from hell. Spuds on the roof. A visit from the police. It was war, a fight to the finish between Dad and Whacka. And Chris was right in the middle of it. All because Dad vomited in the cabbage patch. It could only be a Paul Jennings story narrated by Kate Hosking.

This stunning and intoxicating novel speaks of passion and obsession, ranging in setting from an Australian rainforest to Boston and Toronto. A mysterious and elusive love affair haunts the lives of three women in Australia. Twenty years later, on the other side of the world, Charade Ryan sorts through story and counter-story for her father, the legendary Nicholas, and the truth about her origins.

In 1998 Kate O'Hara rents an old cottage on the banks of a river in Tasmania. She wants peace and quiet, to come to terms with her husband's death and the end of her unhappy marriage. But her cottage is haunted by the ghost of Devlin, a boatman from convict days. Captivated by Devlin's story and his mysterious disappearance, Kate falls deeper under the spell of the past. And then Kate steps back in time and meets Devlin in person.

City girl Paula married her lovely farmer, the only problem is he comes with a farm...Another heart-warming rural romance from the queen of Australian storytelling. Self-reliant Sydney girl, Paula, is looking forward to a new life in the country. Just married to sheep farmer Dan Woodcroft, she can't wait to escape her protective family and exchange her busy existence for a new life down on the farm in rural South Australia. But life on the farm proves rather different to what she was expecting.

Angela and Gracey were going to be 'best friends forever' and make it into the same university as care-free first-year students. But for Gracey, her Aboriginal heritage takes on a new significance. While Angela falls in love for the first time, Gracey is drawn into Black politics and their friendship drifts apart. Then Angela discovers that she too has a heritage - one her family would sooner deny. The conflict of the past possesses the power to draw the friends together, but it could as easily blow them apart forever.

The gripping new crime thriller from Karen M. Davis. Detective Lexie Rogers is tough, smart and at the top of her game. She's seen it all, from bikies, blood and betrayal to drugs, deviants and deception...and the violent knife attack that almost killed her as a young cop on the beat. Lexie's sent on the job of a lifetime - to go deep undercover, as beautiful Lara Wild, a drug distributor, to expose a huge dealing ring among Sydney's most treacherous criminals.

The story of how gold miners rebelled against British authority, beginning a process that would ultimately lead to democracy in Australia. The Eureka Stockade. It's one of Australia's foundation legends - yet the story has always been told as if half the participants weren't there. But what if the hot-tempered, free-spirited gold miners we learned about at school were actually husbands and fathers, brothers and sons? What if there were women and children right there beside them inside the Stockade when the bullets started to fly?

Sam Studley's a bit older and wiser than when you met him in Hold My Hand - Or Else!. But it's a pity he can't say the same for his 15-year-old sister Leanne. No one seems to know where she is. Some kids are saying she's got AIDS and some are saying she's been abducted. Some are saying she's on the run to Kings Cross, some are saying she's a speed freak and gone to a drug rehab centre, and some that she's hiding out at home with chickenpox. But if living with Leanne sounds full on, you should hear about living without her!

To Sam the stud, living with his sister Leanne's bad enough. But when his mother says she's getting married again - to the town cop! - Sam wishes he was anywhere else. You've got to be careful what you wish for: You might get it. Someone's pulling the moves, all right, and suddenly Sam's on a joyride heading in the opposite direction fast. Forget the white dresses, the soppy words, and the tissues - this wedding's burning rubber all the way. And it's a cack.

What about all that stuff you keep reading about: the moonlit walks, waves softly kissing the sandy shore? It doesn't exist. Does it have to be a problem just because you don't want to hold your mother's hand anymore and you're not ready to hold anyone else's? Before you try to give yourself a hickey tonight, read this!

Snip Freeman is a painter with a waitressing problem, a wanderer in search of her past. She'll visit a place, find a man and a studio and a scrap of a job, until the zing of uncertainty pulls her on. She is anchored nowhere, touches the earth lightly. Then she turns her back on a drowning man. And suddenly she has reason to stay put.

On the other side of the fence horrible, gobbling squeals came from THE SLOBBERERS as they fought over the bloody trail I had left behind.

"Roy's tiny breaths sounded like milkshake fighting its way up a very thin straw. His eyes were closed. 'Rory', I said. 'Don't die. Don't die.' His eyes fell open. They flicked wildly around. 'The goat', he shouted. I didn't bother looking behind me. I knew there was no goat. And I knew Rory wasn't dying. Not yet."

When the neighbors are forced to sell the farm, Chris is desperate to own the cows he has been milking. But Chris' Dad cannot cope with the idea! Then, one moonlit night, Chris sneaks out and follows the cow Petal on a wild rampage to...a mob of motherless cabbage patch babies. Will Chris get to keep his cows? Will he be able to look after this new crop of cabbage patch babies? Will their mothers ever come back?

"I burst out of a clump of bushes and froze. Silhouetted against the moonlit sky were several massive shapes. What if Eileen had infected something else? What if the hospital had cockroaches? Or bedbugs? What if the frogs weren't all dead? I stifled a scream."

"Charge!" came Gramps' excited voice. I gasped. The frog general was as big as a full-grown cow. He started to roll his tongue back into his mouth. He was going to slurp me up and slide me down his throat.