Showing results by narrator "Edwina Wren" in All Categories

A masterful account of Napoleon's final years in exile, by Booker Prize-winning author Thomas Keneally. On the island of St Helena in the South Atlantic ocean, Napoleon spends his last years in exile. It is a hotbed of gossip and secret liaisons, where a blind eye is turned to relations between colonials and slaves. The disgraced emperor is subjected to vicious and petty treatment by his captors, but he forges an unexpected ally: a rebellious British girl, Betsy, who lives on the island with her family and becomes his unlikely friend.

It is 1915, and the world is being torn apart, but newlyweds Ruby and Jimmy Hawkins are sure their love will survive the trauma and tragedy of war. Sent away to fight in the desperate battles raging in Gallipoli, Jimmy plans for the future they promised each other and struggles to keep his dreams whole amidst the brutality of the trenches. Back home in Sydney, Ruby reads his romantic letters, full of longing. But as weeks slip into months, she is forced to forge her own life.

A sweeping historical love story set in Australia during World War I. Newlyweds Ruby and Jimmy Hawkins are sure their love will survive the trauma and tragedy of war. Amid the desperate battles raging in Gallipoli, Jimmy dreams of the future they planned together. In Sydney, Ruby reads his romantic letters full of love and longing. But as weeks slip into months, Ruby must forge her own new life. When she takes a job at a city timber merchant's yard, she is thrown into a man's world fraught with complications.

What if your perfect life was based on lies? I'm a lucky woman, thinks Susanna Greenfield. And why wouldn't she? Her handsome, successful husband is a loving father to their two teenage children. Her mother, Jean, is her dearest friend. Her scatty but adored younger sister, Angie, seems to have finally found some stability in her life. Susanna has a solid career as an art teacher and if, as she's recently discovered, there's a hole inside her where her creative spirit used to be - is that really such a big price to pay?

Aliki and Liza are friends as well as cousins. They share everything, and they're more like sisters than anything else. But when Liza flies to Greece with her mother to bring her grandmother home, everything changes forever.

Melissa, desperate for love and willing to do anything to find it, is now a successful writer in Rome, living with her new lover, Thomas. But as soon as she meets Viola, a woman from Thomas's past, sexual passion and insecurity mount in tandem, and Melissa is consumed with jealousy.

Ming Qong is convinced that girls have changed the world throughout history. History's sister, the mysterious Herstory, believes that the more you know about the past, the better you can understand the future. And so she now sends Ming to work as a maid in an isolated English mansion to see a girl change the world in 1829. But which girl? The young mistress of the house is lying in bed, recovering from the measles. Abandoned by her aristocratic mother and family, she may never walk – or even read and write – again.

Ming Qong is convinced that girls have changed the world throughout history. History's sister, the mysterious Herstory, believes that the more you know about the past, the better you can understand the future. And so she now sends Ming to work as a maid in an isolated English mansion to see a girl change the world in 1829. But which girl? The young mistress of the house is lying in bed, recovering from the measles. Abandoned by her aristocratic mother and family, she may never walk – or even read and write – again.

On Christmas Eve in 1967, a London woman unhappily transplanted to the Australian suburbs makes a decision that will change forever the lives of her four young children. Forty years on, those children are adept at concealing their shared pain. Deborah has a demanding political career, James is a successful artist, Robert is a respected school principal. Only Meredith, the baby of the family seems struck. But as their father begins to lose his grip on reality, they find themselves floundering in an unfamiliar sea.

Susanna Greenfield has given her all to being a good daughter, sister, wife and mother. Somehow, she's maintained her profession as a college art teacher, as well as rearing two headstrong teenagers and nurturing a 20-year marriage to Gerry, a confident, ambitious architect. She's also the eternal peacemaker between her pretty younger sister Angie, former junkie turned born-again Christian, and their strong-willed mother, Jean. Just when Susanna is struggling to revive her creative career, a devastating accident rips apart the fabric of her world.

Butter has been told there are ghosts at the nearby isolated Howlers Beach, but are there? And how can the children Butter plays cricket with on the beach simply vanish? Who are these children and why do they refuse his help? Butter is certain they're hiding a secret and he's determined to uncover it.

Gus doesn't want to make friends. She also doesn't want to be intrigued by the cat-lady teacher at her new school, or the Riley's Comet project that she and her seaweed-eating science partner are working on together. And she definitely doesn't want to fall in love with her job as the projectionist at the Starlight, a drive-in movie theatre that her family is reviving.

The third book in the best-selling Jackie French historical series that places girls centre stage. Ming Qong is convinced that girls have changed the world throughout history. She's faced danger and adventure when Herstory sent her to the past to witness girls' bravery in the incredible feats left out of 'histories'. Now Ming asks Herstory for another time-travelling quest – this time, one that is less confronting. Ming finds herself in relative luxury, heading to an unknown destination on a ship carrying royal Saxon sheep, travelling with the girls who care for them.

Ming Qong is convinced that girls have changed the world throughout history. She's faced danger and adventure when Herstory sent her to the past to witness girls' bravery in the incredible feats left out of 'histories'. Now Ming asks Herstory for another time-travelling quest – this time, one that is less confronting. Ming finds herself in relative luxury, heading to an unknown destination on a ship carrying royal Saxon sheep, travelling with the girls who care for them.