Showing results by narrator "Tamala Shelton" in All Categories

When Alison Strange receives a debt claim she can’t afford to pay from the Australian government’s unemployment office, she’s caught completely off-balance. As she wrestles with a slippery bureaucracy, her history-loving grandfather bolsters her resolve with the story of their ancestor John Strange, an English cobbler who was banished to Australia for his part in a political movement. Drawing inspiration from John’s life, Alison finds her own unique way to demand a future that’s fair for all. 

For two years, six months, fourteen days, eleven hours and sixteen minutes, Subject Six-Eight-Four - ‘Jane Doe’ - has been locked away and experimented on, without uttering a single word. As Jane’s resolve begins to crack under the influence of her new - and unexpectedly kind - evaluator, she uncovers the truth about Lengard’s mysterious ‘program’, discovering that her own secret is at the heart of a sinister plot...and one wrong move, one wrong word, could change the world.

After escaping Lengard and finding sanctuary with the Remnants, Alyssa Scott is desperate to save those she left behind - and the rest of the world - from the power-hungry scientist Kendall Vanik. But secrets and lies block her at every turn, and soon Lyss is questioning everything she has ever believed. When long-lost memories begin to surface and the mysteries of her past continue to grow, Lyss battles to retain her hard-won control. 

Lenny has always known that his wife, Claire, is the love of his life. But somehow his marriage is in shambles, he’s struggling with the kids, and a string of anonymous text messages are tormenting him, insisting that Claire is a liar. Claire knows Lenny is a good man, but there’s a lot she hasn’t told him about her past. Now she’s terrified that the horrors that haunt her are about to put her entire family in danger. Strange new neighbours, insidious clients and schoolyard scandal begin to fracture Claire and Lenny’s happy families façade.

Running from a bad relationship, journalist Jo Sharpe heads home to Arthurville, the drought-stricken town she turned her back on years earlier. While some things have changed - her relationship with her ailing, crotchety father, her new job at the community newspaper - Jo finds that her return has rekindled the grief and uncertainty she experienced during her childhood following the inexplicable disappearance of her mother and baby sister.

In the six months since the first case of a terrifying new epidemic - when a healthy baby wouldn’t take a breath at birth - the country has been thrown into turmoil. The government has passed sweeping new laws to monitor all citizens. And several young pregnant women have vanished without trace. As a midwife, Lainey’s mum, Emma, is determined to be there for those who need her. But when 17-year-old Lainey finds herself in trouble, this dangerous new world becomes very real.

Wise-cracking Kerry Salter has spent her adulthood avoiding two things: her hometown and prison. A tough, generous, reckless woman accused of having too much lip, Kerry uses anger to fight the avalanche of bullshit the world spews. But now her Pop is dying and she's an inch away from the lockup, so she heads south on a stolen Harley for one last visit. She quickly discovers that Bundjalung country has a funny way of latching on to people—not to mention her chaotic family and the threat of a proposal to develop a prison on Granny Ava’s Island, the family’s spiritual home. 

What is it like to grow up Aboriginal in Australia? This anthology, compiled by award-winning author Anita Heiss, showcases many diverse voices, experiences and stories in order to answer that question. Accounts from well-known authors and high-profile identities sit alongside those from newly discovered writers of all ages. All of the contributors speak from the heart - sometimes calling for empathy, oftentimes challenging stereotypes, always demanding respect. 

Gundagai, 1852. The powerful Murrumbidgee River surges through town leaving death and destruction in its wake. It is a stark reminder that while the river can give life, it can just as easily take it away. Wagadhaany is one of the lucky ones. She survives. But is her life now better than the fate she escaped? Forced to move away from her miyagan, she walks through each day with no trace of dance in her step, her broken heart forever calling her back home to Gundagai.

How quickly the ground shifts beneath our feet. We make choices—in the face of love, or violence, or necessity—and the effects ripple outward. In these moving short stories, acclaimed authors examine the foundations of the past, uncovering the irreversible decisions and life-changing encounters that mark the turning point between before and after. 

A story of homecoming, this engrossing novel opens with a young, city-based lawyer setting out on her first visit to ancestral country. Candice arrives at ‘the place where the rivers meet’, the camp of the Eualeyai where in 1918 her grandmother Garibooli was abducted. As Garibooli takes up the story of Candice’s Aboriginal family, the twentieth century falls away. Garibooli, now renamed Elizabeth, is sent to work as a housemaid, but marriage soon offers escape from the terror of the master’s night-time visits.

As bushfires rage outside the city, three women watch a performance of a Beckett play. Margot is a successful professor, preoccupied by her fraught relationship with her ailing husband. Ivy is a philanthropist with a troubled past, distracted by the snoring man beside her. Summer is a young theatre usher, anxious about the safety of her girlfriend in the fire zone. 

Growing Up in Country Australia is a fresh, modern look at country Australia. There are stories of joy, adventure, nostalgia, connection to nature and freedom, but also more grim tales - of drought, fires, mouse plagues and isolation. From the politics of the country school bus to the class divides between locals, from shooting foxes with Dad to giving up meat as an adult, from working on the family farm to selling up and moving to the city, the picture painted is diverse and unexpected. This is country Australia as you've never seen it before. 

Blending the mythical power of Téa Obreht and the epic scope of Min Jin Lee, a searing historical novel that tells a story of colonization, survival, and resistance in a way never done before—a beautiful, brilliant, and brutal reimagining of the first contact between Indigenous people and white British settlers and the far-reaching consequences for one Aboriginal girl coming of age in an unsteady and dangerous world.

Meet Evie, a young woman held captive by a man named Jim in the isolated New Zealand beach town of Maketu. Jim says he's hiding Evie to protect her, that she did something terrible back home in Melbourne. In a house that creaks against the wind, Evie begins to piece together her fractured memories of the events that led her here. Jim says he's keeping her safe. Evie's not sure she can trust Jim, but can she trust her own memories?

When a mother and daughter take the overseas trip of a lifetime, they discover that the past is never quite behind them. When Indigenous lawyer Jasmine decides to take her mother, Della, on a tour of England's most revered literary sites, Jasmine hopes it will bring them closer together and help them reconcile the past. Twenty-five years earlier the disappearance of Jasmine's older sister devastated their tight-knit community. This tragedy returns to haunt Jasmine and Della when another child mysteriously goes missing on Hampstead Heath.

When May’s mother dies suddenly, she and her brother Billy are taken in by Aunty. However, their loss leaves them both searching for their place in a world that doesn’t seem to want them. While Billy takes his own destructive path, May sets out to find her father and her Aboriginal identity. Her journey leads her from the Australian east coast to the far north, but it is the people she meets, not the destinations, that teach her what it is to belong.   

A novel about three women at turning points in their lives, and the one night that changes everything. 

From Manuka to Manhattan, Lauren’s going all the way! Lauren is a curator at the National Aboriginal Gallery in Canberra. She's good at her job, passionate about the arts and focused on her work - that is, when she's not focusing on Adam. But Adam is a player, on and off the field. Lauren knows he's the one, but he doesn't seem to feel the same way about her. If she just waits long enough, though, surely he'll realise how much he needs her? Then her boss offers her the chance of a lifetime - a fellowship at the Smithsonian in New York. 

In a futuristic and dystopian Australia, industrialisation and capitalism have overwhelmed and smothered human rights and sanity. Meet Mirii, a young orphan caught in a system that's hell bent on keeping her down. When she finds unexpected allies, friends and love, will it be enough to see her through this nightmarish world? Or is it only the beginning of the troubles she will have to face?