Showing results by narrator "Dorje Swallow" in All Categories

My peers think I'm a tramp. The District believes I'm the flawless youngest daughter of a tycoon. Neither is true. And I'm about to have my world, my house, my rose-coloured glasses, and all, stripped from beneath my Jimmy Choo heels. With one flickering light at the end of the tunnel. Xander Butcher.

During a sleepover, a letter comes to five children begging for the urgent assistance of Esther Mettlestone-Staranise; she must arrive before 10am on Monday to save an entire town of elves trapped under layers of silver. And a regular-size boy who, soon after seeing the children, dies. Oscar is that boy who skipped school in our world on Monday to skate, and found himself in the city of the elves at just the wrong moment: He fled as fast as he could, but not fast enough because the silver wave struck him and he fell down dead. And that's just the beginning!

The job's a classic jewel heist: quick, clean and simple. Except for one thing. Wyatt prefers to work alone, but this job belongs to Eddie Oberin and his very smart ex-wife, Lydia. She has the inside information; Wyatt has the planning genius and meticulous preparation. What could possibly go wrong? Plenty. But when you cross Wyatt, you don't walk away.

Wyatt steals $ 50,000 and a sought-after piece of jewelry in a burglary of a politician's house. Wyatt snatches the cash easily enough. He bypasses the alarm system, eludes the cops, makes it safely back to his bolthole in Hobart. It’s the diamond-studded Tiffany brooch—and perhaps the girl—that brings him undone. Now some very hard people want to put Wyatt and that brooch out of circulation. But this is Wyatt's game and Wyatt sets the rules—even if it means a reckoning somewhere far from home.

Leah Jones used to love her life. Now, she can barely get out of bed in the morning. She's still shaken by the sudden loss of her parents, and her older brother is the only person she has left to keep her from falling into an emotional abyss. But as he prepares to move across the country for work, soon he'll be gone too, and Leah will have no one. Axel Nguyen is her brother's best friend, and the natural person to turn to.

From the turbulent life of the late Shane Warne to the skill, mentality and character behind Pat Cummins' new-look captaincy, and through the decades to the wit, wisdom and genius of Sir Donald Bradman, Great Australian Cricket Achievers and Characters examines the career highs and lows of many of the game's big names.

Wyatt needs a job. A bank job would be nice, or a security van hold-up. As long as he doesn't have to work with cocky idiots and strung-out meth-heads like the Pepper brothers. That's the sort of miscalculation that buys you the wrong kind of time. So he contacts a man who in the past put him on the right kind of heist. And finds himself in Noosa, stealing a painting for Hannah Sten. He knows how it's done: case the premises, set up escape routes and failsafes, get in and get out with the goods unrecognized. Make a good plan; back it up with another. And be very, very careful.

March 1945. A handful of very young Allied operatives are parachuted into the remote jungled heart of the Japanese-occupied island of Borneo, east of Singapore, there to recruit the island's Indigenous Dayak peoples to fight the Japanese. Yet most speak next to no Borneo languages and know little about Dayaks, other than that they were once headhunters who might kill them on arrival. For their part, some Dayaks have never before seen a white face.

Bowen Barclay lived to ride bulls—until his single-minded focus cost his wife her life. Four years on, raising his son alone is the only thing he’s getting right. His rodeo career is going down in flames, and instead of dating, he’s playing his kid’s video games.

Some people just work better alone. Wyatt’s one of them. He’s been getting by on nice quiet little burglaries - one-man jobs - when he gets wind of something bigger. A corporate crook, notorious Ponzi schemer, set to face court and certain jail time. He’s about to skip bail the old-fashioned way: on a luxury yacht with a million dollars in cash. Wyatt thinks it sounds like something he should get into. He’s not alone.

Australian jewel thief Wyatt has a bounty of stolen jewels and a yacht, but nothing can stop him from returning to his life of crime. He drugs his lover, police officer Liz Redding, and escapes into the night only to discover the gems he lifted are fakes. With his luck and his resources rapidly running out, Wyatt begrudgingly joins forces with Raymond, his estranged nephew and an established criminal himself, to lift some expensive artwork.

Wyatt made some powerful enemies in his first three outings, and the time has come to confront them. But we know by now that Wyatt’s revenge won’t be showy, impetuous and futile; it will be pragmatic, elaborate—and still possibly futile. He holes up in Sydney, preparing to return home to Melbourne to play his enemies against each other in a dangerous double-cross that will tear down the notions of loyalty and obligation.

Every famous love song has been written by an alpha for an omega. As a beta, I've never expected to be anyone's muse. I'm happy to stick in the background—and with a past like mine, it's simply safer avoiding the spotlight. That changes the day I learn my long-lost brother is Stix Rain, the drummer for one of the biggest rock bands in the world. We lost touch when we went into foster care. He ran away, I stayed, and I still carry the scars from growing up alone. I have so many questions for him—until I discover he died three months ago.

He’s the world’s biggest movie star. We met on a beach in Italy. He loved me like no other, but then he ruined me. Now, six years later, he'll do whatever it takes to make me his again. But I'm not the girl I was back then. I’ve moved on. I’m over Jack. Or so I thought. The thing is, you don’t just get over Jack Kingsley. And saying no to this man is the hardest thing in the world.

Three years have passed since Axel Nguyen shattered Leah Jones’s heart into a million pieces. She pretends to move on with a guy from University, but she can only truly escape thoughts of Axel when she's painting. At least one good thing has come out of all of it: her dream of exhibiting her work is finally coming true. Axel is achingly aware of how much he misses Leah every day. He thought seeing more of his best friend Oliver, Leah’s brother, would lift his spirits, but it hurts even more. When Oliver lets slip to Axel about Leah’s exhibit, Axel knows he has to go see her.

Dahlia's lies have been discovered, and now she must suffer the consequences. Trapped and alone, her pleas for help remain unheard. When Dahlia is finally ready to let go and give in to the darkness calling her name, there is a flicker of hope. A continental summit is called in the face of a looming threat, and an opportunity is presented. A way out. A way to make things right. A way to make them so much worse.

We struck a deal. All business. Now he's changing the rules. It was just supposed to be a marriage on paper. Koa needed a path to citizenship and I needed the money to open Bridges and Bitters. All I've ever wanted is to take care of my sisters and run my own bar, my way. What did I care if I had a technical husband? A husband with too many dimples and more charm than he should have... So when he rolled into town after five years to deal with some paperwork, he's turned everything upside-down.

The 'outward urge' was a factor in the Troon inheritance. Successive generations of Troons, looking up at the stars, heard the siren voices that called them out into Space. And, as the frontiers of Space receded, there was usually one Troon, if not more, out there, helping to push them back. The four exciting episodes related here deal with the parts they played in the building of the Space Station, the occupation of the Moon, the first landing on Mars and the trouble about Venus.

Discover the deeper meaning of your dreams and understand the messages behind various signs and symbols in just 21 days. We've all experienced dreams that have given us pause for thought or wondered what deeper insight these nighttime visitations have. Dreams can unlock the deepest parts of our minds, reveal solutions that the waking mind could not comprehend and provide important guidelines for our future.

History is always written by the winners and about the winners. But what about the poor souls lurking in the shadows of history, the ones who were just as remarkable but perhaps didn’t stick their chests out as they crossed the line? In Second Best, Australia’s foremost historian and comedian Ben Pobjie celebrates the nobility and altogether more fascinating stories of the silver-medal getters.