Showing results by narrator "Jennifer Vuletic" in All Categories

After a troubled childhood and two failed marriages, Rena has achieved success as a photographer. She specializes in infrared techniques that expose her pictures’ otherwise hidden landscapes and capture the raw essence of deeply private moments in the lives of her subjects. Away from her lover, and stuck in Florence, Italy, with her infuriating stepmother and her aging, unwell father, Rena confronts not only the masterpieces of the Renaissance but the banal inconveniences of a family holiday.

No-one thought barmaid Shannon Harcourt stood a chance with Hal Maitland, heir to the vast Maitland fortune. Yet their unlikely relationship flourishes until, one summer's day on the white sands of Charles Green Island, they realise their true feelings for each other - feelings that must motivate them to survive the coming war. Forty years on, Shannon, a successful businesswoman, and younger sister Jess, an accomplished chef, have left their days of poverty far behind. Shannon now has her sights set on purchasing the island where her young love began.

Alice Hamilton is enjoying her new life in Ballarat. She's learnt the hard way that knowledge is power and is looking forward to her legal studies, then making a difference as a lawyer with heart. But while Alice's life is looking up, back in Hope Springs the world of her former husband, Rick Peterson, is unravelling. After a chance meeting a few months earlier, Rick and Alice have reconnected. And it's fortunate they have, because Rick is about to need Alice's friendship like he's never needed it before.

Vianna Francis, known in the colony as ‘The Sydney Venus’, is a notorious young mistress in keeping to a former gentleman convict, who uses her to entice wealthy men to his gaming tables. A woman of mystery, Vianna is a magnet for scandal. Was she the mistress of a royal duke? A lady’s maid who learned the tricks of the world’s oldest profession when in service to a Parisian courtesan? Or the widow of a young man executed on the gallows? Men of high rank are determined to possess this passionate, mercenary beauty. 

Life seems settled for Jian in the Dragon Empire. She's comfortable in her position as captain of the Imperial Guard and content with her unusual domestic arrangements. But when trouble stirs at the edge of the Empire, they discover that the Cat Republic has been hiding a powerful and dangerous force that could destroy everything the Empire represents. Jian and her family must work together to save the Empire - and travel further than any dragon has ever gone.

Earth has joined the Galactic Empire, a vast interstellar society ruled by dragon-like aliens where everybody is immortal. Pain, famine and disease have been eradicated, but this doesn’t mean the end of conflict. 

Grace Middleton knew that her ex-husband, Jake, was a lying, cheating, wife-abandoning bastard. What she didn't know - until his untimely death - was that he was also the owner of a secret vineyard in the heart of the Margaret River wine region. And, much to the chagrin of his new wife, he's left the property to Grace's three young sons. With the intention of putting it up for sale, Grace takes the boys to view Gum Leaf Grove. And immediately finds herself embroiled in mysteries from Jake's past and the accidental target of the resident 'ghost'.

Poets had always lived there, the locals claimed. When Sadie inherits Poet’s Cottage in the Tasmanian fishing town of Pencubitt, she sets out to discover all she can about her notorious grandmother, Pearl Tatlow. Pearl was a children’s writer who scandalised 1930s Tasmania with her behaviour. She was also violently murdered in the cellar of Poet’s Cottage and her murderer never found. Sadie grew up with a loving version of Pearl through her mother, but her aunt Thomasina tells a different story, one of a self-obsessed, abusive and licentious woman. And Pearl’s biographer, Birdie Pinkerton, has more than enough reason to discredit her.

Fact and fiction meld into one in this stirring family saga set against shifting landscapes and pivotal moments in Australian history. Lillian was born in 1892, the same year Henry Lawson wrote 'The Drover's Wife' and cemented his place in Australia's literary canon. When Lillian reads the short story as a teenager, she is convinced that it is based upon her own family and becomes determined to prove it. But as the years pass, the truth becomes more problematic, and Lillian must decide what is more important: holding onto the past or embracing the future.

Isabella Martenson never expected to be a runaway bride. She never expected to be a bride, period. She simply has the wrong DNA to do the whole happily married thing. Until one night in Vegas with a handsome winemaker changes everything ... A year later, Harry Harrison’s bride is still a mystery. Who was she? Where was she? And why did she run? When Harry flies to Australia for his best friend's wedding, he runs straight into the woman he’s never been able to forget.

How much of who we are is destiny and how much is chance? In 1934, the three Miss Allens—Ruby, Adeline and Clara—arrive in the seaside town of Remarkable Bay for their annual summer holiday. It's the last time they'll spend summer as a family. Adeline is engaged, Ruby is weighing up an offer, and Clara is just eighteen and about to start her life. But by summer's end, the lives they have known will change irrevocably and a mysterious secret will tear the family apart.

From award-winning author Sarah Krasnostein comes an exploration of the power of belief. Weaving together the stories of six extraordinary ordinary people, The Believer looks at the stories we tell ourselves to deal with the distance between the world as it is and the world as we’d like it to be. How they can stunt us – or save us. Some of the people you will meet believe in things most people don’t. Ghosts. UFOs. Heaven and the Devil. The literal creation of the universe in six days. Others believe in things most people would like to. Dying with autonomy. 

When Olga’s friend Lara becomes a grandmother, Olga helps out whenever she can. After all, it’s a big imposition on Lara, looking after her bereaved daughter and the baby. And the new mother is not exactly considerate. But smouldering beneath Olga’s sensible support and loving generosity is a deep jealous need to be the centre of Lara’s attention and affection - a need that soon becomes a consuming, dangerous and ultimately tragic obsession.

1873. Eliza Penrose arrives in the gold mining town of Maiden's Creek in search of her brother, planning to make a new life for herself. Instead she finds a tragic mystery - and hints of betrayals by those closest to her. Mining engineer Alec McLeod left Scotland to escape the memory of his dead wife and child. Despite the best efforts of the eligible ladies of Maiden's Creek, Alec is determined never to give his heart again.

1871. Adelaide Greaves and her young son have found sanctuary in the Australian town of Maiden's Creek, where she works as a postmistress. The rough Victorian goldmining settlement is a hard place for a woman—especially as the other women in town don't know what to make of her—but through force of will and sheer necessity, Adelaide carves out a role. But her past is coming to find her, and the embittered and scarred Confederate soldier Caleb Hunt, in town in search of gold and with a dark past of his own, might be the only one who can help. Can she trust him? Can she trust anyone?

Fighting her way from humble beginnings in a foster home to CEO of her own highly respected international company hasn't been easy for Hilary Brand. Even after she seems to have reached the top, troubles abound: her business in China, always fraught with problems, is in peril; and her archnemesis, Haskins Gould - once her closest business associate but now her greatest enemy - is gaining traction in his unceasing determination to destroy all she has created.

Jo returns to South Africa after ten years in the UK to cover the riots sweeping the Jo’burg township of Alex. Nico, her estranged Afrikaner father, reappears and asks her to help prove his innocence in the murder of a black man, abducted by the security forces decades earlier. As they set off on a road trip through South Africa’s now-unfamiliar landscape, it becomes clear that Nico knows more about the murder than he is letting on, and Jo begins to wonder whether she is his accomplice, or his captive.

Alice Hamilton loved being a mature-age student, but now she's finished her university degree she needs to find herself a career. But the job market is tough, and it doesn't help that her partner, David, keeps reminding her about their sizable mortgage. When she's offered a role in a major real estate agency, she jumps at the opportunity. David is excited by her prospects in the thriving Melbourne housing market, and Alice is pleased that she'll be utilising her exceptional people skills. But Alice quickly realises all is not as it seems. 

From the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, a novel that satisfies as much as it challenges. Eddie Twyborn is bisexual and beautiful, the son of a Judge and a drunken mother. With this androgynous hero - Eudoxia/Eddie/Eadith Twyborn - and through his search for identity, for self-affirmation and love in its many forms, Patrick White takes us on a journey into the ambiguous landscapes, sexual, psychological and spiritual, of the human condition.

Vianna Francis, known in the colony as ‘The Sydney Venus’, is a notorious young mistress in keeping to a former gentleman convict, who uses her to entice wealthy men to his gaming tables. A woman of mystery, Vianna is a magnet for scandal. Was she the mistress of a Royal duke? A lady’s maid who learned the tricks of the world’s oldest profession when in service to a Parisian courtesan? Or the widow of a young man executed on the gallows? Men of high rank are determined to possess this passionate, mercenary beauty.