Showing results by narrator "Jennifer Vuletic" in All Categories

Emily Oliphant has made some drastic changes in her life. She's ditched her abusive husband and embarked on her own adventure, renovating a dilapidated property and starting up her own business. Against all odds, she's found a sense of place and purpose, but is still too scarred by her past to form any romantic attachments, regardless of who's vying for her attention. Now she's received an offer from the elderly owners of her beloved rented home to buy the property, land and all.

France, April 1940. Polly Hartford has been sent across oceans to her Aunt Marjorie, known only from letters. When Marjorie dies in suspicious circumstances, Polly is left with her aunt’s loaded pistol in a beautiful Hermès handbag...and to the care of Marjorie’s three friends: an elegant Comtesse, a gutter-born film star and a big-hearted American heiress....

When Emily Oliphant married John Stratten, she thought it was the beginning of an exciting new adventure - standing shoulder to shoulder with the most eligible farmer in the district and pitching in to build a thriving agricultural business. Three years later, however, Emily sees her marriage for what it is - a loveless tie to a callous man. When John's cruelty reaches new heights, Emily is forced to move out, braving both her husband's wrath and her mother's glaring disapproval.

Claire McIntyre has it all: an adoring husband, a bubbly best friend, a chic townhouse and a high-flying corporate career in the city. But somehow she's forgotten what really makes her happy. After receiving tragic news, closely followed by the loss of her job, Claire's world is thrown into turmoil. She is then forced to reconsider everything that matters to her. Claire soon finds herself back at the very place she's been running from - the family property.

Juliet's elderly grandparents are killed in their Adelaide home. Who would commit such a heinous crime - and why? The only clue is her grandfather Karl's missing signet ring. When Juliet's estranged sister, Lily, returns in fear for her life, Juliet suspects something far more sinister than a simple break-in gone wrong. Before Juliet can get any answers, Lily vanishes once more. Juliet only knew Karl Weiss as a loving grandfather, a German soldier who emigrated to Australia to build a new life. What was he hiding that could have led to his murder?

1826, Van Diemen's Land. When her father dies in a duel, 17-year-old Emma Tregellas is left with limited funds and at the mercy of her odious guardian. Faced with the prospect of being forced into marriage with a man she detests, she enlists the help of her true love, Ephraim Dark, who assists her to escape to faraway Van Diemen's Land. Here she seeks sanctuary with her wealthy uncle, Barnsley Tregellas.

Tilly has the day from hell when she's sacked from her barristers' chambers in the morning, then finds her husband in bed with her former best friend in the afternoon. She escapes to her mother, Roxy - a sassy solicitor whose outrageous take on men, work, and family life is the despair of her more conventional daughter. Roxy comes up with a radical plan for their future - they'll set up an all-female law firm which will only champion women who have been cheated, put upon, attacked, ripped off, or ruined by the men in their lives.

Damien McAllister is a man on the brink. Spending long, hard days on a farm he has no affection for, and nights ignoring the criticisms of his mother, Damien can no longer remember what he's living for. But in a small town like Wattle Creek, there are few people to turn to and Damien learned long ago to keep his problems to himself. Until Jacqueline Havelock, a young psychologist escaping her own issues, arrives fresh from the city and makes Damien question everything he has known about himself, also igniting a spark in his lonely heart. Soon Damien is daring to ask for more than an ordinary life, and can glimpse the possibility of happiness.

It has been six months since Tess Müller stopped speaking. Her silence is baffling to her parents, her teachers and her younger sister, but the more urgent mystery for both girls is where their mother, Evangeline, goes each day, pushing an empty pram and returning home wet, muddy and dishevelled. Their father, struggling with his own losses, tends to his apiary and tries to understand why his bees are disappearing.

On a sweltering day in a clifftop beach shack, Jack and Lou Bright grow suspicious about the behaviour of their charismatic, unpredictable father, Charlie. A girl they know has disappeared, and as the day unfolds, Jack's eruptions of panic, Lou's sultry rebellions and their little sister Phoebe's attention-seeking push the family towards revelation.

The new compelling saga from Australia's master storyteller. Journalist Thea Anderson’s adventurous life has been one of endless danger. Even her childhood, where she and her mother were forced to flee Malaya in the fish-stinking hold of a junk in the dying days of colonialism, was fraught with peril. For a time it seemed she would find safe harbour in Tasmania in the arms of winemaker Peter Torrance, but her restless spirit cannot be contained....

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.

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.

Elizabeth Macquarie, widow of the disgraced former Governor of New South Wales, Lachlan Macquarie, is in mourning—not only for her husband, but the loss of their shared dream to transform the penal colony into a bright new world. Over the course of one long sleepless night on the windswept isle of Mull, she remembers her life in that wild and strange country; a revolution of ideas as dramatic as any in history; and her dangerous alliance with the brilliant, mercurial Francis Greenway, the colony's maverick architect.

In the cold winter of 1875, two rebellious spirits leave England for the raw heat of Australia: Harriet Rowell - at 22, a champion swimmer in a time when women didn’t go into the sea - and Alice Moon - at 18, a budding scientist and writer. In a time when men coerced women to believe that if they didn’t bind their bodies in whalebone corsets they would collapse and ruin their childbearing purpose, they were athletic and strong. In a time when many women loved each other but held such love secretly for fear of retribution, they openly declared their love.

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.