Author Archive | admin

Liz Hartfull
Making a living on the land in Australia can be tough at the best of times, but the last few years of seemingly endless droughts, floods and bushfires – not to mention a global pandemic – have made it even more difficult. A Farming Life shares the uplifting stories of women from six rural families as their resilience is tested by personal loss, illness, fractured relationships, natural disasters and the challenges that come with working in a traditionally male-dominated world.

These women are all hands-on farmers – in fact, most are responsible for managing their own farms – and their defiance, tenacity and genuine humility shines through, as does their hope for the next generation of young women already lining up to follow in their footsteps.

Skilfully woven together by veteran storyteller Liz Harfull, these accounts are heartwarming and powerful examples of resilience in action, at a time when many of us are searching for inspiration.

Vanessa Pirotta
Acclaimed wildlife scientist Vanessa Pirotta has been mugged by whales, touched by a baby whale and covered in whale snot. In Humpback Highway, Pirotta dives beneath the surface to reveal the mysterious world of humpback whales — from their life cycle and the challenges humans present to these marine giants to why whale snot and poo are important for us and the ocean.

Plus the cutting-edge new technologies (including tagging whales so that they communicate with satellites) that allow us to see where they swim, listen to them talk and even spy on them underwater.

Giles Smith
This year is the fiftieth anniversary of Waterloo (the song, not the battle) – a seminal moment in pop history which saw Swedish sensation ABBA burst on to the international music scene.

How is it that half a century later this seventies Eurovision act is bigger than ever – reaching listeners of all ages and spinning off into musicals, museums and holograms?

Giles Smith, writer and music fan, sets out to find out why.

My My! is a celebration of ABBA through the ages. It’s one fan’s way of saying: thank you for the music.

Andy McDermit
Alex Reeve – OPERATIVE 66 – is a former special-ops soldier and one of the UK’s most deadly weapons. Once a member of SC9, a covert assassination unit, Reeve was framed for treason and now works as a mercenary – while the cold-blooded killers he trained with continue their ruthless pursuit.

To be reunited with the woman he loves, Reeve must bring down SC9 – but only a lone British politician can help expose them. As SC9’s Operatives close their lethal net, Reeve and those he has to protect are plunged into terrible danger.

Reeve must rely on his instincts and expert training to have any chance of survival. But if there’s one man that can never be underestimated . . . it is Operative 66.

Lisa Jewell
Meet Jessica Jones: Retired super hero, private investigator, loner. She tried her best to be a shiny spandex crimefighter, but that life only led to unspeakable trauma. Now she avoids that world altogether and works on surviving day-to-day in Hell’s Kitchen, New York.

The morning a distraught mother comes into her office, Jessica would prefer to nurse her hangover and try to forget last night’s poor choices. But something about Amber Randall’s story strikes a chord with her.

Amber is adamant that something happened to her teenage twins while they were visiting their father in the UK. The twins don’t act like themselves, and they now have flawless skin, have lost their distinctive tics and habits, and keep talking about a girl named Belle. Amber insists her children have been replaced by something horrible, something “perfect.”

Traveling to a small village in the British countryside, Jessica meets the mysterious Belle, who lives a curiously isolated life in an old farmhouse with a strange woman who claims to be her guardian. Can this unworldly teenager really be responsible for the Randall twins’ new personas? Why does the strange little village of Barton Wallop seem to harbor dark energies and mysteries in its tight-knit community?

A mother’s intuition is never wrong. And Jessica knows that nothing in life is perfect—not these kids, not her on-again, off-again relationship with Luke Cage, and certainly not Jessica herself. But even as she tries to buy into the idea that better days are ahead, Jessica Jones has seen all too clearly that behind every promise of perfection trails a dark, dangerous shadow.

Christine Gregory
Paradise has a price. A murder. A disappearance. A sinister network. Steels Creek is an idyllic retreat in the Sunshine Coast hinterland. It’s a place where everyone knows their neighbours and no one locks their doors. Investigative journalist Lars Nilsson who has moved to the settlement following a public fall from grace is trying to live a quiet life far from the crime reporting he was once feted for.

But when a backpacker’s body is found floating in a nearby waterhole and hours later his best friend’s daughter is reported missing, Lars is compelled to investigate, putting him back in the cross-hairs of police. What he finds may not only destroy his tight-knit community but also the life he has worked so hard to rebuild. Fast-paced and thrilling, The Community is also about fatherhood, family ties and redemption, told through the eyes of a man struggling to make peace with his past.

Anne Glenconner
A storm. A disappearance. A race against time . . . Mustique is in a state of breathless calm as tropical storm Cristobal edges towards it across the Atlantic. Most villa owners have escaped the island but a few young socialites remain, unwilling to let summer’s partying end. American heiress Amanda Fortini is one such thrill-seeker – until she heads out for a morning swim and doesn’t return.

Detective Sergeant Solomon Nile is just 28 years old and the island’s only fully trained police officer. He quickly realises he needs to contact Lord and Lady Blake, who bought the island decades ago and have invested time, money and love creating a paradise. Jasper is in St Lucia designing a new village of luxury villas but Lady Veronica (Vee to her friends) catches a plane immediately. Her beloved god-daughter, Lily, is on the island and this disappearance has alarming echoes of what happened to Lily’s mother many years ago. Lady Vee would never desert a friend in need, and she can keep a cool head in a crisis.

When Amanda’s body is found, a murder investigation begins. Nile knows the killer must be an islander because flights and ferry crossings have stopped due to the storm warning, but the local community isn’t co-operating. And then the storm hits, and someone else disappears . . .

Leonie Kelsall
Focused on pursuing her dream of becoming a doctor in suburban Sydney, Taylor doesn’t have time for love—yet it seems life has other plans when she catches the eye of charismatic Zac. However, betrayal and the financial implications of her parents’ impending divorce could destroy both her plans and her passion. Escorting her distraught mother to the far side of the country, she is forced to embrace a new life in the stark South Australian countryside. Stressed and disheartened, Taylor starts to experience disturbing dreams.

In 1877, Anna rises before the sun to milk the cow, fetch water from the almost-dry creek, and stoke the oven. If her parents had remained in Europe, instead of settling in the drought-ridden wilderness of South Australia, her life would be different—civilised, perhaps, as Mother loves to say. In Europe, she would have avoided the raging bushfire that leaves her reputation as blackened as the burnt-out scrub. But then, she would not have met handsome fellow settler, Luke Hartmann.

In her dreams, Taylor shadows Anna, finding joy in the simplicity of the other girl’s life. But as she escapes her stress by venturing deeper into Anna’s world, the borders between reality and dreams become increasingly blurred. When tragedy tears Anna’s family apart, Taylor must discover whether her dreams are pure fantasy—or if they recount a story more familiar than she could ever imagine.

Either way, it seems she’ll end up with a broken mind or a broken heart.

Lisa Medved
Spanish Netherlands, 1620s : raised by her father Lucas to know her mind, Antonia Vorsterman sees everything that goes on in her world – all the rivalries and jealousies that course through the artists’ studios and workshops of Antwerp. Drawn into the lively household of the artist Peter Paul Rubens, whose work her father engraves for a living, Antonia begins to see a life of colour and possibility for herself – until Lucas entrusts her with a terrible secret that will alter the course of their family’s future.

Belgium, present haunted by the recent loss of her mother, art historian Charlotte Hubert moves to Antwerp to research her hero, the Baroque master Rubens, and to seek answers about the father she’s never met. But a startling discovery hidden inside an ancient map folio turns Charlotte’s quiet academic life into a dangerous hunt for long-lost treasures, missing for 400 years.

In the shadowy cloisters of the university, where ambition, obsession and violence run deep, nothing is as it seems. Charlotte is certain of one thing – no one can be trusted. Centuries apart, Charlotte’s and Antonia’s lives intertwine as they unearth long-buried secrets about a master and his engraver where theft, betrayal and the fallout of family loyalty run rampant.

Beth O’Leary
Addie and her sister are about to embark on an epic road trip to a friend’s wedding in the north of Scotland. The playlist is all planned and the snacks are packed. But, not long after setting off, a car slams into the back of theirs. The driver is none other than Addie’s ex, Dylan, who she’s avoided since their traumatic break-up two years earlier.

Dylan and his best mate are heading to the wedding too, and they’ve totalled their car, so Addie has no choice but to offer them a ride. The car is soon jam-packed full of luggage and secrets, and with three hundred miles ahead of them, Dylan and Addie can’t avoid confronting the very messy history of their relationship…

Will they make it to the wedding on time? And, more importantly… is this really the end of the road for Addie and Dylan?