Archive | Large Print Books

Robert Goddard
Umiko Wada has recently had quite enough excitement in her life. With her husband recently murdered and a mother who seems to want her married again before his body is cold, she just wants to keep her head down. As a secretary to a private detective, her life is pleasingly uncomplicated, filled with coffee runs, diary management and paperwork.

That is, until her boss takes on a new case. A case which turns out to be dangerous enough to get him killed. A case which means Wada will have to leave Japan for the first time and travel to London.

Following the only lead she has, Wada quickly realises that being a detective isn’t as easy as the television makes out. And that there’s a reason why secrets stay buried for a long time. Because people want them to stay secret. And they’re prepared to do very bad things to keep them that way…

Alison Booth
A young Hungarian woman confronts her family’s past in an engrossing quest for a stolen painting. When Anika Molnar flees her home country of Hungary not long before the break-up of the Soviet Union, she carries only a small suitcase – and a beautiful and much-loved painting, of an auburn-haired woman in a cobalt blue dress, from her family’s hidden collection.

Arriving in Australia, Anika moves in with her aunt in Sydney, and the painting hangs in pride of place in her bedroom.

But one day it is stolen in what seems to be a carefully planned theft, and Anika’s carefree life takes a more ominous turn. Sinister secrets from her family’s past and Hungary’s fraught history cast suspicion over the painting’s provenance, and she embarks on a gripping quest to uncover the truth. Hungary’s war-torn past contrasts sharply with Australia’s bright new world of opportunity in this moving and compelling mystery.

Fiona Palmer
Ashley has recently lost her husband. Daughter Emily is being bullied online. Best friend Nikki is holding a huge secret. And why is husband, Chris, receiving so many text messages lately? Their teenage children are glued to technology, be it PlayStation, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat . . .

The two women hatch a plan: for three weeks, both families will stay in a rustic, remote coastal camp with no phone reception. While the teenagers struggle to embrace this new world of self-entertaining in the rugged bushland, the adults are trying to maintain a certain facade. Soon, around the flames of the camp fire, their tiny white lies might just begin to be exposed.

Lainie Anderson
The First World War is over and air mechanic Wally Shiers has promised to return home to his fiancée, Helena Alford. But Wally never reckoned on charismatic fighter pilot Ross Smith, and an invitation to compete in the world’s most audacious air race.

A £10,000 prize has been offered for the first airmen to fly from England to Australia. Smith is banking on an open-cockpit Vickers Vimy, a biplane with a fuselage that looks ominously like a coffin.

And who can resist a hero? Wally writes to Helena to say he won’t be home for another year – and the love of his life is left holding her hand-stitched wedding dress …

Using war diaries, letters and Churchill Fellowship research from along the race route, Long Flight Home recreates one of the most important – and largely forgotten – chapters in world aviation history.

Amanda Quick
Investigative apprentice Lyra Brazier, the newest resident of Burning Cove, is unsettled when her boss suddenly goes on a health retreat at an exclusive spa and disappears without another word. Lyra knows something has happened to Raina Kirk, and she is the only one who can track her down.

The health spa is known for its luxurious offerings and prestigious clientele, and the wealthy, socialite background Lyra desperately wanted to leave behind is perfect for this undercover job. The agency brings in a partner and bodyguard for her, but she doesn’t get the suave, pistol-packing private eye she expected.

Simon Cage is a mild-mannered antiquarian book dealer with a quiet, academic air, and Lyra can’t figure out why he was chosen as her partner. But it soon becomes clear when they arrive at the spa and pose as a couple: Simon has a unique gift that allows him to detect secrets, a skill that is crucial in finding Raina.

The unlikely duo falls down a rabbit hole of twisted rumors and missing socialites, discovering that the health spa is a façade for something far darker than they imagined. With a murderer in their midst, Raina isn’t the only one in grave danger—Lyra is next.

Nick Petrie
A man wanted by two governments, Peter Ash has found a simple, low-profile life in Milwaukee, living with his girlfriend June and renovating old buildings with his friend Lewis. Staying out of trouble is the key to preserving this fragile peace . . . but when Peter spots a suspicious armed man walking into a crowded market, he knows he can’t stand by and do nothing.

Peter does interrupt a crime, but it wasn’t at all what he’d expected. The young gunman appeared to have one target and one mission–but when he escapes, and his victim vanishes before police arrive, it seems there is more to the encounter than meets the eye. Peter’s hunch is proven correct when a powerful associate from his past appears with an interest in the crime, and an irresistible offer: if he and June solve this mystery, Peter’s record will be scrubbed clean.

While Peter and Lewis trace the gunman, reporter June digs into the victim of the incident, a man whose face rings a bell in her memory. As their parallel investigations draw together, they’re thrust into the path of a ruthless tech thief, an eerily cheerful assassin, a brilliant and troubled inventor, and a revolutionary technology that could wreak devastation in the wrong hands. But for Peter, even more is at stake: this investigation is his only path to a life free from the threat of prosecution or prison. Before the end, he’ll have to fight harder than ever before to ensure that freedom doesn’t come at too high a cost. . .

Lorna Barrett
Tricia Miles must swim against the tide to catch a killer when Haven’t Got A Clue’s assistant manager is accused of murder in the latest entry to Lorna Barrett’s New York Times bestselling Booktown series. Haven’t Got A Clue bookshop owner Tricia Miles’s relationship is on the rocks. After a not-so-fun vacation with her on-again-off-again lover, Marshall Cambridge, Tricia’s hoping for smooth sailing back in Stoneham. Unfortunately Booktown greets her not with blue skies but with another body.

When Tricia’s assistant manager, Pixie, finds homeless vet Susan Morris’s body behind Haven’t Got A Clue, Pixie’s checkered past makes her the prime suspect. Tricia sets out to clear Pixie’s name armed with only an anchor insignia earring found at the scene of the crime. As Tricia digs deeper she discovers Susan was involved in a scandal right before retiring from the Navy–but since nobody in the village knows Susan, even Tricia’s one lead is in danger of drying up. With family drama brewing in the background and all of Stoneham convinced her manager is a murderer, Tricia knows she has to get to the bottom of the case soon before Pixie’s life is sunk.

Mary Kay Andrews
In trouble and on the run… After she discovers her sister Tanya dead on the floor of her fashionable New York City townhouse, Letty Carnahan is certain she knows who did Tanya’s ex; sleazy real estate entrepreneur Evan Wingfield. Even in the grip of grief and panic Letty heeds her late sister’s “If anything bad happens to me―it’s Evan. Promise me you’ll take Maya and run. Promise me.”

With a trunk full of emotional baggage…

So Letty grabs her sister’s Mercedes and hits the road with her wailing four-year-old niece Maya. Letty is determined to out-run Evan and the law, but run to where? Tanya, a woman with a past shrouded in secrets, left behind a “go-bag” of cash and a big honking diamond ring―but only one a faded magazine story about a sleepy mom-and-pop motel in a Florida beach town with the improbable name of Treasure Island. She sheds her old life and checks into an uncertain future at The Murmuring Surf Motel.

The No Vacancy sign is flashing & the sharks are circling…

And that’s the good news. Because The Surf, as the regulars call it, is the winter home of a close-knit flock of retirees and snowbirds who regard this odd-duck newcomer with suspicion and down-right hostility. As Letty settles into the motel’s former storage room, she tries to heal Maya’s heartache and unravel the key to her sister’s shady past, all while dodging the attention of the owner’s dangerously attractive son Joe, who just happens to be a local police detective. Can Letty find romance as well as a room at the inn―or will Joe betray her secrets and put her behind bars? With danger closing in, it’s a race to find the truth and right the wrongs of the past.

Nathalia Holt
The never-before-told story of a small cadre of influential female spies in the precarious early days of the CIA—women who helped create the template for cutting-edge espionage (and blazed new paths for equality in the workplace) in the treacherous post-WWII era. In the wake of World War II, four agents were critical in helping build a new organization that we now know as the CIA.

Adelaide Hawkins, Mary Hutchison, Eloise Page, and Elizabeth Sudmeier, called the “wise gals” by their male colleagues because of their sharp sense of humor and even quicker intelligence, were not the stereotypical femme fatale of spy novels. They were smart, courageous, and groundbreaking agents at the top of their class, instrumental in both developing innovative tools for intelligence gathering—and insisting (in their own unique ways) that they receive the credit and pay their expertise deserved.

Throughout the Cold War era, each woman had a vital role to play on the international stage. Adelaide rose through the ranks, developing new cryptosystems that advanced how spies communicate with each other. Mary worked overseas in Europe and Asia, building partnerships and allegiances that would last decades. Elizabeth would risk her life in the Middle East in order to gain intelligence on deadly Soviet weaponry. Eloise would wield influence on scientific and technical operations worldwide, ultimately exposing global terrorism threats. Through their friendship and shared sense of purpose, they rose to positions of power and were able to make real change in a traditionally “male, pale, and Yale” organization—but not without some tragic losses and real heartache along the way.

Valerie Keogh
Since that fateful night I have always kept myself to myself. Reserved. Private. Alone. Some people think I am too quiet. That life is passing me by. But I know there is safety in my own company. That no one can hurt me if I don’t let them get too close.

Until the day I meet him. A handsome, charming stranger. A chance for me to take a risk…finally?
Or a man who threatens everything I’ve worked so hard for?
You’ll be sorry…
And that’s when my whole life begins to fall apart….