Showing results by publisher "Wavesound from W. F. Howes Ltd" in Biographies & Memoirs

When Gemma Carey was 12 years old, a man twice her age would sneak into her bedroom on a weekly basis and sexually assault her. When Gemma was 17, she took the perpetrator to court without anyone else knowing and had him placed on the child sex offenders register. When she was 33, her mother died of cancer. For 20 years, her mother had known about this man. But why had she not acted to protect her daughter? Could the genesis of this betrayal be found in her own family history?

Christine thought a year in South Korea would hit the pause button on her messy life. Her dad's death had left her anxious and depressed, and her career in musical theatre had reached a new low of shopping-centre kids' shows. When she found herself pulled over by the side of the road, dressed as a dinosaur and sobbing uncontrollably, it was clear something had to change. A role with an experimental theatre company based in Seoul seemed the perfect way to put off dealing with her problems, at least for a year. But she soon found there's no running away from yourself.

With characteristic devil-may care attitude and determination, Zach writes candidly about his experiences in Australia, recounting the good, the bad and the downright hilarious. He has plenty to say about the relationships between the indigenous codes of GAA and the AFL, and what needs to change secure the future of Irish and Australian footballers alike.

Wind back the clock on any Australian or New Zealand woman in her thirties or forties today and you'd probably find a Triangl bikini tucked away in her swimwear drawer. The uniquely neoprene, colour-blocked bikinis were the summer accessory season after season. Yet as customers snapped selfies at the beach, one woman was holed up in a smog-filled Hong Kong apartment, living on canned soup, battling twenty-hour days and debilitating depression, trying to make it all happen.

Heather Mitchell is an esteemed Australian stage and screen actor, and yet behind the scenes her real life has taken many remarkable twists and turns. Training an unflinching spotlight on her most formative memories, Heather illuminates the heartbreaking secrets, sexual encounters, family dramas and creative pursuits that have shaped her life as a woman, an actor and a mother. Told with raw candour and spellbinding lyricism, Everything and Nothing draws back the curtain on a unique and fascinating life.

To the outside world, Henry Bernard was a hard-working and beloved family doctor in Sydney. He was also a Holocaust survivor who was profoundly affected by his past. But Henry had a bigger secret and a deeper shame about what he had done during the war. He suffered privately until he began returning to Germany and Poland to confront his past. Tony Bernard, Henry's eldest son, went on a 40-year journey with his father to solve the mystery of why Henry was the way he was and how he came to understand the desperate choices Henry had made to try to keep himself and his family alive.

While most music careers stalled during the pandemic, Vika and Linda Bull soared with two chart-topping albums as they became beacons of warmth in uncertain times. For three decades they were best known as backing singers and collaborators to some of Australia's biggest artists, but it was when the world turned upside down that everyone realized just how much they loved the exquisite harmonies of these hard-working, easy-talking, all-singing sisters.

Just like fox, Heidi has lived on the outer. The ‘official record’ of her life has been her mental health record: primary diagnosis – schizoaffective; comorbidity – major depression, juvenile autism and not her own memories. This is the living, breathing version of Heidi’s mental health file that psych wards, doctors, mental health staff or rehab workers know little about or worse, use as evidence of diagnoses. This is Heidi’s account of what happened, shadowed by the story of a fox who knows he'll never belong.

Journalist Sarah Dingle was 27 when she learned that her identity was a lie. Over dinner one night, her mother casually mentioned Sarah had been conceived using a sperm donor. The man who’d raised her wasn’t her father; in fact, she had no idea who her father was. Or who she really was. As the shock receded, Sarah began to investigate her own existence. Thus began a 10-year journey - digging through hospital files, chasing leads and taking a DNA test - that finally led to her biological origins.

No one ever expected Catriona Menzies-Pike to run a marathon. She hated running and was a hopeless athlete. But a decade after her parents died suddenly, she started running and found that her grief started to move, too. Until very recently it was frowned upon for women to run long distances. Running was deemed unladylike - and probably dangerous.

The Criminal Class is based on the true-life experiences of an everyday teacher who makes the precarious career transition to an Education Officer in the prison system. Dealing with both the law enforcers and the law breakers, but not bound by any normal allegiances, he finds himself having to thread the rocky path of an outsider on the inside.

Known and loved by her many New Zealand and Australian fans as a down-to-earth broadcaster, radio host and social media sensation, Bree Tomasel is an irrepressible force of nature. But behind the banter and success, is a young woman who has battled anxiety and survived a harrowing attack on her as a young child. Funny, candid, raw—this is Bree Tomasel as you've never seen her.

People always asked her if she was ever afraid, living out in the desert alone with all those rough and scruffy men. But Minnie Berrington was not the faint-hearted type, and never had been. Being tough came naturally to her, growing up with three brothers and a family that went from riches to ruins. Only a slip of a girl, Minnie could match any man in stamina, perseverance and strength. She arrived in Coober Pedy when camels still brought in essential supplies, and water was so scarce that no-one washed. Together with the other miners, she braved the heat, the flies and the dust.

Adam Rozenbachs decided he would take his father on the trip of a lifetime to Europe - a chance to repay his dad for everything he’d given him in life. After three weeks of travel, Adam decided not killing his dad was more than enough repayment. Frustration reached a whole new level as Adam discovered his dad didn’t like museums, galleries, landmarks, travelling or Paris. But amid the irritation of travelling with an adult toddler (an adoddler), Adam learned - through gritted teeth - more about his dad, his family and himself.

Cult hero of the Big Bash League, Brad Hogg is still in his prime almost three decades after he first played cricket. As well as playing for his country, Brad has worked in shearing sheds and on the Fremantle wharf, as a postman, football umpire, tree-lopper and roustabout, even completing a finance degree along the way. Memorable, sad and often hilarious, The Wrong 'Un is the inspirational story of one of the game's most popular players.

Meet Sunshine. That's her stage name. Follow her downstairs into the shadowy underworld of the so-called gentlemen's clubs, where men hide in dark corners and pay gorgeous women like Sunshine to take their clothes off. Follow her to the private rooms where the lap dances happen, the hustle plays out and the real money flows. Sit with her in the back room with the other dancers, her friends and colleagues, who laugh and cry and rake in the dollars and party as though a zombie apocalypse is on the horizon.

A beautiful memoir from John Cook, one of Tasmania's last kerosene lighthouse keepers. A story about madness and wilderness, shining a light onto the vicissitudes of love and nature. I loved the life of the island, because I knew my body was more alive than it was on the mainland. People asked how we stood the isolation and boredom, but in some ways, it was more stimulating to have your senses turned up. In Tasmania, John Cook is known as 'The Keeper of the Flame'.

On a balmy Townsville night in 1944, young serviceman Warwick Meale is found beaten to death under a bridge. The army and police do not, or will not, conduct a proper investigation and history forgets the killer - until now. Nearly 80 years on, Warwick's descendant Jonathan Butler dusts off the case and chases the leads that were there all along. The Boy in the Dress exhumes secrets of life on the home front during World War II, where tensions between soldiers boiled over, new expressions of sexuality flourished and the threat of invasion catapulted the status quo into disarray.

When Brendan Watkins was eight years old, his parents told him he was adopted. In his late twenties, he discovered the identity of his birth mother - a woman who had been a Catholic nun when he was born - but she wanted nothing to do with him. For thirty years he only managed limited communication with her, and had no clues to the identity of his birth father. In 2018, a DNA test led him to the truth: he was the son of a celebrated missionary priest.

Detective Peter Seymour has seen every type of death imaginable in his time in the NSW Coroner's Court and, after many years in law enforcement, the tragedies are beginning to take their toll. Dealing with death day in day out becomes too much for Seymour and this seasoned veteran starts to grapple with overwhelming feelings of fear and doubt. He decides to return to the police force hoping the operational work might offer some reprieve. Fate would have it otherwise as he is thrust straight back into an intense murder investigation.