Showing results by publisher "Wavesound from W. F. Howes Ltd" in Literature & Fiction

Two women from opposite ends of the earth begin corresponding by chance and start sharing the intimacies of their lives. An anguished email from Pamela Robinson in Australia to her ex-husband in Paris accidentally ends up in the inbox of New York State teacher Chrisanthi Woods. Chrisanthi is sympathetic to Pamela's struggles and the women begin to tell each other the stories and secrets of their lives. Pamela, responsible for raising her three sons, must re-invent the meaning of home following her divorce, and Chrisanthi, her dreams long dampened, must find home by leaving it.

Sarah and Hannah are on a cruise from San Diego, California, to Sydney, Australia. Sarah, Hannah's grandmother, is returning to the country of her birth, a place she hasn't seen since boarding the USS Mariposa in 1945. Then she, along with countless other war brides, sailed across the Pacific to join the American servicemen they had married during World War II. Now Hannah is the same age Sarah was when she made her first journey and, in hearing Sarah tell the story of her life, realises the immensity of what her grandmother gave up.

When a drought dries up the contents of a water hole on her uncle's property, the last thing Investigative journalist Phillipa Davenport expected to find was a body. On a deadline and with a severe case of writers block, Pip doesn't have time to investigate this story—she just wants to write her book. However, the universe and her neighbour seem to have other ideas. And then there's the mysterious detective assigned to the case, who Pip is beginning to find very distracting.

A mother cuts her daughter's hair because her own hair starts falling out. A woman leaves her boyfriend because he reminds her of a corpse, another undergoes brain surgery to try and live more comfortably in higher temperatures. A widow physically transforms into her husband so that she does not have to grieve. In She Is Haunted, these renditions of the author search for recognition and connection, and more than anything else, small moments of empathy.

A family of cat farmers gets the chance to set the felines free. A group of chickens tells it like it is. A female-crewed ship ploughs through the patriarchy. A support group finds solace in a world without men. With her trademark humor, energy, and flair, McKay offers glimpses of places where dreams subsume reality, where childhood restarts, where humans embrace their animal selves and animals talk like humans.

John Lacey lusts for power and knows that gold can bring him riches and influence beyond his wildest dreams. Only he knows the terrible crime he committed to attain that wealth. Years later, as Lacey ruthlessly presides over the town he built and named after himself, no one has the courage to question his power or how he wields it.

For Ellen Whitfield, the betrothal of her dear friend Harriet to Ellen's brother has brought both loss and solace. But when Harriet suddenly breaks off the engagement, ostensibly at the insistence of her deceased mother, Ellen is bewildered. And when she learns that Harriet is involved with a spiritualist group led by the charismatic Caroline McLeod, she fears losing her friend altogether.

Rin Braden is almost ready to give up on life after the heartbreaking death of her lover Yamaan and the everyday dread of working for her mother's corrupt private prison company. But through a miracle Yamaan has survived. Yamaan turns up in an immigration detention facility in Australia, trading his labour for a supposedly safe place to live. This is no ordinary facility, it's Eaglehawk MTC, a manufactory built by her mother's company to exploit the flood of environmental refugees.

In the mid-1950s, a small group of Finnish migrants set up camp on Little Rat, a tiny island in an archipelago off the coast of Western Australia. The crayfishing industry is in its infancy, and the islands, haunted though they are by past shipwrecks, possess an indefinable allure. Drawn here by tragedy, Onni Saari is soon hooked by the stark beauty of the landscape and the slivers of jutting coral onto which the crayfishers build their precarious huts. Could these reefs, teeming with the elusive and lucrative cray, hold the key to a good life?

For the first time in her seventy-nine years, Evie McCarthy is plagued by the smell of roses. Death is coming for her. Clear as day. She's lucky she has the gift of second sight. It's served her well as Ballyhay's matchmaker, and now she's being forewarned. She just wants enough time to help her daughter and granddaughters realise the important things in life. Her big-hearted granddaughter Rosie is in love again. Rosie's married sister, Molly, with two small boys, is sleep-deprived, exhausted and wondering what happened to her life. Motherhood isn't supposed to be like this, is it?

Found dead in the Thames one frosty winter's morning, no one is sure whether she jumped or was pushed. The one person who may know the truth is the newest employee at Parker & Lane - the office temp, Eleanor. Eleanor has travelled to London to escape the repercussions of her traumatic childhood in outback Australia, but now tragedy seems to follow her wherever she goes. To her horror, she has no memory of the crucial hours leading up to Arabella's death....

Germaine Johnson may not be all that good with people, but she's great with numbers. Unfortunately, as she discovers after the incident at Wallace Insurance, there are very few openings these days for senior mathematicians. Then her cousin gets her a job at the council. On the Senior Citizens Helpline. It's not the resume entry Germaine wanted - but it turns out Mayor Verity Bainbridge has something more interesting in mind for her. A secret project involving the troublemakers at the senior citizens centre and their feud with the golf club next door....

Beautiful but impoverished Lina Dahlstrom is dying of tuberculosis and it seems that no one can save her. All hope is lost until an eccentric doctor, Carl Dance, becomes enthralled with Lina's charms and vows to do everything in his power to cure her. But when the illness inevitably claims Lina's life, Dance's obsession with her only grows and so begins a mad and criminal scheme to bring her back from beyond the grave and claim her as his own forever.

In 1890, artist Edward Burne-Jones finished a monumental series of paintings inspired by Sleeping Beauty. Told through the eyes of the five women in his life - wives, daughters and mistresses of famous artists - this is the astonishing story behind that famous painting - a story of love, obsession, scandal and betrayal.

With two bright children, a beautiful home and a husband she's always depended on, Lilian Hogarth considers herself blessed. Until, on her son Jamie's final day of high school, he fails to come home. Hospitalised by a coward's punch, Jamie has been the victim of a muck-up day celebration that went too far. Lilian's support is unflinching, even as her world begins to crumble.

It's Sydney in the early 2000s, and Grub is spending the summer with her universally adored older brother, Elijah, and his magnetic but troubled best friend, Zed. Their days are filled with surfing, swimming and hanging out; life couldn't be better. But years later, Elijah disappears and Grub's family unravels. At first, Grub blames Zed: he was the one who derailed Elijah from a bright future in the arts. But as Grub looks back at those dreamy summer days, the sanctuary of her certainty crumbles. Was Zed really responsible for her brother's disappearance? Was anyone?

When Melbourne lawyer Nathan Smithson takes on the case of mad, wealthy Edward Fonçeca's inheritance trial against his ruthless brother in 1902, he must unearth long-buried family secrets to have any chance of winning. Brazil, 1852: François, the Count de Castelnau and French Consul to Bahia falls dangerously ill on a naturalist expedition and is delivered by a Tupi Indian to the Fonçeca household.

Vera and Thea are mother and daughter. Vera writes for the internet: she constructs identities and scenarios for brands to cater to the ideal consumer. Yet she also consumes the offerings of the online world herself: the addictive pursuit of a cure, the narratives she craves in which mother and daughter find a way out of the shared experience of chronic illness. She becomes preoccupied with a blog written by a woman named Claudia, a mother whose daughter also has a chronic illness.

In a busy street market, Abbie lets go of six-year-old Sarah's hand. She isn't a bad mother, just exhausted. When she turns around, her daughter isn't there. Six years later, Abbie is in love and getting married. But her fragile peace is constantly threatened: not knowing what happened to Sarah is like living with a curse. Then she receives a phone call from an unknown number. A man claims to know what happened to Sarah, but if Abbie tells anyone or fails to follow his instructions, she'll never find out. How far will Abbie go to know the truth?

Kim is becoming a writer, and is determined to write a bestseller. She's been convinced of this idea by Matthew, an American literary agent who is as emotionally unavailable as he is handsome (very). Kim lives in her own carefully constructed reality, which her imagination is constantly pumping full of hot air. As she attempts to buoy herself using other people for external motivation, they poke holes in her fantasies, leading her to wonder if she's going to come crashing down or somehow stay afloat.