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

Recently divorced mother-of-two Samantha Murphy agrees to house-sit for her parents for a few weeks - but when the house involves several hundred acres of farming and livestock, it's a little more involved than the usual job. Sam left the family farm years ago for a more exciting, glamorous life on the Sunshine Coast, but now that her kids have grown up and moved out, she's at a crossroads.

Peter Blunden, a New Zealand soldier captured in Crete, jumps from a train and escapes from his Nazi captors. He is taken into a safe house by Mrs. Tasoula, a dressmaker and a member of the Greek resistance movement. She employs several young dressmakers including Thalia Christidou, who wonders why the door to a room off the living room is always locked. This arrangement works well for some time, but the Germans are everywhere and there is mounting concern that the men will be discovered. Thalia sees them by accident, and soon Peter and Thalia become close.

Narrated by a 13,000-year-old extinct mammoth, this is the (mostly) true story of how a collection of prehistoric creatures came to be on sale at a natural history auction in New York in 2007. By tracing how and when these fossils were unearthed, Mammoth leads us on a funny and fascinating journey from the Pleistocene epoch to 19th-century America and beyond, revealing how ideas about science and religion have shaped our world.

Already struggling to come to terms with the tragic death of her husband, Sophie Bryant nearly loses her life whilst on duty as a paramedic. Diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, Sophie retreats to the remote township of Hilsons Ridge. The tranquillity of the small community, discovering the secrets of her old farm's history, and an unexpected spark with vet, Zac, all help Sophie heal. Love, just like the past, waits for the right person to come along and unlock its secrets.

When Alexandra returns to Australia to be with her dying grandfather, Wilhelm, and grandmother Romy, they share with her family secrets they had kept hidden for over 50 years. In 1939, two young girls meet in Shanghai, the 'Paris of the East': beautiful local Li and Viennese refugee Romy. They form a fierce friendship, but the deepening shadows of World War Two fall over the women as they slip between the city's glamorous French Concession and the desperate Shanghai Ghetto. Eventually, they are forced to go in separate ways as Romy doubts Li's loyalties.

With the sickening realisation that his cover has been blown, Detective Dave Burrows knows his family is in serious danger from the vicious stock thieves and murderers, Bulldust and his brother, Scotty. Devastating news brings Dave back to Barrabine, where circumstances force him to question his determination to stay in the police force. How could he live with himself if anything happened to Mel and the kids?

Mari and Elisabeth have been at the center of each other's lives for years. Close friends since university, they're now drifting through their mid-twenties, working casual jobs and living in run-down share houses. When they meet Jack, a charming academic historian twenty years their senior, they're attracted to the sophisticated, intellectual world in which he seems to move. As the summer gathers heat, Jack is drawn into their lives, and an unconventional relationship—halfway between friendship and love triangle—develops.

Beth doesn't feel like she belongs in her rambunctious, bohemian family. Apart from the special relationship she shares with her grandma, Elise. When Beth wins the lottery (on a ticket she bought to prove she could be spontaneous), she decides to spend it on treating Elise. But instead of anything material, Elise wants Beth to help her track down her first love, Gerry.

Giacomo Brolo, aka Jack, is a mess. He works piecemeal construction gigs in remote WA, drinks himself to oblivion and is estranged from his family and friends. He's consumed by a self-loathing all too common for closeted men who have grown up in a world of hate and shame. But then Jack returns to his regional hometown of Geraldton for a family wedding. He hasn't been back since he fled at the age of eighteen, and his past soon catches up with him.

London, 1702. When her husband is lost at sea, Mary Burton Gulliver, midwife and herbalist, is forced to rebuild her life without him. But three years later when Lemuel Gulliver is brought home, fevered and communicating only in riddles, her ordered world is turned upside down. In a climate of suspicion, poverty and violence, Mary is caught in a crossfire of superstition and fear driven by her husband’s outlandish claims of the wonders he has seen, and it is up to her to navigate a passage to safety for herself and her daughter, and the vulnerable women in her care.

Winter Robins is a happy enough child, growing up in the north of England, with parents who love her and the constant companion of a twin brother, but a cold wind blows through when her mother dies. Her father turns to the bottle, her grandmother struggles to cope, and she and her brother are sent to live in Western Australia with family their mother had never mentioned.

While wildfires rage, the married couple make their way through Nevada, California, Arizona, and Utah, tracing the course of the Colorado River, the aquatic artery on which the Southwest depends for survival. Lewis, an artist working for a prominent land art foundation, is grieving the recent death of his mother, while Eloise is an academic researching the past and future of the Colorado River as it threatens to run dry.

Sometimes, you have to revisit your past to find your future. Laura—in her late 30s and single since her long-standing relationship with Doug broke up after he told her he didn't want children—finds herself back in his family's life, after a chance visit to his parents sees them in crisis and in need of her help.

It's 1831. Assigned to a good family in Sydney town and now learning the art of tattoo, convict girl Harrie Clarke is still haunted by the horror of the brutal murder she, Friday Woolfe and Sarah Morgan committed the previous year. Powerful and vindictive criminal Bella Jackson continues to demand money in exchange for her silence regarding their crime. And when things go from bad to much, much worse for Harrie, she is left teetering on the brink.

Bush nurse Lara McIntyre and rural journalist Toby Paxton are thrust into the limelight when an accident puts the heart of their community in jeopardy. The small country town of Bridgefield can’t manage without their general store and post office, but Lara can’t stomach the idea of out-of-town buyers revamping it with no regard for what the residents want. She’s also unsure where Toby’s allegiances lie in this fight. Loyalties are put to the test as the locals attempt to save the shop, with personal agendas, old grudges and misunderstandings threatening their best efforts.

1941, Estonia. As Stalin’s brutal Red Army crushes everything in its path, Katarina battles to protect her grandmother’s precious legacy - the weaving of gossamer lace shawls stitched with intricate patterns that tell the stories passed down through generations. Meanwhile Lydia is suffocating in her prison of privilege in Moscow. Yearning for freedom and to discover her beloved mother’s Baltic heritage, she escapes to Estonia. Soon these two young women find themselves in a fight for life, liberty and love.

Growing Up Disabled in Australia is the fifth book in the highly acclaimed, best-selling Growing Up series. It includes interviews with prominent Australians such as Senator Jordon Steele-John and Paralympian Isis Holt.

Amy, Jin and Lucie are leading isolated lives in their partially renovated, inner city home. They are not happy, but they are also terrified of change. When they buy a pet rabbit for Lucie, and then Amy's mother, Pauline, comes to stay, the family is forced to confront long-buried secrets. Will opening their hearts to the rabbit help them to heal or only invite further tragedy?

In 1998, an apparently ordinary Australian man is arrested and charged with a series of brutal murders. The news shocks the nation, bringing both horror and resolution to the victims' families, but its impact travels even further—into the past, as the murders rewrite personal histories, and into the future, as true crime podcasts and biopics tell the story of the crimes.

Gavin Jones is dead at thirty-nine. As a lawyer who controlled millions of dollars in fees per year, he was legal firm Howard Greene's biggest client and wielded that power with manipulative contempt. But he saved his worst behaviour for women, at work and at home. The partners of Howard Greene relied on his favour to fund their lavish lifestyles. If sycophantic admiration of the man was all it took to secure work from Gavin, that's what they delivered. But no one liked Gavin.