Showing results by publisher "Penguin Random House Australia Audio" in Literature & Fiction

Frank Moorhouse was legendary in Australian literary and cultural life, the author of a huge and diverse body of work - essays, short stories, journalism, scripts, the iconic Edith Trilogy - an unapologetic activist, intellectual, libertarian and champion of freedom of speech and sexual self determination. Though he lived his life publicly, his private stories have not been shared, the many paths he forged left unexamined, until now. This landmark study is the fascinating story of how one of Australia's most original writers and pioneer of the discontinuous narrative came to be.

In 19th-century New South Wales, the name Dalhunty stood for prosperity and prestige. The family's vast station was home to more than 80 people, and each year, their premium wool was shipped down the bustling Darling River to be sold in South Australia. Yet, just decades later, Dalhunty Station is on the brink of ruin. In the summer of 1909, eccentric Benjamin Dalhunty and his son Julian anxiously await the arrival of the Lady Matilda, the first paddle-steamer to navigate the river in more than two years. It will transport their very last wool clip to market.

Ambitious country reporter, Del Fisher, seems to have it all. She's just landed her dream job, along with an engagement to Nick, Winga's most eligible bachelor and son of local mayor and mining tycoon, Carson Shaw. But Del is blindsided when a feature article and its shocking allegations about the Shaw family is published under her name. Del and Nick's relationship is torn apart. Devastated by the unintentional havoc she has caused, Del flees to the family farm at Berrimilla in the heart of beautiful Kingfisher Valley.

When a body is found buried near the desolate forest road of Kellers Way, Detective Melanie Carter must identify the victim if she is to have any chance of finding the killer. That's no easy task with fragmentary evidence from a crime committed years earlier and a conspiracy of silence from anyone who might have information. The one person who may be able to help is Julie West.

In 1939, Anton, a captain in the Polish army, says goodbye to his wife, Elisabeth. He is leaving to defend their homeland against the invasion by Nazi Germany and Russia. They make a vow that - whatever happens, however much time passes - they'll meet again at the Winter Palace, their stately home in the Polish countryside. The winds of war draw them far apart. Anton is captured and sent to Siberia as a POW. He eventually joins a lost army that battles through snowstorms and scorching deserts in Central Asia to find freedom. Anton survives, driven by his determination to join Elisabeth again.

Stephen Maserov has problems. A onetime teacher, married to fellow teacher Eleanor, he has retrained and is now a second-year lawyer working at mega-firm Freely Savage Carter Blanche. Despite toiling around the clock to make budget, he's in imminent danger of being downsized. And to make things worse, Eleanor, sick of single-parenting their two young children thanks to Stephen's relentless work schedule, has asked him to move out.

Callie Madden, a grieving widow and single mother of three, is stunned to learn she's inherited one half of Hawkridge, a beautiful acreage in the Misty Mountains of Far North Queensland. A potential family scandal surrounds the reasons for this bequest and there are additional complications.

How did Corporal Hitler's Luger from the First World War end up being the weapon that killed an IRA turncoat in Kempsey, New South Wales, in 1933? When an affluent Kempsey matron spots a young Aboriginal boy who bears an uncanny resemblance to her husband, not only does she scream for divorce, attempt to take control of the child's future and upend her comfortable life, but the whole town seems drawn into chaos.

When single mum Olivia uproots her young son Darcy from their life in Tasmania for a new start in the English Cotswolds, she isn't exactly expecting a bed of roses - but nor is she prepared for the challenges that life in the picturesque village throws her way. The Renaissance Project hopes to bring the dwindling community back to life - to welcome migrants from around the world and to boost the failing economy - but not everyone is so pleased about the initiative.

Sergeant Roy Cooper is a country policeman in the small country town of Penguin Hill. He's been batting for his local cricket club for decades - where he's a statistical miracle. He's overweight, he makes very few runs, he's not pretty to watch, but he's never been dismissed. When young local schoolgirl Cassie chances upon the story, she takes it all the way to Donna Garrett, a renowned sports columnist from a Melbourne newspaper who's forced to write under the male pseudonym of 'Don' Garrett to be taken seriously.

Gabby McPhee is the owner of The Tin Man, a chic new cafe and coffee roasting house in Melbourne. The struggles of her recent heart transplant are behind her, and life is looking up - until a mysterious customer appears in the cafe, convinced that Gabby has her deceased husband's heart beating inside her chest. Krystal Arthur is a bereaved widow, struggling to hold herself and her two young boys together since Evan's death, and plagued by unanswered questions. Why was her husband in another city the night he died? And why won't his spirit rest?

Australia 1948. As a young woman running Amiens, a sizeable sheep station in New South Wales, Kate Dowd knows she's expected to fail. And her grazier neighbour is doing his best to ensure she does, attacking her method of burning off to repel a bushfire. But fire risk is just one of her problems. Kate cannot lose Amiens, or give in to her estranged husband Jack's demands to sell: the farm is her livelihood and the only protection she can offer her half-sister Pearl, as the Aborigines Welfare Board threatens to take her away.

December 1974. Abby Campbell and her brother Charlie are driving to their father's farm on a dark country road when they swerve into the path of another car, forcing it into a tree. The pregnant driver is killed instantly. In the heat of the moment, Abby and Charlie make a fateful decision. They flee, hoping heavy rain will erase the fact they were there. They both have too much to lose.

A distant land. A dangerous husband. A forbidden love. It is 1912, and Maisie Porter stands on the deck of the SS Oceanic as England fades from view. Her destination is Buccaneer Bay in Australia's far northwest. Her purpose: marriage to her cousin Maitland, a wealthy pearling magnate - and a man she has never met. Also on board is William Cooper, the Royal Navy's top man. Following a directive from the Australian government, he and 11other 'white' divers have been hired to replace the predominantly Asian pearling crews.

Alaska 2018 and Mike is a long way from home, striking out into real estate. London 1978 and Simon is an Australian fish out of water navigating adolescence during the Winter of Discontent and drawn to an eccentric impresario next door. Washington, DC 1928 and a retired US senator is interviewed about his time in Russia in 1916 and his mission to save a young heir to an empire. Vienna 1809 and an Irish teenager on the run from the law takes refuge among composers as Napoleon besieges and shells the city. Hong Kong 2019 and estranged brothers Mike and Simon reunite in midlife.

The past shapes the present - they teach us that in schools and universities. (Shapes? Infiltrates? More like, imbues, infuses.) This past cannot be visited like an ageing aunt. It doesn't live in little zoo enclosures. Half the time, this past is nothing less than the beating heart of the present. So, how to speak of the searing, unpindownable power that the past - ours, our family's, our culture's - wields in the present? Stories are not enough, even though they are essential. And books about history, books of psychology - the best of them take us closer, but still not close enough.

In a remote corner of Tanzania, Essie Lawrence lives with her husband in an archaeologist's camp. One morning a chance encounter with two strangers sees her making a rash promise. When she returns home to the research base, she has a baby in her arms. Essie is to care for the little girl until the coming of the rains. And then hand her back. The organised world of Magadi Research Camp is turned upside down. As her heart opens up to new life, Essie is drawn into the ancient wisdom of the Hadza, the last hunter-gatherer tribe in East Africa.

Nineteen-year-old identical twins Violet and Daisie Chettle can hardly believe their luck when they are recruited as maids to accompany the queen's lady-in-waiting on the royal tour to Australia in 1954. It's just the ticket they need away from cold, grey England and the tension that's been brewing at home since the loss of their parents. However, life on board the SS Gothic, and indeed in the colony, is far from the glamorous adventure they expected, and their relationship becomes even more strained when one twin discovers her sister's unconscionable act of betrayal.

After her partner and father die in quick succession, BB moves to a glamorous, condemned beachside apartment at the edge of a glittering city so memory-saturated it might be a mirage. Her plan? To rediscover the person she was before finding, and losing, the love of her life. To heal she'll party like it's 1999, walk her motley dog, Baby, and surrender to the simple joys of life alone by the sea.

1917: America's declaration of war against Germany gives Grace Winter, a keen-eyed New York Times investigative reporter, a much sought after opportunity to make her mark on the Western Front, albeit in ways she had never expected. But by 1918 the gruesome reality of trench warfare has set in, and an invisible new enemy - The Spanish Flu - is killing allied soldiers in their droves.