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

Set between England and India, Faithless tells the story of Cressida, a writer and translator, and her consuming love for Max, an enigmatic older writer—and married man. Faithless charts the course of Cressida's passion for Max from the first giddy rush of sensation when home during her first year of university, to the blossoming of a desire so potent it overwhelms, and the great stunning blows to the heart delivered by a love that she can't share with friends and family.

In 1966, at the age of 10, Martin Flanagan was sent to a Catholic boarding school in north-west Tasmania. Of the 12 priests on the staff, three have since gone to prison for sexual crimes committed against boys in their care. In 2018 and 2019, a series of disclosures about the school appeared on the ABC Tasmania website. Then came the Pell case. What followed was a frenzy of opinions, none of which represented Flanagan's view. The Empty Honour Board is part memoir, a reflection on truth and memory, and what is lost in rushing to judgement.

Almost 20 years after forbidding him to contact her, Vita receives an email from her old benefactor, Royce. Once, she was one of his brightest protegees; now her career has stalled and Royce is ailing, and each has a need to settle accounts. Beyond their murky shared history, both have lost beloveds, one to an untimely death, another to a strange disappearance. And both are trying to free themselves from deeper pasts, Vita from the inheritance of her birthplace, Royce from the grip of the ancient city of Pompeii and the secrets of the Garden of the Fugitives.

Skin Deep explores beauty, ageing, imperfection, health and illness, all of which are closely related to skin, and interrogates whiteness, both historically, structurally and through current notions of white fragility and victimhood. Phillipa McGuinness has interviewed plastic surgeons, dermatologists, burn survivors, beauticians, melanoma sufferers, people who suffer from body dysmorphias, victims and perpetrators of racism and all kinds of people who are and are not comfortable in their own skin to write a book where science meets art and culture, history and politics.

London, 1850. Constance Horton has disappeared. Maude, her older sister, knows only that Constance abandoned the apothecary they call home, and, disguised as a boy, boarded a ship bound for the Arctic. She never returned. 'A tragic accident', the Admiralty called it. But Maude Horton knows something isn't right. When she finds Constance's journal, it becomes clear that the truth is being buried by sinister forces. To find answers - and deliver justice for her sister - Maude must step into London's dark underbelly, and into the path of dangerous, powerful men.

The daughter of Cambodian refugees, Ai grew up in the small Australian town of Whitlam populated by Asian immigrants who once fled war-torn countries to rebuild their shattered lives. It is now the late '90s and despite their parents' harrowing past, Ai and her tightknit group of school friends lead seemingly ordinary lives, far removed from the unimaginable horrors suffered by their parents. But that carefree innocence is shattered in their last year of school when an incident involving Ai and her friends spirals into senseless violence, leaving behind a trail of unresolved trauma.

Audrey Mendes is a clever lawyer but has never made partner. Her weeks are filled with long hours in the office, visits to her ageing parents, trivia nights at the local and evenings at home with her pet rabbit, Joni. When Audrey tries to buy wine at the pub she is ignored and walks out without paying. One thing leads to another, and soon she starts rebelling in small and creative ways against a world in which she is unseen - until a painful reminder from her childhood pushes her into a reckoning.

Melbourne 1993: Ezra and Yonatan are best friends whose lives are forever changed when their school, the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Yahel Academy, is rocked by a scandal and they are thrown onto two divergent paths. Twenty years later, the lives of the two men are very different: Ezra identifies as secular and atheist, while Yonatan has been ordained as a rabbi and even teaches at the academy. By chance they are reunited, and the events of their past and present collide with devastating consequences.

Gwendolyn and Estella have always been as close as sisters can be. Growing up in a wealthy, powerful and sometimes treacherous family, they've relied on each other for support and confidence. Now, though, Gwendolyn is lying in a coma, the sole survivor of Estella's poisoning of their whole family. What in their dark and complicated past has brought them to this point? As Gwendolyn struggles to regain consciousness, she desperately retraces her memories, trying to uncover the moment that led to this brutal act.

The journals of the Nobel Prize-winning author, beautifully illustrated with his own paintings

In 1683 life is gruelling for the young women in Amsterdam's civic orphanage. The sole light in Johanna Timmerman's existence is her forbidden love for Frans, an orphan in the boys' section who has a smile like sunshine. Then he is gone. Floriane Peronneau's privileged world is pleasant and fulfilling until she discovers that it is all built on lies. Far from being the devoted gentleman he seems, her husband, Claes, is a womanising degenerate who has led them to the edge of ruin. And the forces are closing in on him.

Told from five different points of view, each one revealing something different, On a Bright Hillside in Paradise tells the story of a family of convict descendants in the back-blocks of Tasmania, on a farm in a place called Paradise. They lead hard-scrabble lives. The drama begins when strangers arrive, Christian Brethren evangelists who hold big revival meetings in local barns. On a Bright Hillside in Paradise tackles big questions of faith and family but remains grounded in the dreams and strivings of its beautifully drawn characters.

Girl is spending the summer at an artist's residency in Scotland. Far from her home in Australia and her tight-knit Malaysian family, she is meant to be writing a postcolonial novel and working on a PhD on the poetry of Sylvia Plath. But she can't stop thinking about her upbringing and the stories of her parents and grandmother who raised her. How can she reconcile their dreams for her with her lived reality?

England, 1961. Samuel's mother has been away for 113 days. Now it's just Samuel and Ruth, the housekeeper, alone in the once-great house. His mother is abroad, purportedly tending to her late husband's faltering business. Samuel yearns for her return but knows she must have had her reasons for leaving in the middle of the night, without saying good-bye. Although Samuel receives occasional postcards from his mother, her absence weighs heavily on his mind.

Dara Willcox, in New York for a weekend, meets Austin Clarke at an art gallery. The two are on different courses-Austin is British, temporarily in New York. Dara's from North Carolina, set on law school. They fall in love at first sight, and are determined to make their lives together. Days after their engagement dinner, Austin hears unsettling news from London that wrecks their plans. Dara abruptly cancels the wedding. She refuses to reveal why, not even to her best friends or her parents or grandmother, disrupting their family tradition of openness.

It's the turn of the new millennium, and the bright young things are partying like it's the end of the world. Dark glamour and debauched music reign, gigs culminating with everyone on stage - or undressed. Lucy, editor of a music magazine, is at the blazing neon centre, ecstatically seeking oblivion. But as her life (featuring a stalker, a not-quite ex-husband, and an affair with a cold, charismatic musician) veers from complicated to chaotic, she burns it all down, decamping to the remote seaside town of her childhood to start again.

On the cusp of turning thirty, Prue feels like everyone else is living their best life. Her friends are boasting about everything from their wellness achievements and exciting travel plans to their romantic relationships and newborn babies. Prue on the other hand is struggling to recover from a failed marriage engagement and an abandoned university degree, and her job at Love on the Line counselling lonely people only seems to highlight how truly alone she really feels herself.

Anna Winter, a young woman unwittingly caught up inside a ring of sophisticated Nazi spies, chooses to flee Germany in 1933, taking her precious doll collection with her as she sets sail for Australia. Soon after her arrival she finds herself in a remote outback town, working as a nanny for the family of Tom O'Hara, owner of the Birdum Hotel. Doubling up as the local bartender and cook, Anna hides her past from the world, until a chance encounter with an eccentric stranger, Alter Mayseh, changes everything.

The disappearance of Bo Rabbit in 1984 left the Rabbit women crippled by grief. Bo's mother, Rosemary, and Bo's younger sister Delia, became disjointed and dysfunctional, parting ways not long after Delia turned 18. Now a teacher at a Queensland college, Delia's life is dissolving. She gave up on her own art, began a relationship with a student and is struggling to raise her three growing children, Olive, Charlie and Benjamin. And, now she must also care for her mother. Despite it all, the Rabbits are managing, precariously.

The island of Borneo was once the most heavily wooded in the world, and its people have always carved wood beautifully. In Killernova, grappling with his heritage, Omar Musa remixes this ancient art form with fiery poetry forged in the stars. With equal parts swagger, humour and vulnerability, Musa charts a journey through the colonial history of Southeast Asia, environmental destruction, bushfires, race in Australia, the isolation and addiction of COVID lockdown, family, lost love and, ultimately, recovery.