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

Stifled by English society, Molly Bentley has always yearned for adventure. When her father offers to send her to the bustling port town of Albany in Western Australia, Molly readily agrees, even if it means assuming a secret identity. With only her chaperone Mrs Caldicott to answer to, her life of freedom can finally begin. Until Molly is knocked down in the streets, nearly trampled, and a threatening letter is slipped into her hands.

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.

Coburg, Melbourne. Ford McCullen is growing up with his mother, Deidre, his Pop and Noonie in ‘The Compound’, a pair of units in the shadow of Pentridge prison. His father, Robert, has left them to live in the bush with his new male partner. Nobody is coping. When Ford’s paternal grandmother Queenie’s good fortune allows him to attend a prestigious Catholic private school on the other side of the river and to learn the violin, Ford finds himself balancing separate identities.

Meg's life is woven into the fabric of St. Stephens. It's a tapestry made of two precious children, a hidden truth, and a husband whose ideas of a perfect wife do not match her own. When Meg puts her foot down on a third kid, gets a job, and is empowered by the same book group that was meant to keep her in her place, her marriage begins to disintegrate. Set in a tiny Mormon community, this is a novel about resilience and courage – the fierceness of mother-love and the power that comes with never forgetting who you really are.

Nessa keeps the world at arm's length. It's easier that way, for everyone. Her orbit is no bigger than her sister, her parents and a solitary work colleague with a penchant for dying wishes. But even these people don't see the real Nessa. Saddled with her father's impossible gift, a rundown homestead in the middle of nowhere, Nessa reluctantly develops a wellness retreat of sorts–a no-frills escape for women. All too quickly, keeping her distance becomes a trickier dance, even for someone so good at it.

Paris, 1810. Haunted by the French Revolution, Marie Tussaud has locked herself away in her shop with the death masks she was forced to make to avoid the guillotine. Philidor, a famous magician, offers her the chance to accompany him to London to assist in creating a wax automaton that will bring them both money and success. Following a disastrous performance on their opening night in which the wax on their prized spectacle melts, the eccentric duke, William Cavendish, invites them to his rambling estate, Welbeck.

Even before I knew anything about Granddad Les, Wally and me sometimes dared each other to see how close to the knackery we could get. It was way out in the bottom paddock, and Dad had banned us from going further than the dam. Wally said it was because the whole paddock was haunted. He said he could see ghosts wisping in the grass like sheets blown from the washing line. But even then I knew for sure that was a lie. Ten-year-old Cub lives with her parents, older brother Cassie, and twin brother Wally on a lonely property bordering an abandoned cattle farm and knackery.

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.

Tishtar runs a small legal practice in Melbourne where he has a new client, Habiba, who seeks to bring her orphan nieces to Australia from war-torn Somalia. He is also a migrant, having left the civil unrest in Iran to find a new life in a new country. As Tishtar becomes consumed with Habiba's tales of war-torn Somalia, his own childhood memories return and he reflects on the time he spent at his grandmother's house to escape the atrocities that unravelled post the Islamic Revolution.

On beautiful Fraser Island in 1882, the population of the Badtjala people is in sharp decline following a run of brutal massacres. When German man Louis Müller offers to sail 18-year-old Bonny to Europe, along with 22-year-old Jurano and his 15-year-old niece, Donordera, the proud and headstrong Bonny agrees. Accompanied by Müller’s bright and grieving daughter, Hilda, the group begins their journey to perform in Hamburg, Berlin, Paris and eventually London in the hope of seeking help from the Queen of England.

When Paula finds her husband's shameful secrets on his mobile phone, and Facebook puts her teenage daughter at the centre of a high-school scandal, she does the only thing that makes sense to her: she runs away from it all. Taking her kids and elderly father, she heads off on a road trip across Australia with one rule: no technology allowed. It's time to get back to basics, reclaim her life and learn how to be a family again.

A young fisherman is missing from the crayfish boats in the West Australian town of Stark. There's no trace at all of Elliot, there hasn't been for some weeks and Paul, his younger brother, is the only one who seems to be active in the search. Taking Elliot's place on the boat skippered by their troubled cousin, Paul soon learns how many opportunities there are to get lost in those many thousands of kilometres of lonely coastline.

Van Diemen's Land, 1826. Bridget Crack, a desperate convict, flees the cruelty of her master into the impenetrable Tasmanian wilderness. Saved from certain death by Matt Sheedy and his fellow bushrangers, her precarious existence among the volatile and murderous men is a different kind of hell. Hunted by soldiers, at the mercy of killers, and surrounded by roaring river and towering columns of rock, what will she have to do to survive?

Max is about to finish high school. On the surface it appears he has everything, but underneath he is floundering. Grappling with questions about his birth parents and his sexuality, he feels that there is a seed of badness deep within him that will inevitably be exposed. After an incident at the end-of-year party sets Max's world to crumbling, he must finally figure out who he is and where he came from–and who he is allowed to love.

Journalist Jonno Bligh is headhunted to London by Russian media mogul Borya Bolshakov to be editor of his flagship tabloid UK Today. When Jonno and ace reporter Shiv O’Shea investigate the murders of a high-profile activist and a princess by jihadi terrorists, Jonno is threatened with deadly reprisals after a controversial editorial. Then he uncovers Bolshakov’s shady links to a plot to rid Russia of crippling sanctions - and the billionaire’s plan to use UK Today as a mouthpiece.

Tessa Lowell is working in Uganda researching the effects of PTSD and war on child soldiers when she is kidnapped by rebel forces. Isolated in an increasingly volatile situation, she tries to form a bond with 13-year-old Francis, already an experienced soldier and survivor of shocking violence. In Melbourne, Tessa's parents learn government agencies can do little to help, so they contact their son Stephen, an astute if manipulative businessman based in Cape Town who agrees to search for her but has reasons of his own to do so.

How can we know the truth of our own lives? This question troubles Matilda, as she looks back on her time with her foster brother, Sem. Matilda remembers long hours at the swimming pool. Celeste, a girl who lived downstairs. Sem disappearing for hours, then days. Her father yelling in the driveway. A car coming to take Sem away. Five years later, Sem is now a memory she has locked away. Until, at a party, she reconnects with Celeste and then Sem and the three of them move to Eden. As the summer drags on, Sem starts disappearing again.

Anna, 62, is the victim of a terrorist attack in which eleven others were murdered. Nat, 35, is an Army veteran who fought in Afghanistan. They have so little in common. And so much. A friendship stirs between them, tentative and unlikely, its foundation the violence they have seen and the memories that stalk them. Together, they begin to search for a way back home. But when Nat's wife falls unexpectedly pregnant, terrible ghosts from his wartime past rise up and much more than a friendship is at stake.

Austria, 1936. Esther 'Tess' Simpson works for a British organisation that rescues academics from the cruel Fascist and anti-Semitic regimes taking hold in Europe. During a dangerous trip to Vienna to help bring aid to Europe's threatened Jewish scholars, Esther meets Harry Singer, a young Jewish academic and musician. Tess works tirelessly to rescue at-risk academics and scientists from across Europe, trying to find positions for them in Britain and America.

It is 1908, and Max Brod is the rising star of Prague's literary world. But when a rival appears on the scene, Max discovers how quickly he can lose everything he has worked so hard to attain. The Lost Pages is a richly reimagined story of Max Brod's life filtered through his relationship with Franz Kafka. In this inspired novel of friendship, fraud, madness and betrayal, Marija Pericic writes vividly and compellingly of an extraordinary literary rivalry.