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

Violet Nash has grown up in the shadows of her father Charlie’s shattered dreams. It’s been years since he walked away from the battlefields of France, a WWI hero but his heart in tatters, only to see it broken all over again in the worst way possible. In search of a new beginning, they set sail for Tasmania, Australia to fulfill his dream of setting up a whisky distillery.

Amina Bennis has come back to her childhood home in Morocco to attend her sister's wedding. The time has come for her to confront her strict, traditionalist father with the secret she has kept for more than a year - her American husband, Max. Amina's best friend, Charlie, and Charlie's feisty grandmother, Bea, have come along for moral support, staying with Amina and her family in their palatial riad in Fès and enjoying all that the city has to offer. But Charlie is also hiding someone from her past - a mystery man from Casablanca.

Tess is feeling burnt out from her uninspiring job and her busy city lifestyle. Even her personal relationships make her feel as if she's simply drifting through life rather than living it to the full. Her godmother Luna, who leads a very simple existence in a rustic cottage in the North Queensland rainforest, is also at something of a crossroads. Keen to expand her jewellery-making business, she needs the new connections that a bustling city offers. When she suggests to Tess that the two of them might swap homes for an extended period, it seems the perfect solution.

Librarian Phoebe Cotton lives with misophonia. The sound of other people crunching an apple, slurping their tea or snapping chewing gum fills her with a rage that she buries deep within. Mortified by her 'Not Quite Right' brain, she hides away inside 6 Salmon Street, the family home that her formidable grandmother Dorothy has abandoned for a more convivial life at the Western Retreat Retirement Village. But when Phoebe begins receiving mysterious postcards in the mail, she slowly, but surely, finds herself being pulled back out into the world and towards Monty, the sweet postal clerk.

When Shirley Sullivan signs her 83-year-old husband, Frank, out of the Sunset Lodge Nursing Home, she has no intention of bringing him back. For 57 years the couple has shared love, happiness and heartbreak. And while Frank may not know who his wife is these days, he knows he wants to go home. Back to the beach where they met in the early 1960s.

What would you do if you thought each day on earth might just be your last? Lucky by name. Not so lucky by nature. Adopted twins Nora and Stevie Lucky have always been close, despite being total opposites. When their mother dies, Nora convinces Stevie to search for their biological parents, only to come face-to-face with a life-changing revelation that sends them spiralling in opposite directions. With their careers, love lives and even their sisterly bond at risk, they're going to need more than luck to survive.

Dublin 1966. When Joan Quinn, a factory girl from the Cranmore Estate, marries Martin Egan, it looks like her dreams have come true. But all is not as it seems. Joan lives in the shadow of a secret—the couple's decision to give up their first daughter for adoption only months before. For the next three decades, Joan's marriage and her relationship with her second child Carmel suffer as a consequence. Then one day in 1996, a letter arrives from their adopted daughter.

Frances is an artist in her forties living a quiet life in a remote mountain town in NSW, far away from the glittering lights and famous personalities of the Sydney art world she once knew. When an invitation arrives from a former lover to attend his exhibition at a state gallery, Frances is plunged back into the past, where a single irrevocable act changed the course of her story. Told across two time periods, Frances's story wrestles with themes of power and privilege, womanhood and motherhood, artistic doubt, the male gaze upon the female body, and the commodification of art.

Callie March is fascinated by human absurdity, including the habits of the upper class. So when she bribes her screen-addicted teenage son to join a local rowing club, she is thrilled to discover a whole new world of odd behaviours, irrational obsessions and riverside rooting. Thrust into a support crew and a very silly uniform, Callie has inadvertently volunteered for a season of pre-dawn parenting, endless fundraising and a whole lot of pandering to insufferable dickheads. But she also finds friendship, intrigue, lust and Harry Styles, while her son finds his first (illuminating) love.

John Mitchel, Irishman, lawyer, journalist, activist and politician, is a complex character. Charged with treason in Ireland and tried by an English judge, he was snuck off mainland Ireland on the day he was charged to avoid a breakout and rebellion. He was transported initially to Bermuda, then to South Africa and then to Van Diemen's Land where as an Irishman he was supported by many and given a ticket of leave. He soon became a farmer and activist and was eventually secreted out of Australia to the USA, where it was felt he could be more active for the Irish cause.

Danny Mulberry is a man who 'could do better'. Better at life, better at taking on responsibility and most definitely better at being a grown-up. But when a misleading photo of Danny appears in the newspaper, people around the country start to think this apparently enlightened man could be the one with all the answers. Letters begin to flood in from strangers seeking his guidance.

Oli Darling is a queer artist from the country - it says so right at the top of every press release. His art has brought him fame, money, fashionable substance abuse issues and only a little imposter syndrome. But then he goes on live TV and says the one thing that can get a rich white guy cancelled. With his reputation in tatters, nobody is buying Oli's schtick or his art. That's a problem for all the people who've invested millions in him. Powerful, dangerous people. To save his own skin, Oli will need to restore his public image.

In the summer of 1976 it's picking season on an Australian stone-fruit orchard run by Celia, a hardworking woman in her early 40s. Years ago, when her husband was killed as a bystander in an armed robbery, Celia left the city and brought her newborn daughter, Zoe, to this farm for a secure life. Now 16, Zoe is a passionate, intelligent girl, chafing against her mother's protectiveness, yearning to find intensity and a bit of danger.

Since their bitter divorce, Lisa and Rolf have forged new and separate lives. Rolf has moved out of Beacon Bay, while Lisa has remained in the tiny tropical town, a pillar of her community. When a cyclone brings a massive tree smashing into Lisa's roof - into the home Rolf built and where they raised their family - their son, Dave, convinces Rolf that he must do the repairs. Tensions abound when Rolf arrives with glamorous stage star Renata, along with a pretty young publicist who stirs up complications for Dave and his new restaurant.

In these six captivating short stories, meet some members of the Otto Bin Empire - the homeless men and women who gather down by the docks. Tragedy and betrayal, sacrifice and salvation, redemption and hope are all on display in this inspiring collection from master storyteller Judy Nunn.

Liv Winsome, working mother of three sons, wife to decent if distracted Duncan, is overwhelmed. And losing her hair. Her doctor has told her she needs to slow down, do less. Focus on what's important. After Jai, one of her 14-year-old twins, is involved in a sexting scandal, Liv realises things need to change, and fast. Inspired by the pop-psychology books she devours, she writes a nine-page list of everything she does to keep the family afloat and she delegates.

In their youth, lovebirds Elizabeth and Ray had to fight to be together. Their future was full of promise and, blessed with children and careers, their happiness complete. But a twist of fate changed their lives forever. Now in her 60s, Elizabeth is desperately lonely. She rarely sees her two adult sons and her closest friend is a talkative budgie. But when her grandson, Zach, gets into trouble with the police, she decides to take him on a road trip to find his grandfather, her lost love Ray, in the hope of mending their broken family.

Brothers Thom and Archie are the best of friends and never disagree, until the beautiful, young and very headstrong Molly James comes into their life. Molly might be playing a game with the brothers - but when war strikes and they both join up to fight, it isn't a game anymore. Based on the true story of the author's grandfather's wartime experiences, At the Going Down of the Sun explores the intense bond between soldiers and brothers fighting in war, and a love that may tear them apart.

Nicole and Samantha Cooper both remember the summer day when their mother, Tina, lost control of their car - but not in quite the same way. It is only after Tina's death, almost four decades later, that the sisters are forced to reckon with the repercussions of the crash. Nicole, after years of sabotaging her own happiness, seems finally content but still can't get through to her sister. And Samantha is hiding something that might just tear apart the life she's worked so hard to build for herself.

Edwina Dawling is the golden girl of Australian television. The former pop singer is now the country's most popular actress, an international star thanks to the hit TV soap The Glitter Game. But behind the seductive glamour of television is a cutthroat world where careers are made or destroyed with a word in the right ear...or a night in the right bed. Where success breeds envy and corruption, concealed in the flashing smiles at every premier event, every party.