Showing results by publisher "HarperAudio" in Family Life

There are one thousand stories up and down your street. There are nine thousand stories in your neighbourhood. This is the one about true crime journo Noah Cork, and the most important story he almost missed in pursuit of his dreams.

Meet Mercy Blain, whose house has just burnt down. Unfortunately for Mercy, this goes beyond the disaster it would be for most people: she hasn't been outside that house for two years now. Flung out into the world she's been studiously ignoring, Mercy goes to the only place she can. Her not-quite-ex-husband Eugene's house. But it turns out she can't stay there, either. And so begins Mercy's unwilling journey.

Café owner Frankie has been unlucky in love all her life. It's hard in a small town like Bunyip Bay to meet prospective partners. Her sister, Simone, lost the love of her life years before and is now devoted to raising their two teenage girls, leaving little time for romance. When Frankie is kissed by a handsome stranger who calls her Simone, it's a case of mistaken identity – but who is this man and how does he know Simone?

From the bestselling author of The Truth About Her comes Lonely Mouth, a delicious, clever, tender and vivid novel about the conflicted way women think about their bodies, their appetites, and themselves in the world.

Tara Hooper is at breaking point. With two young children, a business in a town struggling under an unexpected crime wave, and her husband more interested in his cricket team than their marriage, life is a juggling act. Then, when new neighbors arrive and they are exactly the sort of people the town doesn't want or need, things get worse.

Being thirty-something, broke, divorced and in a cold war with her ten-year-old son is a lot, but Jo's handling it. Just. At least she is until her job at the Natural History Museum is put in jeopardy. An invitation to dig up dinosaur bones on a remote Queensland sheep station arrives at just the right time. It's not her first trip to Yindi Creek, but it's not as though anyone will remember her from fifteen years ago ... And by anyone, of course, she means the pilot she had that fling with. The fling that taught her she's far safer sticking to science.

Penny can't help but compare herself to her friends. Annie is about to become a senior associate at her law firm, Bec has just got engaged, Leo is dating everyone this side of the Yarra, and Penny is just ... waiting. Waiting for Max, her on-again, off-again boyfriend, to allow her to spend the night, waiting for the promotion she was promised, waiting for her Valium to kick in. Waiting for her real life to start.

On a special night that is supposed to be a celebration of new beginnings, Paige MacRitchie's joy quickly falls away when her mother collapses during the speeches at her book launch. In the aftermath, and terrified of losing her, Paige decides she wants to make the ultimate tribute to her parents' perfect marriage: She will wear her mother's wedding dress for her own big day. There's just one problem - her mum, Rebecca, no longer has the dress. As Paige tries to track down the elusive gown, she discovers that Rebecca has a long-hidden secret that could blow her whole family apart.

1939: Fourteen-year-old Hazel and five-year-old Flora are evacuated from London to a rural village to escape the horrors of the Second World War. Living with the Aberdeen family in a charming stone cottage, Hazel distracts her young sister with a fairy tale about a magical land, a secret place they can escape to that is all their own: Whisperwood. But the unthinkable happens when Flora vanishes near the banks of the River Thames. Shattered, Hazel blames herself for her sister's disappearance, carrying the guilt into adulthood.

This novel is about a woman called Martha. She knows there is something wrong with her, but she doesn't know what it is. Her husband Patrick thinks she is fine. He says everyone has something, the thing is just to keep going. Martha told Patrick before they got married that she didn't want to have children. He said he didn't mind either way because he has loved her since he was fourteen and making her happy is all that matters, although he does not seem able to do it. By the time Martha finds out what is wrong, it doesn't really matter anymore.

Privacy is hard to maintain in Badara, the kind of small Australian country town where everyone knows everyone else's business. So discovers single mum Paige when she and her three children arrive from the city seeking refuge. Paige's only respite from child care and loneliness is the Tuesday gym club, where she had feared the judgement of the town matriarchs, but she is met only with generosity and a plethora of baked goods. Besides, both the brusque Marion and her polished sister-in-law Briony are too busy dealing with their own dramas to examine hers.

Isobel Ashworth breezes through life, blissfully accustomed to the privilege which comes with her family name. But that changes when she arrives in the exclusive town of Hartwell. Sent there by her father to complete a controversial property development—and prove herself a serious player in the succession plan—her perfect life is unravelling. Isobel's fiance is telling lies, the project is a disaster and the locals hate her; could her father be setting her up to fail? Buzzing with the promise of a big story, journalist Meg Hunter arrives in Hartwell to expose the Ashworth family dealings.

When three women are thrown together by unusual circumstances, ruffled feelings are just the beginning. A wise, sharply observed celebration of the life-changing power of female friendships.

Margot and her sister Roslyn have lived side by side in a little town in the Adelaide Hills most of their lives, supporting each other through thick and thin. Then their neighbour Gunter dies. Surprisingly, his will asks that his house and vineyard be sold and that Roslyn donate the money to a charity of her choice. When a developer wants to buy the land and create a hotel just over Margot's fence, Margot is outraged and decides to stand for Mayor and fight the development. But Roslyn feels differently.

When Caitlin inherits a significant sum of money on her fortieth birthday, she decides to break the habits of a lifetime and throw caution to the winds. She's about to tell her husband Paul that they're leaving London on a once-in-a-lifetime journey to Eat Pray Love their way around the world, only ... she doesn't tell Paul that, because before the candles are lit, he tells her that he's very much in love with someone else. After a drunken night trying to console herself, Caitlin books tickets to Australia - anything to get as far away as possible.

A girl and her mother have been on the run for sixteen years, from police and the monster they left in their kitchen with a knife in his throat. They've found themselves a home inside a van with four flat tyres parked in a scrapyard by the edge of the Brisbane River.

When Mair McCrae follows her island tradition and hunts for a husband cast up on the beach, she has no notion that the naked, half-drowned man she rescues is not just Captain Michael Dawson, heir to a major shipping firm, but that he's obsessed by a 'ghost ship' carrying golden cargo.

Eight years later, Gabriela Jimenez is hoping a couple of weeks in Bunyip Bay with the Grand Jimenez Family Circus will give her and Luna, her daughter, the chance to reconnect after the tragic death of Luna's father. The last thing Gabi expects is to run into the man she once knew. Mark Morgan is still as sweet and sexy as she remembers, but Gabi is harboring guilt and dealing with the grief of her in-laws. She can't afford to let him get under her skin again.

They've been best friends since their sons started high school together, and Felicity, Emma, and Neve share everything...or so they thought. But Flick's seemingly perfect marriage hides a shocking secret which, with one word, threatens to destroy her and her family's happiness. Emma is in denial about a potential custody battle, her financial constraints, the exhaustion she can't seem to shake off, and the inappropriate feelings she has for her boss. And single mum Neve is harbouring a secret of her own; a secret that might forever damage her close-knit relationship with her son.

The first time Ashling Wood realizes her marriage is on the rocks is when her husband, Adrian, suggests they try nest parenting. Heartbroken, Ash suddenly finds herself living a double life—one week with her children, the next cohabiting with her happily single sister-in-law. Her friends think the modern custody solution is an exciting opportunity for her to spread her wings, but all Ash wants is her family back together. An offer to renovate a seaside cottage seems like the perfect distraction for Ash while waiting for Adrian to come to his senses.