Showing results by publisher "HarperAudio" in Friendship

Both grande dames think they know what's best, but with equal amounts of stubbornness on both sides, peace looks unlikely. Then a relationship between Alice's rebellious great-niece and a teenage acrobat sets the two communities on a collision course. But when the bakery starts making patisseries over lamingtons, the battle lines are truly drawn....

As fall paints the Pennsylvania countryside in flaming colors, Sylvia Bergstrom Compson is contemplating the future of her beloved Elm Creek Quilts. The Elm Creek Quilt Camp remains the most popular quilter’s retreat in the country, but unexpected financial difficulties have beset them and the Bergstrom family’s stately nineteenth-century manor. Now in her eighth decade, Sylvia is determined to maintain her family’s legacy, but she needs new resources—financial and emotional.

Lexi Clark’s life is falling apart around her, so when she’s summoned home to Sunrise Cove, the last thing she wants to do is face all the complications she left behind. Her past, her stepsister Ashley, and especially her infuriatingly gorgeous childhood nemesis-turned-crush Heath Bowman.

Celebrity cooking show host Marni McGuire has seen it all. She’s been married—twice—and widowed and divorced. Now in her midfifties, she’s single. Happily so. She just needs to convince her pregnant daughter, Bella, of this fact. And maybe convince herself, too. Especially after Marni’s efforts to humour her determined daughter result in a series of disastrous dates that somehow prompt Marni to wonder if maybe the right man for her is still out there after all.

When Blaise Hill, a feisty young journalist from one of Sydney's toughest neighbourhoods, is dispatched to London at the dawn of the swinging '60s to report on Princess Margaret's controversial marriage to an unconventional photographer, she is drawn into an elite realm of glamour and intrigue.

Erica, newly widowed, is devastated to discover her venture-capitalist husband left their finances in ruins. Determined to save her home while protecting her teenage daughters, she vows to get back on her feet without letting them, or anyone else, know the truth. When her girls head off on a long-planned overseas adventure, Erica focuses on her much-loved job behind a makeup counter to keep her emotionally and financially afloat - although she is troubled by a peculiar encounter at work.

Claire grew up in a small town, far from the glitz and glamour of London. Ridiculed by her stepmother, Linda, and harboring a painful crush on her brother’s best friend, she has begun to outgrow the life laid out before her. On the cusp of adulthood in the late 1960s, Claire yearns for the adventure and independence of a counterculture taking root across the world.

While Beth is proud of her Malibu beach shop, Surf Sandwiches, she’s even prouder of her charismatic brother, Rick, who rose from foster care all the way through surgical residency. She makes subs, he saves lives. Things take a turn for the happy after she finds out Rick is dating her new best friend, Jana. Then Jana’s handsome brother adds even more sparkle to Beth’s days...and nights.

Sharyn Tregonning wanted a holiday somewhere glamorous for her 60th birthday. So when her husband Barry surprises her with a caravan trip from Adelaide to Broome, she is furious—and bitterly disappointed. Even worse, Barry's annoying friend Ray, and Ray's reclusive frumpy sister Kathleen are coming along. It's true that Kathleen Allenby has become a recluse. As the end-of-life carer for three family members (and at war with her mean neighbours) she has become anxious. She doesn't expect this trip to offer her much.

Nestled in rural Vermont’s snowy landscape is Maple Sugar Inn, the boutique hotel Hattie Coleman and her husband, Brent, lovingly restored. But when Brent died a month after the opening, it was left to Hattie to carry on alone. With its historic charm and picture-perfect library, it’s considered the winter destination. And as the holidays approach, the inn is fully booked with guests looking for their dream vacation. But widowed far too young, and exhausted from juggling the hotel while being a dedicated single mum, Hattie dreams only of making it through the festive season.

The Trainor women have always been excellent at hiding their true feelings... until now. Ellen's estranged husband, David, has managed to interrupt her fabulous life of bridge and zumba by getting himself killed in a Thai boating accident. She's hardly surprised. It's simply the final in a long line of mistakes, the first was leaving her to go on a worldwide sailing trip with his mysterious, long-lost brother. Ah, well. At least she's now free to marry her rich but dull boyfriend, Kenneth.

Howard and Elsie Manning were born on the same day, met at kindergarten, and have been married for 59 years. They have lived sensible, productive lives, and raised two self-sufficient daughters. Now, at 78, they are bored with the predictability of life, fed up with contemporary society, have aching joints and dwindling finances, and - funeral by funeral - their circle of friends is shrinking. Worst of all, they are grieving for their beloved, recently deceased dog Maisie.

Set against a backdrop of jazz music, bootlegging, and lavish parties, The Great Gatsby is the story of Midwesterner Nick Carraway’s curious introduction to the decadent world of his mysterious, wealthy neighbor Jay Gatsby, whose thirst for riches is matched only by his tragic obsession with the beautiful Daisy Buchanan. This dangerously propulsive tale of glitz and glamour continues to be relevant as listeners long for escapist novels—a chance to flee into Gatsby’s famed mansion and lose oneself in the rush of opulence.

Awkward, hapless Marick is still struggling with the loss of his wife, his child and his faith when he is reluctantly thrust into the position of chaplain at a large public hospital. Shortly after arriving, he meets Hugo, a hospital scientist and a man almost as lost as Marick himself, who is working in a forgotten lab, deep in the subterranean realms of the hospital. Hugo is convinced that the bacteria he uses for protein production have - unbelievably - begun to produce gold. Is it alchemy, evolution, a hoax or even ... possibly ... a miracle?

When fate brings three strangers to a charming space for lease on the California coast, the Boardwalk Bookshop is born. Part bookstore, part gift shop, part bakery, it’s a dream come true for Bree, Mikki and Ashley. But while their business is thriving, their personal lives are...not. Bree, wounded by brilliant but cold parents and her late husband’s ultimate betrayal, has sworn to protect her heart at all costs. Even from Ashley’s brother, a writer and adventurer who has inspired millions.

The body in the closet was going to be a problem. Kathryn Hu knew it. Yes, Tucker Jones was a cheating scumbag, and yes, she'd agreed to meet Olivia and Elle—Tucker's other girlfriends—to exact revenge for all he'd put them through... But then they found him. Dead. Do they look guilty? Yes. Do they feel guilty for having wished him dead just hours before? Maybe a little. But—solid motive and a crime scene covered in their DNA aside—they're innocent. They swear. To clear their names, Kat, Olivia, and Elle team up to find the real killer.

While very pretty, the tiny town of Melrose isn't where Erica thought she'd be at almost fifty. And working in a funeral home and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, while navigating her grief as a recent widow, is not how she thought her life would look either. But she's committed to her lovely new boss, Walter, who gave her a chance when she so desperately needed it.

Gerri can't decide what's more devastating: learning her rock-solid marriage has big cracks, or the anger she feels as she tries to repair them. Always the anchor for friends and her children, she realizes it's time to look carefully at herself. The journey is more than revealing—it's transforming. Andy has come to believe that a lasting love is out of reach. When she finds herself attracted to a man without any of the qualities that usually appeal to her, she questions everything she thought she wanted in life.

Maggie, Eliza, and Tricia Sweeney grew up as a happy threesome in a seaside town in Connecticut. But after their mother’s death from cancer 15 years ago, the sisters drifted apart. Their one touchstone is their father, Bill Sweeney, a famous literary lion universally adored by critics, publishers, and book lovers. When Bill dies unexpectedly one cool June night, his shell-shocked daughters return to their childhood home. They aren’t quite sure what the future holds without their larger-than-life father, but they do know how to throw an Irish wake to honor a man of his stature.

Zia secretly longs to go to university but as a young woman in a traditional Muslim family, she does what is expected of her and agrees to an arranged marriage to Rashid, a man she barely knows. Cocooned by the wealth and customs of her family, Rashid's dark moods create only the smallest of ripples in their early life together.