Showing results by publisher "Bolinda audio" in Literary Fiction

1928. In British-ruled India, headstrong Sita longs to choose her own path, but her only destiny is a good marriage. After a chance meeting with a Crown Prince leads to a match, her family’s status seems secured and she moves into the palace, where peacocks fill the gardens and tapestries adorn the walls. But royal life is far from simple, and her failure to provide an heir makes her position fragile. Soon Sita is on the brink of losing everything, and the only way to save herself could mean betraying her oldest friend …

Hailed by the critics as a masterpiece, Tatty is a devastating yet hilarious depiction of a troubled Dublin family, told through the lively, charismatic voice of a little girl over a 10-year period. During this time we see the destruction brought about by alcoholism as one little girl tries to come to terms with her parents’ drinking. Chapter by chapter, the child’s voice matures and her perception becomes more honed; we are left with a stunning portrait of a disintegrating family and the child lost within it.

Estranged from her family, Natasha is making a life for herself in Darwin when her sister calls with bad news. Their mother is ill, and has only a few months to live. Confused and conflicted, Natasha returns to the home she fled many years before. But her father, an evangelical Christian, has not changed – he is still the domineering yet magnetic man she ran from, and her sisters and mother are still in his thrall. One night, her father makes an astonishing announcement – he has received a message from God that his wife is to be healed, and they must hold a party to celebrate.

Leverson, the narrator at the centre of these stories, calls himself a "people freak". Seduced by north Queensland's sultry beauty and unique strangeness, he is as fascinated by the invading hordes of misfits from the south as by the old established Queenslanders.

Life is hard in Ireland in 1867. Eliza Carthy moves with her lighthouse-keeper husband James and sons Peter and Joseph to the remote island of Skellig Michael. When assistant keeper Edmund and his wife Ruth arrive, Eliza hopes for respite. But her new neighbours are not what she'd expected.

A captivating story of the people who shape us and the places we struggle to leave behind. Katie, Maeve and Evelyn - friends forever, united by their childhood games and their dreams of escaping the tiny Irish town of Glenbruff. Outspoken, unpredictable and intoxicating, Evelyn is the undisputed leader of the trio. That is, until the beautiful, bold Pamela Cooney arrives from Dublin and changes Glenbruff forever. Told from Katie's witty, quirky perspective, Frances Macken's debut beautifully captures life in a small town and the power of yearning for something bigger.

Desmond never did have much luck with women – except in getting them through their driving tests. Now a coach driver, he is at the most crucial crossroads of his life. His wife has thrown him out. The crisis serves only to deepen his despair over another failed liaison – until he elects to steer his coach on a spectacularly reckless quest for the son he has never seen.

It's the night of the most decadent party of the century. Starlets, politicians, soccer stars, and intellectuals all turn up to rub elbows. Among them is a neurotically charming author struggling to write his next literary tome and pining for renewed recognition. In an unexpected turn of events, he crosses paths with The Wilde Beasts of Abaddon, a satanic sect planning to ruin the evening’s festivities in order to go down in history as a world-famous cult.

Jules is an unknown English actress with a precarious career and a wayward but irresistible boyfriend, Trevor. But then she gets the break of a lifetime – a part as stand-in for Lila Dune, American film star and sex-symbol – and her world is transformed.

Ailish McCarthy is not doing well. Her relationship with her mother was complicated and difficult, the grief following her death unnaturally prolonged. In order to escape them, she must resolve her past. Revisit it. Construct again, from memory, the family and friends who shaped her, the boy she could not forget, the changing Ireland which provided the backdrop for their lives. Under the guidance of her therapist, Ailish begins the process of examining her previous selves: anxious child, traumatised teenager, adult woman riven with a never-to-be-shared secret.

In Perth, Edie finds her self in a remarkably isolated yet verdant corner of the world, but Edie has a secret – she committed an unthinkable act that she can barely admit to herself. In some ways, the landscape mirrors her own complicated inner life and rather than escaping her past, Edie is increasingly forced to confront what she's done. Everybody, from the wildlife to her new neighbours, is keen to engage and Edie does her best to start fresh.

Dawn loves being a mother. No matter how Archie came into her life, or the fact he's a little different from other children, he is precious and loved. He is hers, after all. Especially because she’s never told anyone who the father of her son is. So when Dawn’s twin brother David and his wife Rebekah are struggling to have their own child, Dawn agrees to become their surrogate, as it is the one thing she can do to help.

One day, the cricket notices a strange feeling in his head – a heavy, unwavering feeling. The animals start calling him 'the gloomy cricket'. Only after a long time and a lot of effort does that feeling disappear from his head again.

Though sisters, Ann and Viv couldn't be more different. Ann is reserved, sensible and – some would say – boring. Viv, always their father's favourite, is messy and impulsive, and a mother to two gorgeous daughters. Meanwhile, Ann has struggled to have children, her last attempt ending in a hysterectomy, which has devastated her and her husband, Ken. Pained to see her sister left so sad and wanting, Viv offers to have a baby – and give it to Ann. Viv's husband, Ollie, is not on board with the idea, especially when it becomes clear that Viv will be carrying Ken's child, not his.

Redmond Campbell's luck has just taken a turn for the worse. His dog's dead, his wife, Bea, has landed in prison, and he has to look after Bea's sister, Lori – a wildly disinhibited woman with Huntington's disease – who hates him. And Redmond's nephew, Mada, a PhD student searching for a cure for the disease that's killing his mother, doesn't give Red the respect he deserves. But Red is about to change all that. He's got plans to become Sydney's leading property agent, and he's about to make a connection that will line him up a killing.

Olga Master's debut novel - immediately hailed for her powerful and original fiction. Loving Daughters is a brilliant, unsentimental portrait of two sisters - one artistic and restless, the other houseproud, her father's favourite. The entry of an eligible young man into their lives creates a disturbing triangle of desire and rivalry.

A forthright investigation of human frailty and emotion with a plot that keeps you in its thrall until the last word. When Greer Gordon met Mischa Svoboda, a driven Czech-born refugee painter, he was unknown. His debut at the small art gallery where she worked created a sensation, and their explosive love affair caused Greer to abandon her husband and career and embark on a nomadic life with Mischa.

Army Intelligence reservist Kat Caldwell is teaching Arabic at a military college in Virginia when the order comes: retired spy chief Dick Morrow needs to find a CIA informant who has slipped away from his handler in Spain and may be heading to Morocco.

Ferdinand Mlambo, the youngest boy ever to become senior kitchen toto at State House, is in deep trouble. Disloyalty to Kuwisha's Life President Nduka has not only cost him his prestigious job: the sinister chief steward to the president, Lovemore Mboga, has humiliated Mlambo by stripping him of his name. Word goes out: henceforth, he will be known as Fatboy. But with the help of Titus Ntoto, leader of the notorious Mboya Boys gang of street children, Mlambo sets out on a quest to recover his name and dignity.

Charity Mupanga, the resilient and maternal proprietor of Harrods International Bar (and Nightspot) faces her toughest challenge in Dizzy Worms, the final novel in Michael Holman’s acclaimed trilogy set in the African slum of Kireba. Faced with a Health and Safety closure, Charity has a week to appeal and the chances of success seem negligible: elections are imminent, and Kireba is due to become a showcase of President Josiah Nduka's "slum rehabilitation program", backed by gullible foreign donors.