Showing results by publisher "HarperAudio" in Small Town & Rural

When a lethal bushfire tore through Myrtle, nestled in Victoria's breathtaking Otway Ranges, the town's buildings - and the lives of its residents - were left as smoldering ash. For three women in particular, the fire fractured their lives and their relationships. Eighteen months later, with the flurry of national attention long past, Myrtle stands restored, shiny and new. But is the outside polish just a veneer?

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?

Interior stylist Grace Davenport has come to the mountains for solitude and a place to heal after her parents' death. Returning to their beloved town of Bundilla, she plans to restore a local bluestone mansion in honour of their memory. She'll just be there for the summer, until she figures out her next step.

With a coveted promotion dangling within reach, the last thing Addy Topic needs to do is waste precious time singing in Rookery Cove's choir. But when she's reminded how much music meant to her late mother, she can't say no. The building pressure raises the ghosts that sent her running from Rookery Cove years earlier - memories she's spent decades hiding from, silencing them with work, alcohol and sex.

Freya thought she could relax when Ryan's best mate Jamie got engaged to her best friend Hannah. Two couples, four friends - what could be better than that? But a day before the wedding Freya's torn between keeping the peace or blowing it up. Hannah's perfect wedding is hours away and she's daydreaming of a honeymoon in Tahiti and starting the family she longs for when she hears the first-responder sirens. Is it a grass fire? Worse? And why aren't Ryan or Jamie answering their phones?

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.

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.

The injustice of the past and dangers of the present envelop policewoman Renee Burns when her unwilling return to the small country town of her childhood plunges her into the investigation of a murdered woman.

Peony flower farmer Clancy Parker was born and bred in the Australian high country. Small-town Bundilla is the only place she will ever truly belong, even if staying means remaining alone. The man she'd loved is long gone, and single men are as rare as a summer snowfall. As soon as he could, street artist Heath MacBride escaped his complicated family and traded mountain peaks for city concrete. Now a commission to paint a mural on Bundilla's water tower brings him home.

Montana Walker isn't thrilled when her new assignment is covering TV's hottest new dating show. She begrudgingly travels to the chosen bachelor's cattle station in the remote outback, wondering what woman in her right mind would want to fall for an ex-bull rider? She should know, because the bull rider in question is the very same man who broke her eighteen-year-old heart. Not that she thinks he'll remember her. She was just another fleeting fancy, she's sure.

Lawson Cooper-Jones has two priorities in life—his son, Ned, and the survival of the dairy farm that has been in his family for generations. Despite the best efforts of the town matchmakers and the determined pursuit of local girl Adeline Walsh, Lawson's heart belongs still, and only, to his late wife.

Derek's daughter, Debbie, is getting married. He's desperate to be there, but he's banged up in Yarrandarrah Correctional Centre for embezzling funds from the golf club, and, thanks to his ex-wife, Lorraine, he hasn't spoken to Debbie in years. He wants to make a grand gesture - to show her how much he loves her. But what? Inspiration strikes while he's embroidering a cushion at his weekly prison sewing circle - he'll make her a wedding dress.

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.

Vera De Rossi no longer believes in love...and thanks to her ex-boyfriend­, she's also broke, jobless, and staring down the barrel of a court case that could land her in prison. Turning to her talent for baking, Vera opens a cafe in Hanrahan, a cozy tourist town in the foothills of the Snowy Mountains. Josh Cody, once Hanrahan's golden boy, escaped 16 years ago with gossip hard on his heels and a pregnant girlfriend in tow. Now he's back: a qualified veterinarian - and a single dad with a lot to prove

They say a change is as good as a holiday. Joey Miles is hoping so after leaving the city behind, his stockbroking career in flames, to embrace a brand-new challenge: farming. But while returning to his hometown somehow feels right, he's got a long way to go to get back on his feet financially and the last thing he needs is the townsfolk meddling in his love life (or lack thereof).

Faith Forrester is at a crossroads. Single, thirty and living on a farm in a small Western Australian town, she's sick of being treated like a kitchen slave by her brother and father. Ten years ago, her mother died of breast cancer, and Faith has been treading water ever since. She wants to get her hands dirty on the family farm. She wants to prove to herself that she's done something worthwhile with her life. And she wants to find a man...

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.

After the violent death of her husband, Callie Jones retreats to a cottage in the grounds of an old mansion in Tasmania. The relative remoteness of the place and the wild beauty of the Tasmanian landscape are a balm to her shattered nerves, and the locals seem friendly, particularly horseman Connor Atherton and his siblings at the nearby property, Calico Lodge. But all is not well: The old mansion has a sinister past, one associated with witchcraft and murder.

The soldiers called her the Angel of Waterloo...Henrietta Bartlett, the esteemed surgeon's daughter who was born on a battlefield, lost her mother on a battlefield, and was widowed on the battlefield, where she worked alongside her father on that fateful day in June 1815. But after the carnage of war, Hen dreams of peace, and her own home, and a society that would allow a woman to practice medicine. The new and faraway colony of New South Wales seems a paradise, where even convicts have a chance of a good life.

Hettie Burbrook is the first to admit she's happiest when flying solo through the outback skies. After her hobby of photographing farmers lands her a book deal, it provides the ideal cover story to visit small-town Bundilla. But every photograph brings her closer to uncovering the answers behind why she is really in the mountains...