Showing results by publisher "Bolinda audio" in Historical Fiction

Summer 1924. On the eve of a glittering society party by the lake of a grand English country house, a young poet takes his life. The only witnesses are sisters Hannah and Emmeline Hartford, and they will never speak to each other again. Winter 1999. Grace Bradley, 98, one-time housemaid of Riverton Manor, is visited by a young director making a film about the poet’s suicide. Ghosts awaken and memories, long consigned to the dark reaches of Grace’s mind, begin to sneak back through the cracks.

A deadly family curse holds two families in its powerful grip. Captain Patrick Duffy's passions are inflamed by the mysterious Irishwoman Catherine Fitzgerald, further pitting him against his father, Michael Duffy, and his adoring but scheming grandmother, Lady Enid Macintosh.

Territory is the story of Henrietta Southern, a young Englishwoman who trades her war-torn homeland for a place of wild tropical storms and searing heat, crocodile-infested rivers and barren red wilderness. Six months after the bombing of Darwin, she joins her new husband, Spitfire pilot Terence Galloway, for a new life on his Northern Territory cattle station. It is also the story of their sons. Of Malcolm and Kit, two brothers who grow up in the harsh but beautiful environment and share a baptism of fire as young men in the jungles of Vietnam.

Van Diemen's Land was an island of stark contrasts; a harsh penal colony, an English idyll for its landed gentry, and an island so rich in natural resources it was a profiteer's paradise. Its capital Hobart Town had its contrasts too; the wealthy elite in their sandstone mansions, the exploited poor in the notorious slum known as Wapping, and the criminals and villains who haunted the dockside taverns and brothels of Sullivan's Cove.

Zeus crushed the ancient Titans in a war that shook the heavens, then hurled the vanquished into Tartarus: an abyss of ice and torment buried far beneath the underworld itself, sealed forever. Or so he believed. Now, high in Crete's mountains, archaeologists have unearthed a crumbling manuscript that promises whoever opens the gates to Tartarus will command the Titans – unstoppable beings capable of bringing the modern world to its knees.

Kate: a strong-willed heiress determined to defy Edwardian convention. Odette: a fiercely independent and idealistic young journalist. Years apart yet inextricably linked by Zanana, the magnificent mansion they both love. From turn-of-the-century India to contemporary Sydney, The Last Rose of Summer is a spellbinding saga of love, possession, and intrigue; a story of bitter struggle and jealousy. Of two women connected across the decades by the men who love them and the magic of Zanana.

They say no one from the convict settlement of Sydney Town crossed the steep ranges of the Blue Mountains until 1813. But the quick-witted convict Clancy Fitzgerald did it in 1798, dragging with him the proud - but reluctant - Eliza Philips. Faced with constant danger and wrenching isolation, Clancy and Eliza found themselves pale-skinned strangers in a land of ancient traditions and spiritual beliefs.

Brutally kidnapped and separated in childhood, Tommo and Hawk are reunited at the age of 15 in Hobart Town. Together, they escape their troubled pasts and set off on a journey into manhood. From whale hunting in the Pacific to the Maori wars of New Zealand, from the Rocks in Sydney to the miners' riots at the goldfields, Tommo and Hawk must learn each other's strengths and weaknesses in order to survive.

Jack Kelly and Paul Mann have survived one world war – will they survive another? When the Japanese threaten to invade the Pacific, the two men know that they must do everything in their power to protect their adopted country of Papua as well as their loved ones from an ambitious and merciless enemy. Lukas Kelly and Karl Mann are like brothers – just like their fathers – and both are determined to do their part for the Australian cause. While Karl works undercover in espionage, Lukas trains to be a pilot.

Living on her family’s idyllic lakeside estate in Cornwall, England, Alice Edevane is a bright, inquisitive and precociously talented 16-year-old who loves to write stories. One midsummer’s eve, after a beautiful party drawing hundreds of guests to the estate has ended, the Edevanes discover that their youngest child, 11-month-old Theo, has vanished without a trace. He is never found, and the family is torn apart and the house abandoned.

A breathtaking tale of heartbreak and heroism, love and longing by a powerhouse Australian storyteller. 'Love comes out of nowhere for most of us, when we least expect it.' Amidst the carnage of Gallipoli, British nurse Claire Nightingale meets Australian Light Horseman Jamie Wren. Despite all odds, they fall deeply in love. Their flame burns bright and carries them through their darkest hours, even when war tears them apart.

In a time when desperate people were seizing with both hands the chance for freedom, refugees from more than 70 nations gathered beneath the Southern Cross to forge a new national identity. They came from all over war-torn Europe to the mountains of Australia to help realise one man's dream: the mighty Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme, one of the greatest engineering feats of the 20th century.

Postwar Paris is alive with optimism, but lavender keeper Luc Ravens and his love, Lisette, remain haunted by the horrors they have endured. Casting their fate to the winds, they set sail for Australia, hoping to rebuild their lives in a land that's full of promise. But trouble has a way of catching up with them.

As warriors, seafarers, diplomats and traders of the Isles of southern Armorica, the Veneti conducted trade freely from Albion to Byzantium, unhindered for eons. But persuaded and later blackmailed into Roman governorship, their livelihood comes under threat, and some of their kin make the grave error of taking Roman soldiers hostage. Their druid decrees that a great sacrifice is needed to secure the favour of the Gods – and defeat the Romans, who are sure to retaliate.

Always leave a little salt on the bread. Ikey Solomon's favorite saying is also his way of doing business, and in the business of thieving he's very successful indeed. Ikey's partner in crime is his mistress, the forthright Mary Abacus, until misfortune befalls them. They are parted and each must make the harsh journey from thriving nineteenth century London to the convict settlement of Van Diemen's Land.

Melbourne, 1927. The summer flowers smell like Christmas the night Zara Dickins meets Harry Holt. Zara is wearing a dress she has designed and made herself. White organdie over a short black slip, with black embroidery and a crimson taffeta sash. It is party season and the university crowd are celebrating end-of-year exams. Zara loves dancing with the boys and flirting with them, but it's a game to her. Nothing serious. Until Harry. He plans to be a politician once he finishes law. She, a fashion designer, if she can find a way to break out of the secretarial pool.

The four fires in this story are passion, religion, warfare, and fire itself. While there are many more fires that drive the human spirit, love being perhaps the brightest flame of all, it is these four that have moulded us most as Australian people. The four fires give us our sense of place and, for better or for worse, shape our national character.

A mysterious stranger known as 'The Wolf' leaves an infant with the sisters of Santo Spirito. A tiny silver key hidden in her wrappings is the only clue to the child's identity and so begins a story as intriguing and beautiful as the city of Florence itself. Belinda Alexandra's new novel, Tuscan Rose, is set in Italy during the time of Mussolini. This richly woven tale of passion, love, longing, witchcraft and magic promises to be everything her readers love and more.

Adelaide Hills, Christmas Eve, 1959. At the end of a scorching hot day, a local deliveryman makes a terrible discovery. A police investigation is called, and the small town of Tambilla becomes embroiled in one of the most shocking and perplexing murder cases in the history of South Australia. Many years later and thousands of miles away, Jess is a journalist in search of a story. Having lived and worked in London for nearly two decades, she now finds herself laid off from her full-time job and struggling to make ends meet. Until a phone call out of nowhere summons her back to Sydney.

An epic story of love, sacrifice and revenge swept along on the winds of war. Australian actress Samantha Lindsay is thrilled when she scores her first lead movie role in the Hollywood epic Torpedo Junction, playing a character based on World War II heroine 'Mamma Tack'. But as filming begins in Vanuatu, uncanny parallels between history and fiction emerge. Just who was the real Mamma Tack? And what mysterious forces are at play? The answers reveal not only bygone secrets but Sam's own destiny.