Showing results by publisher "Wavesound from W. F. Howes Ltd" in Women's Fiction

New South Wales, 1837: Settlers in search of fertile country are venturing far outside the colony. Cutting a swath through the bush with their bare hands, they lay claim to territory beyond government jurisdiction - and the reach of the law. As she accepts a position on one such farm, 17-year-old Kate Carter is unaware she is entering a land of outlaws, adventurers and murderous natives....

At seventeen, Maeve is naively single-minded about pursuing a life in the theatre. After a rigorous audition process, she secures a position at one of the most competitive drama schools in the country. Leaving behind the security of her childhood home in Queensland, Maeve moves to Melbourne and devotes herself to the course. The expectations of the faculty are made clear from the outset: to avoid failure, the process must be adhered to without question and, as the youngest student at the drama, Maeve knows she must gain life experience in order to support it.

When Sofie comes to stay with her grandmother in Stanthorpe, she knows little of Nonna Gia's past. In the heat of that 1984 summer, the two clash over Gia's strict Italian ways and superstitions, her chilli-laden spaghetti and the evasive silence surrounding Sofie's father, who died before she was born. Then Sofie learns Gia had an arranged marriage. From there, the past begins to reveal why no-one will talk of her father.

Mai and Hikaru went to school together in the city of Nagoya, until Hikaru disappeared when they were 18. It is not until 10 years later, when Mai runs into Hikaru's mother, Hiromi Sato, that she learns Hikaru has become a hikikomori, a recluse unable to leave his bedroom for years. In secret, Hiromi Sato hires Mai as a 'rental sister', to write letters to Hikaru and encourage him to leave his room.

Two women stand in the shallows, a man dead at their feet, while around them buildings burn. Amid the ruins of a fire-ravaged amusement park and destroyed waterfront dwellings, one boarded-up building still stands. May has come from Australia to Loveland, Nebraska, to claim the house on the poisoned lake as part of her grandmother's will. Escaping the control of her husband, will she find refuge or danger?

Set in 1995 against the backdrop of Auckland's burgeoning party scene, Golden Days is the story of an intense late-teens friendship between bookish Becky and star-dusted Zoe Golden, and what happened when one terrifying night changed their lives and destroyed their friendship forever. After finding out that her husband has been cheating on her, Becky is mourning the end of her picture-perfect marriage at the bottom of a bottle. She thought she'd left that summer far behind, but the trauma of her present day brings back memories of the horrific night her brother died.

When Malika, a young orphan in rural Pakistan, is savagely attacked, her face is left disfigured and her self-esteem destroyed. Haunted by the assault, she hides from the world, finding solace in her mathematical theories. A few years later, her intellectual brilliance is discovered and she leaves conflict-stricken Pakistan for a better education in Melbourne, where she finds herself placed with Kate - a successful plastic surgeon facing emotional insecurities of her own.

Found dead in the Thames one frosty winter's morning, no one is sure whether she jumped or was pushed. The one person who may know the truth is the newest employee at Parker & Lane - the office temp, Eleanor. Eleanor has travelled to London to escape the repercussions of her traumatic childhood in outback Australia, but now tragedy seems to follow her wherever she goes. To her horror, she has no memory of the crucial hours leading up to Arabella's death....

Paris, 2020. A writer is confined to her hotel room during the early days of the pandemic, struggling to finish a novel about Hortense Cezanne, wife and sometime muse of the famous painter. Dead for more than a century, Hortense has been reawakened by this creative endeavor, and now shadows the writer through the locked-down city. But Hortense, always subject to the gaze of others, is increasingly intrigued by the woman before her. Who is she and what event hides in her past?

Sabine returned carrying a bag containing an effortless pair of Christian Wijnants fringed trousers and Ann Demeulemeeter Crinkle Nero boots. The sales assistant had agreed that the combination made Sabine looks exactly like an artist. Sabine is having a moment. Her new exhibition is opening soon and, as her gallerist says, 'hell is an artist three days before their exhibition opens'. But it's not only this coming milestone that is causing Sabine to melt down. She is being stalked. As exhibition day draws closer, so too does the man who has been watching her.

Lucy Crighton has moved back in with her gregarious parents - forced to deal with her mum's obsession with Cher, her father's unsolicited advice and her empty bank account. Luckily, she has her crazy best friend to cushion reality with wild nights at the local hotel and escapades in Japanese mud-baths.... Then there's the next-door neighbour's dashing son, who she has absolutely no interest in...well, maybe just a little.

When Winona Dalloway begins her day—in the peaceful early hours before her children, that ‘tiny tornado of little hands and feet', wake up—she doesn't know that by the end of it, everything in her world will have changed. On the outside, Winona is a seemingly unremarkable young mother: unobtrusive, quietly going about her tasks. But within is a vivid, chaotic self, teeming with voices—a mind both wild and precise. And meanwhile, a storm is brewing …

After losing her family farm to an aggressive global conglomerate, ambitious farmer Georgie Henderson manages Stoney Creek, a cattle farm in the New England region of NSW, spending every waking moment plotting and saving to buy Tamban back from those corporate vultures. When an unlikely meeting with Armani-clad businessman Michael Delacourt at a rowdy B&S Ball sends them on a whirlwind romance, Georgie can't believe it's possible for life to be this good. But her world shatters when she discovers the shocking secret Michael has been trying to keep from her.

Since adolescence, 58-year-old Beth has lived her life with blinkers on, repressing the memory of a teenage trauma. Her mother, Marian, took control of that situation, and of all else in their family life—and as much as she could in the small town of Miner's Ridge as well. Now Marian is dead, and Beth, unemployed and in the middle of a humiliating divorce, is living with her gentle-hearted father in the family home. Beth feels obliged to take over her mother's involvement in the local town hall committee.

All her life Julia Gunn has been weighed down; now she's going to do something for herself.... Except en route to a new life on the coast, she finds herself, courtesy of a rockslide, stuck in the remote town of Lake Grace. Yet maybe fate is on her side. Because Lake Grace is home to Rick Halloran, the man with whom she enjoyed a romance 20 years ago. Julia is finally on the verge of the life she's always wanted. Then a long-buried secret knocks at the door....

Between managing a bustling beauty salon, hectic volunteer commitments and the lion's share of parenting two-year-old Claudia, Angie McIntyre barely has time to turn around. And with each passing month, she feels her relationship with fly-in, fly-out boyfriend Rob Jones slipping through her fingers. When Rob faces retrenchment and the most fabulous fixer-upper comes onto the market, Angie knows this derelict weatherboard cottage will be the perfect project to draw their little family together.

When Esther wakes with a breathing tube down her throat, she has no idea where she is or how she got there. In terrible physical condition, Esther is tended to by Grace, the only other person in the building. In the half-consciousness of her recovery, Esther is desperate to get back to her young kids and grapples with the events of her life as they come flooding back: a childhood spent between warring parents; the demise of her marriage; the struggles she faced when her children were born.

Three friends travel to Marcoy, a regional town for a weekend away from family life. One year ago, a tragic incident splintered the group, and the women have seen little of each other since. Melissa has slept much of the past twelve months away, and she hopes this weekend will help her re-emerge from the depression she’s been living with.

Grace and Dan Arden are in their 40s and have been on the IVF treadmill since the day they got married. Six attempts have yielded no results, and with each failure a little piece of their hope dies. Priya Laghari and her husband, Nick Archer, are being treated at the same fertility clinic, and while they don’t face the same time pressure as the Ardens, the younger couple have their own problems. Priya is booked for her next IVF cycle the same day that Grace goes in for her final, last-chance embryo transfer. Two weeks later, both women get their results.

Flora's teenage crush, Mitch, is standing at the altar when his bride has a sudden change of heart. Decades earlier, in the same church, a similar story of heartbreak played out. From the rolling green hills of the Tablelands to the crowded streets of Shanghai on the eve of the Second World War, this beautiful romantic saga asks the question - do we ever get over our first love, and is it ever too late to make amends?