Showing results by narrator "Louise Crawford" in All Categories

A young girl loses both her parents in a tragic event and is taken to live with her grandmother on a flower farm. Growing up, Alice learns the language of Australian native flowers as a way to say the things that are too hard to speak. But she also learns that there are secrets within secrets about her past. An unexpected betrayal leaves her reeling, and she escapes to try to make her own—sometimes painful—way through the world and to find her story.

Poppy's world has tipped sideways: the husband who never wanted children has betrayed her with her broody best friend. At least Annalise is on her side. Poppy's new friend is determined to celebrate their freedom from kids, so together they create a Facebook group to meet up with like-minded women and perhaps vent a little about smug mums and their privileges at work.

Grace has the perfect life: a job she loves, a beautiful daughter and a rich, successful husband. But one night, when their world falls apart in a shocking disaster, Grace suddenly sees what she couldn't admit - her marriage and her husband are a fraud. With the life she knew in tatters, she takes an assignment promoting the launch of a unique luxury hotel, hidden in a stunning, untouched oasis in the heart of tourist-crazed Bali.

When 18-year-old Kitty Carlisle's father dies in 1838, her suddenly impoverished mother hopes her beautiful daughter might at least find a good husband. But then, Kitty is compromised by an unscrupulous adventurer, and she is banished in disgrace to the colonies. In the infamous whaling port of Kororareka—known as the Hell-Hole of the Pacific—Kitty falls in love with Rian Farrell, a mysterious sea captain with secrets of his own. Shocking events force her to flee the Bay of Islands for Sydney, but her independent heart leads her into a web.

Molly's life is almost perfect. She's the devoted mother of Rose and a renowned horse trainer. She lives amid the beauty of Jacaranda Farm in the beautiful Far North Queensland countryside, surrounded by family and friends - none closer than hunky stockman Heath. But she's still looking for the love of her life and wonders whether that could be Mark, the long-lost father of her daughter.

When Kitty Farrell is offered a trinket by a street urchin, her impulsive response will change both of their lives forever. It is 1845, and after four years on the high seas with Rian, her wild Irish husband, she returns to the lawless Bay of Islands and a country at war.

At just 15-years-old, Geena had no choice but to leave home. Without an education or any real options, she found herself being lured into the sex industry by the promise of big money and the validation of strangers. She turned to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain of day to day life as a call girl and to overcome the emotional scars of her past. But even in her darkest hours, Geena refused to accept her circumstances and never stopped striving for freedom and a better life. Eventually, she found the strength to turn things around and set herself on a path to a brighter future.

Come have a roll in the hay with one of Australia's leading rural-fiction authors, Rachael Treasure, in her romping, rollicking first-ever collection of Agricultural Erotica. Guaranteed to get your tractor revving, Fifty Bales of Hay is an honest and imaginative exploration of everyday men and women getting down and dirty on the land. From the dairy shed to the Royal Agricultural show pavilion, Treasure's cheeky satirical humour and wicked imagination offers up a dozen fun-filled, and sometimes poignant, tales of dust and lust. This collection will have you clamoring for a stock whip, a saddle, and a cowboy.

It's Sarah Clarke's dream to experience the real Australian outback. When the opportunity comes up to join her boyfriend, Brad, on remote property Rosalee Station, she jumps at the chance. But within days of arriving, her relationship is in tatters and the reality of outback life is fast losing its appeal. Determined to prove herself, Sarah stays on, earning the admiration of Matt, the station owners' son. Beneath the wide outback skies, the pair are irresistibly drawn to each other, until a stolen kiss leads to disaster.

When society seems to demand confidence and certainty, how much courage does it take to admit doubt, especially self-doubt? In this personal essay, one of Australia's most respected journalists argues in favour of a doubtful mind. Her classic personal essay carries a message about the value of truth, scrutiny and accountability - a much-needed antidote to fake news. Donald Trump, the post-truth world and the instability of Australian politics are all examined in this fresh take on her prescient essay on the media and political trends that define our times.

As a professional bull rider in America for the past 16 years, Zane has stayed a sensible distance from the one woman he's always loved but could never have - Emma, his childhood friend and his brother's wife. But a phone call revealing his stepfather's sudden death means keeping half a world between them is no longer an option. Returning to Silvergum, how will he keep his long-held feelings under control?

In Quarterly Essay 46 Laura Tingle shows that the answer goes to something deep in Australian culture: our great expectations of government. Since the deregulation era of the 1980s, Tingle shows, governments can do less, but we wish they could do more. From Hawke to Gillard, each prime minister has grappled with this dilemma. Keating sought to change expectations, Howard to feed a culture of entitlement, Rudd to reconceive the federation. Through all of this, and back to our origins, runs an almost childlike sense of the government as saviour and provider.

When the Yarrowee River bursts its banks, Rian Farrell, a dashing Irish sea captain and part-time gunrunner, disappears in the torrential flood. Believing herself a widow, the headstrong and passionate Kitty Farrell's heart is left in tatters after the sudden death of her beloved husband. In her grief, she finally succumbs to the attractions of his longtime shipmate, Daniel, who has loved her from afar for many years. The consequences are disastrous and will challenge Kitty Farrell both physically and mentally.

Looking to go to diet rehab? Need to understand what makes you tick? Want to know why fad dieting simply fuels the obesity epidemic? Look no further, the answers are here! From demystifying metabolism and nutrition, to dispelling the many myths and misconceptions about diet and fat loss, The End of Dieting is the advice we've all been waiting for.

After eight years of marriage, Sarah Walsh had thought she and Matt would be together forever. But when a fatal accident serves up the cruellest punishment any mother could face, their relationship falters. Sarah is helpless as Matt flies off the rails—she braves one last-ditch attempt to try and make him see they need to work together to get through the heartache. But will it be enough? And what about her—how does she go on alone?

After the lecture she is meeting up with Dr Jeremy Quinn, esteemed psychologist and dangerous ex-lover - the only person with whom she has ever let her guard down completely. After a few glasses of champagne in his luxurious penthouse suite, Jeremy presents her with an intriguing offer: stay with him for the next 48 hours and accept two extraordinary conditions, the first of which leaves her utterly at his mercy, and he will give her an experience more sensual and extreme than any game they have ever played before.

By the time we turn 60 most of us will still have one third of our lives to live. How well we live these years will depend on our health: are we agile and disease free? Or dependent on medication and physical assistance? In Staying Alive you'll discover the science on how you can avoid or manage the major diseases that impact us as we age, including heart health, diabetes and dementia, and boost your everyday behaviours to improve your enjoyment of life.

Quiver is 12 interlinked short stories the explore lust and human sexuality in all their sensual manifestations. In her first collection of erotic writing Tobsha Learner transports us into a world of love, power and obsession, often blurring the line between reality and fantasy, bringing us face-to-face with delicately observed passion and pain. Experience the angry fearlessness of youth, the pleasure of the new, sexual friction at its most primal, and the lingering fingers of a past that refuses to let go.

Following an alcohol-induced, relationship-combusting one-night stand, Isabelle Beckett finds herself suddenly single. Caught up in her big-city career with an art auction house, her life is an enviable whirl of glamorous gallery openings, avant-garde ironing boards, and once-in-a-lifetime discoveries. That is, until Isabelle faces the fact that being single in a strange city is an experience for which she is quite unprepared. Forced to contend with hostile taxi drivers, fanged spiders in the shower, and the humiliation of being discovered by her latest crush in a wetsuit-tutu combo, she struggles to retain her dignity and belief in romantic destiny.

Alexandra has returned to the world after her captivity and is left with a heady mix of emotions. Strangely empowered, her feelings of pleasure and exhilaration are tinged with fear, but now she must reconcile the decisions of her past and how they may determine her future. Alexandra knows it is she alone who holds the key to the answers so desperately sought by both her lover, Jeremy Quinn, and her captors.