Showing results by narrator "Kate Hood" in All Categories

When Australian Julie Reagan discovers a book written about wild Malaysia in the 1970s, she decides to find out more about the author – her great aunt. Why did her grandmother refuse to speak about her sister who disappeared from the family, 60 years before? What caused such a severe rift?Julie is invited to stay with her cousins who run the plantation founded by her great grandfather in Malaya a hundred years ago, and she decides to visit in the hope of finding clues to this family mystery.

Broome, Australia, 1893. It's the wild and passionate heyday of the pearling industry, and when young English bride Olivia Hennessy meets the dashing pearling master, Captain Tyndall, their lives are destined to be linked by the mysterious power of the pearl. Sydney, Australia, 1995. Lily Barton embarks on a search for her family roots which leads her to Broome. But her quest for identity reveals more than she could have ever imagined.

It's 1963 and Sally Mitchell, the daughter of a New Zealand sheep farmer, is on her way to England. On a stop-over in Sydney, she impulsively takes a job as a governess at Barra Creek, and finds herself in a different world: one dominated by John Monroe and his strict and proper wife, Lorna. Here, Sally's life changes forever. Only Lorna knows the truth of a mysterious death and a terrible injustice. Now, in 2003, she searches for the former governess to and share her horrific secret.

This House of Grief is a heartbreaking audiobook by one of Australia's most admired authors. Anyone can see the place where the children died. You take the Princes Highway past Geelong, and keep going west in the direction of Colac. Late in August 2006, soon after I had watched a magistrate commit Robert Farquharson to stand trial before a jury on three charges of murder, I headed out that way on a Sunday morning, across the great volcanic plain.

On a small coral cay on the Great Barrier Reef two communities come together in an uneasy alliance: a tourist resort and a scientific research station. At first glance, the island is a sexy resort, a naturalist's dream, a diver's delight. But the island holds secrets and dangers as Jennifer Towse soon discovers. When world-famous Isobel Belitas arrives, Jennifer learns to see the world - above and below the sea - very differently.

Monsoon is a journey into the hearts and memories of those caught in a certain time in a particular place. Sandy Donaldson has been working for a volunteer organisation in Vietnam for the past four years. As her contract nears its end, she is reluctant to leave so she invites her oldest friend, Anna, to come for a holiday and discover its beautiful tourist destinations. Both girls have unexplored links to this country.

I tell you, you meet some strange characters in this game.... Boasting the biggest beats in the world - some as large as France - Australia's outback police have seen it all: natural disasters, incredible acts of selflessness, unspeakable crimes and daring rescues, just to name a few. And they've met some unforgettable characters along the way: from the murderer who stuffed his victims' bodies down wombat holes to the policeman who arrested his own wife....

And Then the Darkness is a gripping account of the disappearance in the Australian Outback of English tourist Peter Falconio. His girlfriend, Joanne Lees, was found cut, bleeding and wandering the highway, her hands bound. Joanne's account of her ordeal sparked a frenzy of media interest and the biggest manhunt ever mounted in Australia. Questions arose about the police operation and about Joanne herself.

Hugh and Margaret Darcy are raising their family in Sydney amid the brothels, grog shops and run-down boarding houses of Surry Hills, where money is scarce and life is not easy. Filled with beautifully drawn characters that will make you laugh as much as cry, this Australian classic will take you straight back to the colourful slums of Sydney with convincing depth, careful detail and great heart.

Escaping an unhappy marriage and an unsatisfactory job, Cassie Holloway moves to the little NSW coastal town of Whitby Point. Here she meets the Aquino family, whose fishing business was founded by their ancestor, Giuseppe, an immigrant Italian, some ninety years before. Life for Cassie on the south west coast is sweet as she sets up a successful restaurant and falls in love with Giuseppe's great grandson Michael....

Blaze exposes the new order of women and power in the cut-throat arena of up-market magazines. The idealistic baby boomers have been pushed aside and it's every woman for herself. An intimate look at four women coping with their private and public lives in the world where scheming and fox cunning seem to beat skill and talent, where sexism and ageism in office politics label women over 30 over the hill.

Kerrie, in her 40s, has just lost her famous sculptor husband who had been the centre of her existence and for whom she made many sacrifices and she now finds her life has lost direction. Shirley, approaching 80, was betrayed by her lover many years before and has retreated from the world, becoming a recluse living in an underground dugout. Anna,19, has a promising athletic career but is torn between the commitment to her sport, which could carry her to the Olympics, or enjoying life like other young people.

The bleak coal-mining settlement of Denniston, isolated high on a plateau above New Zealand's West Coast, is a place that makes or breaks those who live there. All sorts arrive here to work the mines and bring down the coal: ex-goldminers down on their luck, others running from the law or from a woman or worse. They work alongside recruited English miners, solid and skilled, who scorn these disorganised misfits and want them off the hill. Into this chaotic community come five-year-old Rose and her mother....

Continuing the history of the Irish Darcys begun in Missus and continued in The Harp in the South, this third novel of the trilogy re-acquaints listeners with the vicissitudes of slum life in a Sydney suburb. An unforgettable family and a cast of unforgettable characters enliven a story that is sometimes tragic, but often humourous, in a time of poverty and destitution, hope and promise.

Missus takes us behind the lives of Hughie and Mumma, out of the gritty realism of inner city slum life and into the past of the stations,the bush and the country towns. We meet them as they were in the early 1920s, drifter Hugh Darcy, the unwilling hero who sweeps the dreamily innocent Margaret Kilker off her feet.

It's the psychedelic '70s and social conventions are being challenged. When Catherine Moreland from rural Australia goes on her first trip abroad, a handsome American naval officer sweeps her off her feet and she goes to live in beautiful, romantic Hawaii with her new husband. At first, the magic and loveliness of the Islands lead Catherine to believe she is living in paradise.

He straightened his spine, raised his head, and extended his gun arm towards me in a slow, vertical arc. I saw then what he was, and stood still in front of him, for he was here on business. He was a small, serious, stone-eyed angel of mercy. Janet is a skeptic, a journalist; Maxine revels in New Age fantasies; and Ray, a drifter, is a born-again Christian. The common ground is the house they share. But their fragile domestic balance is about to explode amid the smashing of ukeleles, the unexpected ascension of an angel and a sudden shower of jonquils.

The Kimberley, a land that cradles Australia's ancient treasures, is sanctuary to the mysterious spirits reflected in the oldest rock art in the world. It is also home to a people whose powerful secrets could unlock the future for a modern mankind. Four people are tied up in a mystery so powerful it could change their lives forever.

The awe-inspiring story of the life and mission of Dr. Catherine Hamlin who, with her husband Reg, established what has been heralded as one the most incredible medical programs in the modern world. The Hamlins, both Christians, dedicated their lives to women suffering the catastrophic effects of obstructed labour. The awful injuries that such labour produces are called fistulae, and until the Hamlins began their work in Ethiopia, fistula sufferers were neglected and forgotten.

Swinging from a meat-hook, his entire skin was in one piece including his hair, face, ears, nose, mouth and genitals. Slashes and stab holes tore through the human pelt, a testimony to the wounds he suffered before dying. Cruel and evil, Katherine Knight showed no mercy when she butchered her de facto in a crime that put her behind bars in an Australian prison for a record life sentence.