Showing results by narrator "Kate Hood" in All Categories

The Silent Country is a vast and beautiful wilderness, a place which holds secrets and stories that are rarely spoken. TV producer Veronica Anderson travels to the Northern Territory to retrace the journey of an expedition that had set out 50 years earlier to film the outback, but which mysteriously ended in tragedy. Of the group, led by the eccentric Maxim Topov, few are still alive and they are reluctant to talk about the intriguing events.

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.

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.

In July 2009 Jim Stynes, the acclaimed professional Australian-rules football player and administrator, was diagnosed with cancer and given less than a year to live. The diagnosis caught him by surprise. He was 42, healthy, and didn't have time for illness; he was director of the Reach Foundation, president of Melbourne Football Club, father of two primary school-aged kids, and the husband of Sam. Jim's ability to use mind over matter and never give in gave him two extra years on the prognosis. This book is Jim's legacy.

Great Pioneer Women of the Outback profiles 10 female pioneers, from Jeannie Gunn, author of We of the Never Never, to equally remarkable but lesser known women, such as Emma Withnell in Western Australia and Evelyn Maunsell in Queensland. Building on the women's records and her own knowledge of Australian history, Susanna de Vries documents the grit and determination it took to build what many today would consider an extraordinary life.

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.

A young Australian woman leaves Sydney for a new world, Guyana, South America. Captivated by Guyana's wild, unspoiled beauty, Madison Wright joins the native Amerindians struggling to preserve their culture against corporate exploitation. But her new-found commitment soon plunges Madison into a mire of murder, drug smuggling and political corruption, and finally, an unexpected love that pits her heart against her beliefs.

The Bay is a beautiful and peaceful town on the Australian east coast; a melting pot of city escapees, alternative lifestylers, feral dropouts, lost souls, backpackers, and men and women in search of love and a new sense of identity. When Sydney corporate wife Holly Jamieson turns 45 she shocks her husband by buying an old house in The Bay with plans to transform it into a charming B & B. What began as a gesture of independence changes her life.

When English actress Vanessa Forsythe falls in love with Bren Selby, her life changes forever. Leaving behind her London apartment, she becomes mistress of Amaroo Downs, a remote cattle station in Western Australia. Not only does Vanessa have to adjust to a vastly different lifestyle in the outback, she must establish her place in the Selby family.

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.

In Craft for a Dry Lake, Kim Mahood embarks on an extraordinary journey to her heartland - the outback of her youth. Compelled to revisit the haunts of her childhood by the tragic death of her father, Kim seeks to lay his ghost to rest, but instead finds herself faced with many of her own. Her adventures are interwoven with the echoes of childhood memories and peopled by an intriguing cast of outback characters.

All three girls come from the same small country town. Katrina, privileged, beautiful, and sophisticated, is the daughter of a wealthy medical family; Carmel, from a struggling farming family is overweight and inhibited, but has a gift for music, and Jude, a medical student, is the daughter of a Chilean doctor who was murdered when she was two.

Juliet's a worrywart, and no wonder! Her little sister, Oaf, follows her around taking notes and singing 'The Irritating Song' all day long. Her parents are always arguing about Dad's junk. Nana's so tired of craft lessons that she starts barbecuing things in the middle of the night. And Juliet's friends, Lindsay and Gemma, are competing to see which of them is Juliet's best friend. Juliet can't fit in any more worries!

Laura McRae is beautiful, gifted, and madly in love, until at 18 her life is shattered in a few brief moments. Soon it is wartime, a time of racketeering and high stakes...and impulsive marriages. Falling into the arms of Eddie Ashworth seems to be the love Laura has dreamed of, but is her new husband really the man he seems?

Fiery and ambitious, brilliant architect Francey Spinetti is a young woman on her way to the top. When wealthy magnate CJ Ambrose introduces her to his vast North Queensland business empire and a career-scarred local cop, Steve Parish, everything seems to be falling into place, including her love life. But the harsh outback landscape holds more secrets than Francey could possibly have imagined, and more enemies too. CJ's family seem determined to eliminate Francey from the picture—whatever the cost.

A footloose city slicker who couldn′t tell a bull from a cow was hardly the ideal candidate to answer an ad for a governess on a Mackay cattle station. But Alice Greenup was game for anything, until she was bowled over by a handsome young jackeroo with a devastating smile. It was the start of a whole new way of life as Alice gave up her city life to embrace the bush and all that came with it: horses, cattle, the obsession with rain - and the correct way to wear a hat.

Hundreds of kilometres without a car, a house, or a person in sight. The dome of clear blue above and the occasional group of roos startling off into the scrub. Then emus, bolting off in a mad panic on the other side. I was finding something that had been lost inside me and I wanted to weave in and out on that straight white ribbon of road for the joy of having found it again. Cross My Heart is the story of Mick and Michelle, chasing a dream, crossing their hearts for the future; a vibrant, passionate, sprawling novel set in outback Australia.

Someone is trying to sabotage Ashworths, the exclusive department store set up by Laura Beaumont. Is the company about to be taken over? The timing is bad for the Beaumont family because Laura's health is declining and they desperately need to find a successor to the business. Caroline, Laura's eldest daughter, is a concert pianist in search of a new career; perhaps at Ashworths. But her ambitious sister Michaela has her eye on the top job and is suspicious of Caroline's motives. Meanwhile, Joel, Laura's son, has to deal with his own problems before he can pursue his career as a doctor.

When Nikki Stern left suburban Melbourne for Europe in the early 1980s, little did she know that her life was about to change dramatically. Adopted into a well-connected family and educated at an exclusive school, she fell instantly and hopelessly in love with a charming and charismatic cartoonist in Amsterdam. Paul and Nikki embarked on a passionate love affair, enjoying the hedonistic days of the '80s before eloping and returning to Australia.

Sydney, 1942. Pearl is 18, beautiful and impetuous. She plays saxophone in an all-girl jazz band at the Trocadero and occasionally sits in on underground gigs with her twin brother Martin, who also plays the sax. On one such evening black GI and jazz legend James Washington blows into her life, and nothing is ever the same again, especially not Pearl. A love story begins to unfold against the blacked-out nights and rumour-filled days of a city in the grip of war.