Showing results by publisher "Wavesound from W. F. Howes Ltd" in All Categories

It was a straightforward request. Take her gran home to her beloved Scotland. In the space of a few days, Elle loses her job and her home and faces moving back in with her parents - where she knows she'll hear a lot about how she is wasting her life, unlike her three siblings. Then Gran's will is read and everything changes.

Lena Todd is a city girl who thrives on cocktails and cappuccinos. So when her boss announces he's sending her to the outback to join a construction team, her world is turned upside down. Unfortunately, Lena can't refuse. Mistakes of the past are choking her confidence, and she needs to do something to prove herself. This is the perfect opportunity to do that, if only tall, dark and obnoxious Dan didn't seem so determined to stand in her way....

Journalist Sarah Dingle was 27 when she learned that her identity was a lie. Over dinner one night, her mother casually mentioned Sarah had been conceived using a sperm donor. The man who’d raised her wasn’t her father; in fact, she had no idea who her father was. Or who she really was. As the shock receded, Sarah began to investigate her own existence. Thus began a 10-year journey - digging through hospital files, chasing leads and taking a DNA test - that finally led to her biological origins.

Busy mum-of-four Lizzie, newly divorced Sam and single mum Megan are best mates. And after a couple of decent coffees, they reckon they can handle anything. So when Baytree Primary calls out for volunteers to help at an upcoming camp, these three jump at the chance. Because nothing ever goes wrong at school camp, right?

Broadcaster Jacinta Parsons was in her 20s when she first began to feel unwell - the kind of unwell that didn’t go away. Eventually she got a diagnosis: Crohn’s disease. But knowing this wouldn’t stop her life from spiralling into a big mess of doctors, hospitals and medical disasters. What’s most extraordinary about Jacinta’s story is how common it is. With compelling candour, Jacinta trains a microscope on the unique challenges of living with an invisible condition.

What happens when, aged 30, you realise you're transgender? This was the question that confronted Yves Rees, a historian whose life was upended by gender transition in 2018. Then known as a woman called Anne, Yves was forced to grapple with the sudden realisation that they were not, in fact, female at all. But when you've lived a lie for so long, how do you discover who you really are? And how do you re-learn to live in the world as a different gender? All About Yves tells their moving journey of re-becoming.

In the First World War of 1914-1918, thousands of boys across Australia and New Zealand lied about their age, forged a parent’s signature and left to fight on the other side of the world. Though some were as young as 13, they soon found they could die as well as any man. Like Peter Pan’s lost boys, they have remained forever young. These are their stories. This extraordinary book captures the incredible and previously untold stories of 40 Anzac boys who fought in the First World War, from Gallipoli to the Armistice.

Deaf PI Caleb Zelic has always been an outsider, estranged from family and friends. But when he receives a message that his brother, Anton, is in danger, Caleb sees it as a chance at redemption. He tracks Anton down to a small, wind-punished island, where secrets run deep and resentments deeper. When a sniper starts terrorising the isolated community, the brothers must rely on each other like never before. But trust comes at a deadly price …

A house perched impossibly on a cliff overlooking the stunning, iconic Bluebird Beach. Prime real estate, yet somehow not real estate at all, The Lodge is, like those who live in it, falling apart. Gordon Grimes has become the accidental keeper of this last relic of an endangered world. He lives in The Lodge with his wife, Kelly, who is trying to leave him, their son, Ben, who will do anything to save him, his goddaughter Lou who is hiding from her own troubles, and Leonie, the family matriarch who has trapped them here for their own good.

In Sex, Lies and Question Time, former MP Kate Ellis looks at what it is really like to be a woman in Australian politics today. In 2017, a survey showed zero per cent of young Australian women would consider entering politics. Zero. In a time when we critically need women in our parliament, and in a country that was an early leader in women's political participation, there is a perception that women and politics don’t mix. Shocking incidents have exposed the sexism that women in politics face from opposition, the media, the public, even their own colleagues.

It’s the 1980s, and in their small coastal town, Ali and her best friend, Jessie, are on the cusp. With The Golden Book, a journal of incantation and risk-taking as their record, they begin to chafe at the restrictions put on them by teachers, parents, each other. Then Jessie suffers a devastating accident, and both their lives are forever changed. When Ali is an adult, with a young daughter herself, the news of Jessie’s death brings back the intensity of that summer, forcing her to reckon with her own role in what happened to Jessie so many years ago.

As night fell on 15 August 2021, the Taliban entered Kabul, capital of Afghanistan. After a 20-year conflict with the United States, its Western allies and a proxy Afghan government, the Islamic militant group once aligned with al Qaeda was about to bury yet another foreign foe in the graveyard of empires. And for the US, the superpower, this was yet another foreign disaster. As cities and towns fell to the Taliban in rapid succession, Western troops and embassy staff scrambled to flee a country of which its government had lost control.

One Thursday morning, Lexie Parker dashes to the shop for biscuits, leaving Bella in the safe care of the other mums in the playgroup. Six minutes later, Bella is gone. Police and media descend on the tiny village of Merrigang on the edge of Canberra. Locals unite to search the dense bushland. But as the investigation continues, relationships start to fracture, online hate messages target Lexie and the community is engulfed by fear.

This could be any small town. It aches under the heat of summer. It flourishes in the cooler months. Everyone knows everyone. Their families, histories and stories are interwoven and well-known by one and all. Or at least, they think they are. But no one sees anything quite the same way. Perceptions differ, truths are elusive, judgements have outcomes and everything is connected. For better or for worse.

Alannah Hill, one of Australia’s most successful fashion designers, created an international fashion brand that defied trends with ornamental, sophisticated elegance, beads, bows and vintage florals. But growing up in a milk bar in Tasmania, Alannah’s childhood was one of hardship, fear and abuse. At an early age she ran away from home with eight suitcases of costumes and a fierce determination to succeed, haunted by her mother’s refrain of ‘you’ll never amount to anything, you can’t sew, nobody likes you and you’re going to end up in a shallow grave, dear!’

Healing the scars of the Bali Bombings–An inspirational story of an Australian mother's journey back from hell and the enduring love for her children that gave her the will to wage her own war on terrorism.

Learning to kick a football in a suburban schoolyard. Finding your feet as a young black dancer. Discovering your grandfather’s poetry. Meeting Nelson Mandela at your local church. Facing racism from those who should protect you. Dreading a visit to the hairdresser. House-hopping across the suburbs. Being too black. Not being black enough. Singing to find your soul, and then losing yourself. Welcome to African Australia. Compiled by award-winning author Maxine Beneba Clarke, with curatorial assistance from writers Ahmed Yussuf and Magan Maga.

In a secret laboratory in the Zagros Mountains of Iran, scientists, under the auspices of the group who calls themselves The Sword of Cyrus, have just developed a nanotech nuclear weapon so small it could fit into a mobile phone, yet it has the destructive power of 7 Hiroshima bombs. This is the world’s most powerful and technologically advanced weapon, developed with the explicit goal to wipe out Western civilization.

1699. The salons of Paris are bursting with the creative energy of fierce, independent-minded women. But outside those doors, the patriarchal forces of Louis XIV and the Catholic Church are moving to curb their freedoms. In this battle for equality, Baroness Marie Catherine D’Aulnoy invents a powerful weapon: ‘fairy tales’. When Marie Catherine’s daughter, Angelina, arrives in Paris she is swept up in the glamour and sensuality of the city, where a woman may live outside the confines of the church or marriage.

From the best-selling author of The Sunday Girl. When Charlie sees a man who is the spitting image of her husband, Oliver, on a dating app, her heart stops. Her first desperate instinct is to tell herself she must be mistaken - she caught only a glimpse from a distance as her friends were laughingly swiping through the men on offer. But she knows it’s no mistake. She took that photo. On their honeymoon. She just can’t let it go.