Showing results by narrator "Edwina Wren" in All Categories

Australian soccer mum Sarah Calhoun keeps the terrifying secrets of her time as an overseas aid worker from everyone she loves. Until two men from Northern Ireland hunt her down - one an obsessive policeman with demons of his own, the other a brutal IRA executioner, too closely connected to her past. She is forced to return to Belfast to testify at a murder trial. But she faces an impossible choice - lie on the stand and allow a vindictive killer to run free, or tell the truth and place her children in the line of fire.

A sweeping historical love story set in Australia during World War I. Newlyweds Ruby and Jimmy Hawkins are sure their love will survive the trauma and tragedy of war. Amid the desperate battles raging in Gallipoli, Jimmy dreams of the future they planned together. In Sydney, Ruby reads his romantic letters full of love and longing. But as weeks slip into months, Ruby must forge her own new life. When she takes a job at a city timber merchant's yard, she is thrown into a man's world fraught with complications.

1932. Ernie and Lily Hass, and their daughter, Girlie, have lost almost everything in the Depression; all they have keeping their small family together are their secrets. Abandoning their failing wheat farm and small-town gossip, they make a new start on the west coast of Australia, where they begin to build a summer guesthouse. But forming new alliances with the locals isn't easy. Into the Hasses' new life wanders Lily's shell-shocked brother, Tommy, after three harrowing years on the road following his incarceration.

Originally published in the Netherlands in 1993, De Loo's first novel to be translated into English explores the enmity that existed between Germans and the rest of Europe after World War II. This moving tale addresses notions of guilt and responsibility in a sensitive, thought-provoking manner, without exonerating or condemning.

Gus doesn't want to make friends. She also doesn't want to be intrigued by the cat-lady teacher at her new school, or the Riley's Comet project that she and her seaweed-eating science partner are working on together. And she definitely doesn't want to fall in love with her job as the projectionist at the Starlight, a drive-in movie theatre that her family is reviving. Because, knowing Gus's luck, she and her family could be moving on in a day, or a week, or a month. When the ghosts that haunt Mum catch up with them. Or if the Starlight doesn't succeed.

It's Chrismastime, and Blair and Serena are best friends again and up to their old tricks: partying hard and breaking hearts from Park Avenue to the Caribbean. Blair's mom and Cyrus are having their honeymoon in Salt Key. And when school lets out for the holiday, Blair, Serena, Aaron, and company head down there to blow off steam after their midterm exams.

It's that time again ... time to indulge in a spot of jealousy, betrayal and late-night bar-hopping. Everyone's back from a week of après-ski hot tub fun in Sun Valley, and cream coloured envelopes from the Ivy League are beginning to drop all over Fifth Avenue doorsteps.

It's the spring break and love is in the air. Or is that a blend of Chanel No 9 and Gucci Rush? Blair moves in with Serena and they're back to being best friends. But will the love-fest last or will they end up tearing out one another's newly highlighted hair? Nate is on the straight and narrow with his crazy girlfriend, Georgie. And Vanessa...wait, is that Vanessa shopping at Barneys with a guy in a Lacoste shirt?

Rain Stones and the other stories in this collection reveal that the country is a magical place, that there is an extra dimension to be found by those whose minds and hearts are open to the possibility. Michael knows that the hills around Canberra are sleeping dinosaurs waiting for darkness to fall to begin their nightly dance. Jacob is blind, but he can show his friends things they never dreamt existed. And Helen is hoping that the rain stones will bring rain to the parched land where everything is dying.

Enter the world of Gossip Girl - a world where espadrille sandals are flown in from Spain, crisp cotton sundresses are made to order, and jealousy and betrayal are the ultimate summer accessories... Serena and Blair are now co-muses to a super-famous designer, who just happens to live next door to Nate's Hamptons estate... But how neighbourly are these new neighbours going to get? And what's this about Vanessa venturing surfside? Who's next, Dan? Never say never...

The horror of the Rainbow Opera riot is the talk of the country. Dreamhunter Grace Tiebold's reputation is in tatters and Laura is in hiding. But the nightmare has only just begun. Rumours about the government's torture of prisoners have been suppressed and corrupt minister Cas Doran is free to take his plans to shocking heights.

Three people, struggling to come to terms with great loss after the end of the war, search for peace in a small town's library in a heartbreaking novel of love and loss and the healing power of memory and words. In a small town on the land's edge, in the strange space at a war's end, a widow, a poet and a doctor each try to find their own peace, and their own new story. In Thirroul, in 1948, people chase their dreams through the books in the railway's library.

Twelve-year-old Ming Qong is convinced that girls must have changed the world, even if they are rarely mentioned in history books. So when Ming gets the chance to go back in time, she imagines herself changing destinies from a glittering palace or an explorer's ship. Instead, she ends up in Australia in 1898, living a tough life as Flo Watson on a drought-stricken farm.

The uptown girls are headed downtown as Serena and Jenny take on their new fabulous roles as rock-star model girlfriends of New York's hottest band, The Raves. Meanwhile, Dan is too busy drowning his sorrows in empty bottles to notice a mysterious French beauty who has a penchant for dirty, Jim Morrison wannabe lead singers. Blair takes residence at the Plaza to think about her future. Will she become a gun-toting international spy or Manhattan's snobbiest society hostess? Decisions are so difficult!

Welcome back to New York City's glamorous Upper East Side, where the uptown girls get everything and everyone they want. Nabbing the latest Marc Jacobs bag or your best friend's boyfriend isn't always pretty, but it's always pretty cool. It's almost graduation and the lives of New York's private high school elite are really heating up. Everyone's got into college and it's clearly time to party, not that they haven't been doing plenty of that already! Blair and Nate's relationship has moved on to a new level, but will the love affair continue? Or will Nate's love affair with his bong get in the way?

Ming has travelled through history to meet girls who have changed the world. However, this time is different as Herstory, History's sister, promises to reveal to Ming something of her own past: her long-lost mother. When Ming washes up on the icy shores of Nantucket Island in 1836 she is saved by the elderly Mrs Sloe and the wealthy Miss Reynolds, but there is no sign of a woman who might be her mother.

Welcome to New York City's Upper East Side, where Gossip Girl and her friends are the biggest stars...whether or not the cameras are rolling. Lights, camera, scandal! Hollywood is invading New York and Serena is set for her big screen debut. She's already having an off-screen romance with her onscreen lover, Thaddeus. What will that mean for Hamptons-bound Nate? And if Nate is free, what about Blair? Sure, she's off to London to spend time with her royal boytoy, but Nate will always be Prince Charming in her eyes...

Wry, moving, beautifully observed and politically astute, this latest audiobook from one of New Zealand's finest chroniclers pinpoints universal truths through very NZ lives. Life isn't always like it appears in the movies. In 1952 Irene Sandle takes her young daughter to Motueka. Irene was widowed during the war and is seeking a new start and employment in the tobacco fields. There, she finds the reality of her life far removed from the glamour of the screen.

Australia 1948. As a young woman running Amiens, a sizeable sheep station in New South Wales, Kate Dowd knows she's expected to fail. And her grazier neighbour is doing his best to ensure she does, attacking her method of burning off to repel a bushfire. But fire risk is just one of her problems. Kate cannot lose Amiens, or give in to her estranged husband Jack's demands to sell: the farm is her livelihood and the only protection she can offer her half-sister Pearl, as the Aborigines Welfare Board threatens to take her away.

Whilst living in exile on St Helena, Napoleon exerted an extraordinary influence on young Betsy Balcombe. How did she get from Napoleon's side to the Australian bush? Betsy Balcombe as a young woman lived with her family on St Helena. They befriended, served and were ruined by their relationship with Napoleon. To redeem the family's fortunes, William Balcombe, Betsy's father, betrayed Napoleon and accepted a job as the colonial treasurer of NSW, bringing his family with him.