Showing results by narrator "Des Fitzgerald" in All Categories

In the autumn of 1944, George Starling prepares to exact revenge on the person he hates most in the world (and Starling has a long list of people he hates): detective Joe Sable of the Melbourne Homicide division. Driven by his dark passion for Nazism, Starling is going to make sure that nothing and no one will stand in his way and survive. In the meantime, Homicide is in turmoil. Riven by internal divisions and disrupted by the war, it has become a dangerous place for Joe to work.

Edwina is looking for a fresh start. So when a friend suggests she renovates a series of coastguard cottages in the tiny village of Sandy Cove, she wonders if the beautiful Irish seaside town might be her chance for a new beginning. Soon after she arrives, Edwina meets Shane O'Flaherty, a charming local doctor, with whom she feels an instant connection. As the pair walk the streets of the picturesque village together, Edwina's feelings grow stronger, and she begins to wonder whether Sandy Cove might be the place she can finally call home.

Inside this moving true story, John Furniss, more famously known today as "The Blind Woodsman," along with his wife, inspiration, and fellow artist Anni share their amazing story with the mission to help and inspire others to pursue their own creative passions, regardless of the challenges they may face. The Blind Woodsman is a compelling true story that will give hope and inspiration to those dealing with disabilities, mental health struggles, addiction, chronic illness, and the anxieties and stresses in our everyday lives.

Twelve-year-old Barana lives in a coastal village in Honduras, where she spends every spare minute visiting the sea turtles that nest on the beach. Abby is feeling adrift in sixth grade, trying to figure out who she is and where she belongs after her best friend moved away from New Jersey. When Abby’s papi plans a work trip to Honduras, she is finally given the opportunity to see his homeland—with Barana as her tour guide. But Barana has other plans: someone has been poaching turtle eggs, and she’s determined to catch them!

Terry Lyon, assistant head keeper of Southwood Zoo, trusts animals because most people think he’s a waste of space. But as the zoo lurches towards bankruptcy, his future looks bleak. As if managing hungry elephants and contrary polar bears wasn’t complicated enough, the humans in Terry’s life pose their own challenges. Having had to move back in with his parents after his divorce, life becomes complicated when Terry’s ex Margaret starts seeing his best friend Richard.

The Banshee: Is she to be feared, loathed, or is she simply misunderstood? Barry Fitzgerald and Cormac Strain explore some of the history of this very famous entity of myth and legend to reveal things are not possibly what they seem. They speak to people from all over the island of Ireland who have come face to face with this messenger of death and share their encounters. These encounters are not from the dark regions of Irish history but rather happened within the last 50 years.

Just as Laura begins to solve the mystery behind the painting, everything she thought she knew about Gino changes in a heartbeat when she discovers that he might have already given his heart away to someone else. Is their love story over before it ever truly began? And when Laura uncovers the truth behind her inheritance, she is left wondering whether the family secret should have remained forgotten. When the dust settles from her discovery, will she be able to rebuild her life in Sandy Cove with the one man she truly loves?

This is the story of a beautiful, young woman — a talented athlete and musician, raised in a loving home, surrounded by friends — undermined by a ruthless inner voice that claimed her body and her spirit. Emilee: The Story of a Girl and Her Family Hijacked by Anorexia reveals the cracks in our health care system, the institutions we are taught to trust, as well as our own prejudices and misinformation about eating disorders, mental illness, and addiction.

In a post-COVID19 world where redundancies are high, and job opportunities are low, never has it been so essential to learn how to be happy and healthy at work. Jumping from job to job will not provide you with the answers, unless you can first rework yourself and shed yourself of the burden of inherited cultures, past beliefs and historical mistakes. Reworked utilises neuroscience, evidence-based psychology and two decades of working in health and wellbeing to teach you how to be happy, healthy, safe and engaged at work.

"We choose to go to the Moon", officially titled the Address at Rice University on the Nation's Space Effort, is a September 12, 1962, speech by United States President John F. Kennedy to bolster public support for his proposal to land a man on the Moon before 1970. Kennedy gave the speech, largely written by presidential advisor and speechwriter Ted Sorensen, to a large crowd at Rice University Stadium in Houston, Texas.

With unparalleled freedom in the Golden Age of Hollywood, movies produced during the “pre-Code” era between 1930 and 1934 dealt with a wide range of social issues, including sexual freedom, incarceration, organized crime, race, and class. Films of the period include beloved classics like King Kong (1933) but also lesser-known penetrating cinema like I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) and Wild Boys of the Road (1933). These films, produced at the height of the Great Depression, boast work by women directors, featured diverse leads, and pushed the limits of contemporary social norms.

Sixty seconds after she wakes from a coma, Maggie's world is torn apart. The police tell her that her daughter, Elspeth, is dead. That she drowned when the car Maggie had been driving plunged into the river. Maggie remembers nothing. When Maggie begs to see her husband, Sean, the police tell her that he has disappeared. He was last seen on the day of their daughter's funeral. What really happened that day at the river? Where is Maggie's husband? And why can't she shake the suspicion that somewhere, somehow, her daughter is still alive?

In this new collection of 33 stories, one of Korea's foremost Seon (Zen) masters introduces the richness and depth of Korea's Buddhist tradition. With humor and insight, Seon Master Daehaeng shows us our inherent potential and demonstrates how we can face the challenges of life with wisdom and vigor.

Felicity is a predator. Born into bloodshed, raised with wolves, she lives only for the hunt. When Imperial forces invade her sanctuary and shatter the winter silence with the screams of countless victims, Felicity catches scent of a bigger game. A game of vengeance, love, and death. To follow this path, she must put her life in the hands of five strangers. Easier said than done for a wolfchild. For Felicity, caught between the two worlds of man and beast, a single question repeats itself. What makes you human?

As a sleepy town in rural Ireland starts to wake, a road subsides, trapping an early-morning bus and five passengers inside. Rescue teams struggle, and as two are eventually saved, the bus falls deeper into the hole. Under the watchful eyes of the media, the lives of three people are teetering on the edge. And for those on the outside, from Nina, the reporter covering the story, to rescue liaison Tim, and Richie, the driver pulled from the wreckage, each are made to look at themselves under the glare of the spotlight.

From improving her painting to perfecting her garden, exploring family histories and reclaiming her mother’s art of tea-making, Alice Taylor discovers the challenges and pleasures of living alone.

An elderly gentleman checks into a B&B in a small village in rural Ireland where he knows nobody. Four days later, his body is found in the lake. The identity of their unknown guest raises questions for one family in particular, twin sisters Liv and Marianne, and their mother, Ethel, each of whom is searching for her own place in the world. The Ghostlights brilliantly evokes the lives of the people in the town and explores the aftershocks of a stranger’s tragedy.

The summer Natasha Rothwell turns 15, strange dancing lights appear in the sky above her small town, lights that she interprets as portents of doom. Natasha leads a sheltered life with her beautiful, bohemian mother in a crumbling house by the sea. As news of the lights spreads, more and more visitors arrive in the town, creating a feverish atmosphere of anticipation and dread. And the arrival of a new lodger, the handsome Mr Bowen, threatens to upset the delicate equilibrium between mother and daughter.

Dublin, 1816. A young nursemaid conceals a pregnancy and then murders her newborn in the home of the Neshams, a prominent family in a radical Christian sect known as the Brethren. Rumours swirl about the identity of the child’s father, but before an inquest can be held, the maid is found dead after an apparent suicide. When Abigail Lawless, the 18-year-old daughter of the city coroner, by chance discovers a message from the maid’s seducer, she sets out to discover the truth.

Fitzgerald’s memoir-in-essays begins with a childhood that moves at breakneck speed from safety to violence, recounting an extraordinary pilgrimage through trauma to self-understanding and, ultimately, acceptance. From growing up in a Boston homeless shelter to bartending in San Francisco, from smuggling medical supplies into Burma to his lifelong struggle to make peace with his body, Fitzgerald strives to take control of his own story: one that aims to put aside anger, isolation and entitlement to embrace the idea that one can be generous to oneself by being generous to others.