Showing results by author "Vikki" in All Categories

When Senior Detective Antigone Pollard moves to the coastal town of Deception Bay, she is still in shock and grief. Back in Melbourne, one of her cases had gone catastrophically wrong, and to escape the guilt and the haunting memories, she'd requested a transfer to the quiet town she'd grown up in. But there are some things you can't run from. A month into her new life, she is targeted by a would-be rapist at the pub, and realises why there have been no convictions following a spate of similar sexual attacks in the surrounding district.

FEATURING AN EXCLUSIVE PODCAST EPISODE HOSTED BY THE AUTHOR A murdered young woman; a missing wife; a forty-year mystery. In 1986 on Phillip Island, a young woman called Beth Barnard was savagely murdered and her boyfriend’s wife, Vivienne Cameron, went missing. The police immediately jumped...

Detective Antigone Pollard is fearless. Armed with a trained police dog, a black belt in judo, and the will to speak her mind, she faces opposition head-on. After six months, Antigone is feeling more settled in Deception Bay. Crime rates are down after a slow start to the summer holiday season, but when a distraught mother, Maddy Muir, calls the station to report her baby is missing, Antigone and Wozza begin a race against time to find the baby and the person who brazenly took him.

The Kelly family has always been trouble. When a fire in a remote caravan community kills nine people, including 17-year-old Sabine Kelly’s mother and sister, Sabine confesses to the murders. Shortly after, she escapes custody and disappears. Recently made redundant from marriage, motherhood and her career, journalist Rachel Weidermann has long suspected Sabine made her way back to the river—now, twelve years after the ‘Caravan Murders’, she has the time and the tenacity to corner a fugitive and land the story of the year.

When a husband leaves suddenly from what his wife believed to be a happy, secure marriage, the impact is devastating. This phenomenon, known as Wife Abandonment Syndrome, leaves women reeling as their once-loving partner turns cold, blaming and often angry, shattering not only the marriage but the wife’s sense of stability and trust. In Runaway Husbands, family therapist and author Vikki Stark — who herself lived through this heartbreak — guides women through the confusion, grief, and pain toward a place of understanding, resilience, and renewal.

In a busy street market, Abbie lets go of six-year-old Sarah's hand. She isn't a bad mother, just exhausted. When she turns around, her daughter isn't there. Six years later, Abbie is in love and getting married. But her fragile peace is constantly threatened: not knowing what happened to Sarah is like living with a curse. Then she receives a phone call from an unknown number. A man claims to know what happened to Sarah, but if Abbie tells anyone or fails to follow his instructions, she'll never find out. How far will Abbie go to know the truth?

My name is Gemma Keyes. Other than my name, I am utterly forgettable - so those who never paid much attention to me in the first place haven't exactly noticed that I've disappeared. Vanished. Oh, it's much more complicated than it sounds. And let me tell you, invisibility comes with its own set of problems.

I'm a damsel in distress without health insurance and an upcoming surgery. Zane is my billionaire knight in a three-piece suit, an affectionate smile, and a stuttering voice. When I run out of all options, he proposes a gentleman's offer, generous and beautiful, exactly like him. We get into a marriage of convenience until my life is back to normal. Simple. But nothing is simple in my grand wedding and designer wedding dress. Ours is possibly the only fake wedding where every custom is followed to the word—including consummating the marriage.

Join sisters Vikki and Taniya as they share a weekly topic from their IFB (Independent, fundamental Baptist) childhood and tell how they were able to leave an oppressive, restrictive cult-like religion. They are reclaiming their past for good and building an online community of survivors as well as educating anyone curious about cults, toxic religion, and exposing church abuse.

In 2065, corporate sponsored governments jockey for supremacy in the biotechnical arena. Bullets and missiles take a back seat to cyber-enhanced soldiers and pulse weapons. In this extreme environment, only the most hardened body and mind can survive. Calder McKenna was a failed experiment in the military's push for power. Now a special agent for the metro task force, he lives day by day trying to forget the ones that were lost, the ones that he could have saved.

Weakened by the nanomites’ drain, Gemma flees from General Cushing’s renewed pursuit. She finds temporary refuge in Dr. Bickel’s vacant safe house - refuge and time for her body to recover from the damage inflicted by the nanomites. But how does an invisible woman with no identity survive in a visible world? While the nanomites search for Dr. Bickel (intent upon facilitating his rescue), Gemma appropriates a new identity and, piece by piece, secures a tenuous foothold in the real world that allows her to move about unnoticed.

We weren't just opposites. We were at extreme ends, living completely different lives. While our CEO dressed in suits, mesmerizes everyone with his charm, I'm the quirky, geeky data scientist with precise breakfast habits, baggy flannel shirts, and red canvas shoes. Yet, he thinks we're good together. He offers me his friendship and shows me a life I am too scared to see. But we don't stop there. He shows me love… the sweet kind and the sexy one too. My heart skitters at his attention, concern, and care for me and my quirks. But all my life I've trained myself not to trust anyone.

Step into the dark heart of small-town Australia in this gripping follow-up to the award-winning The Unbelieved – perfect for fans of Chris Hammer’s Scrublands and Jane Harper’s The Dry. After a calm start to the summer holiday season, the small coastal town of Deception Bay is rocked by a...

Small town secrets, a reluctant psychic, and the cold case that could expose them all Drew Benson has a secret. She gets visions, something she hasn’t tapped into since she was a teenager, when her late aunt, a TV psychic known as Hannah Mystic, became the scapegoat in the unsolved...

A sinfully rich and wickedly hot businessman like Zach Teager has no business in my bland, rickety world. Yet, he barges in like a storm, leaving everyone mesmerized by his charms. Every evening I find him at my doorstep in the pretense of a silly promise he's made to my son. And let's not talk about my boy, Ray who believes Zach is some sort of a Prince and maybe he is. But not of my story.

Simon & Schuster has a great audiobook for every listener...

Small town secrets, a reluctant psychic, and a cold case that could expose them all. Reluctant psychic Drew Benson can read tarot cards and get impressions from objects—she just never expected to use her gifts to investigate an infamous cold case. Drew Benson has a secret. She gets visions...

A chilling and timely crime fiction debut, winner of the inaugural Allen & Unwin Crime Prize and perfect for fans of Chris Hammer’s Scrublands and Jane Harper’s The Dry. Moving back to her quiet coastal hometown in the wake of a catastrophically failed case in Melbourne, Senior Detective...

Welcome to the Goat Locker podcast. What for? Because I want to talk about stuff. These things will include goats, recognition, garden stuff, my family, tips for staying interested in life outside my head, and whatever else floats to the top.

An intimate coming-of age novel for teens, told in verse, chronicling the beauty, magic and transformative power of summer camp, for fans of Elizabeth Acevedo and Judy Blume. After having her heart broken, seventeen-year-old Nora Nichols decides to escape her hometown and take a summer job as an...