Showing results by narrator "Jessica Spies" in All Categories

Broome 2023: When Saskia's free-spirited mother leaves her a caravan in her will, it doesn't make sense. Saskia is a schoolteacher, tied to plans and schedules, even if they are beginning to feel restrictive. Then she finds clues in the van about her mother's mysterious past, setting her on a journey to Tasmania with her young daughter Anouk, who shares her late grandmother's fascination with birds.

Shortly before Christmas in 2018, Tess McCarthy, a hard-working English teacher who never does anything out of the ordinary, flies to Western Australia's remote Abrolhos Islands. She's in search of answers—both to the infamous Batavia shipwreck and her personal family crises. Amsterdam, 1628. Saskia, an orphaned young Dutchwoman, boards Batavia with relatives, bound for a new and potentially dangerous life in the East Indies—only for her world to first collide with Aris Jansz, the ship's reluctant under surgeon.

When violin virtuoso Laura Hartley's priceless instrument is stolen, more than just her celebrated European career disintegrates. Her rare gift of seeing music in colour fades to grey, crushing the sense of self she's always expressed through her performances. Fleeing to her grandmother's home in the Australian outback, Laura discovers an extraordinary legacy woven through sheets of music - a powerful symphony born from the revolutionary hearts of suffragettes who refused to be silenced, their defiant voices rising above the doomed decks of the Titanic.