Showing results by narrator "Tamala Shelton" in All Categories

Lenny has always known that his wife, Claire, is the love of his life. But somehow his marriage is in shambles, he’s struggling with the kids, and a string of anonymous text messages are tormenting him, insisting that Claire is a liar. Claire knows Lenny is a good man, but there’s a lot she hasn’t told him about her past. Now she’s terrified that the horrors that haunt her are about to put her entire family in danger. Strange new neighbours, insidious clients and schoolyard scandal begin to fracture Claire and Lenny’s happy families façade.

Emma and Ariella, neighbours in one of Sydney’s most exclusive suburbs, appear to have it all—perfect homes, perfect husbands, perfect lives. But they both know dark secrets lurk beneath the surface and shallow waters can’t hide Ariella’s. Now she has been found murdered. Her daughter filmed the killing. Not knowing what she’s filmed, Emma’s daughter Kiki innocently uploads footage of Ariella’s brutal death. Emma fears the worst—the killer will know what she and Kiki have seen. Their safe suburban lives no longer exist.

Gundagai, 1852. The powerful Murrumbidgee River surges through town leaving death and destruction in its wake. It is a stark reminder that while the river can give life, it can just as easily take it away. Wagadhaany is one of the lucky ones. She survives. But is her life now better than the fate she escaped? Forced to move away from her miyagan, she walks through each day with no trace of dance in her step, her broken heart forever calling her back home to Gundagai.

A story of homecoming, this engrossing novel opens with a young, city-based lawyer setting out on her first visit to ancestral country. Candice arrives at ‘the place where the rivers meet’, the camp of the Eualeyai where in 1918 her grandmother Garibooli was abducted. As Garibooli takes up the story of Candice’s Aboriginal family, the twentieth century falls away. Garibooli, now renamed Elizabeth, is sent to work as a housemaid, but marriage soon offers escape from the terror of the master’s night-time visits.

In the six months since the first case of a terrifying new epidemic - when a healthy baby wouldn't take a breath at birth - the country has been thrown into turmoil. The government has passed sweeping new laws to monitor all citizens. And several young pregnant women have vanished without trace. As a midwife, Lainey's mum Emma is determined to be there for those who need her. But when 17-year-old Lainey finds herself in trouble, this dangerous new world becomes very real. The one person who might help is Emma's estranged mother, but reaching out to her will put them all in jeopardy.

It's 1965 and Joe Cluny is living in a working-class suburb with his mom, Marion, and sister, Ruby, spending his days trying to avoid trouble with the nuns at the local Catholic primary school. One evening his Aunty Oona appears on the doorstep, distressed and needing somewhere to stay. As his mom and aunty work out what to do, Joe comes to understand the secrets that the women in his family carry, including on their bodies. Yet their pleas for assistance are met with silence and complicity from all sides. Who will help Joe's family at their time of need?

Rita is an escort, one of the best in Australia. It all began on a whim at 18, after she rang the number on a sign looking for nude models. Always the outsider, she quickly learns the sex industry is comprised of many other people just like her and she becomes immersed in this world: the drugs, the late nights, the glamour, being an outcast, the attention and validation from men. Mostly she thrives on how taboo her life has become.

Wisecracking Kerry Salter has spent a lifetime avoiding two things - her hometown and prison. But now her Pop is dying, and she’s an inch away from the lockup, so she heads south on a stolen Harley. Kerry plans to spend 24 hours, tops, over the border. She quickly discovers, though, that Bundjalung country has a funny way of grabbing on to people. Old family wounds open as the Salters fight to stop the development of their beloved river.

Sorrento, Victoria, 1999. Fred's family is a mess. Her mother died when she was six and she's been raised by her Pop and adoptive father, Luca, ever since. But now Pop's had to go away, and Luca's girlfriend Anika and her son have moved in. More and more it feels like a land-grab for family, and Fred is the one being left off the map. Even as things feel like they're spinning out of control for Fred, a crisis from the other side of the world comes crashing in.

For two years, six months, fourteen days, eleven hours and sixteen minutes, Subject Six-Eight-Four - ‘Jane Doe’ - has been locked away and experimented on, without uttering a single word. As Jane’s resolve begins to crack under the influence of her new - and unexpectedly kind - evaluator, she uncovers the truth about Lengard’s mysterious ‘program’, discovering that her own secret is at the heart of a sinister plot...and one wrong move, one wrong word, could change the world.

For perhaps the first time in novel form, Benevolence presents an important era in Australia’s history from an Aboriginal perspective. Told through the fictional characterisation of Darug woman Muraging (Mary James), Benevolence is a compelling story of first contact. Born around 1813, Muraging is among the earliest Darug generations to experience the impact of British colonisation - a time of cataclysmic change and violence, but also remarkable survival and resistance.

Dark as Last Night confirms, once again, that Tony Birch is a master of the short story. These exceptional stories capture the importance of human connection at pivotal moments in our lives, whether those occur because of the loss of a loved one or the uncertainties of childhood. In this collection, we witness a young girl struggling to protect her mother from her father’s violence, two teenagers clumsily getting to know one another by way of a shared love of music, and a man mourning the death of his younger brother, while beset by memories and regrets from their past.

A proud Gunai/Kurnai woman, Veronica Gorrie grew up dauntless, full of cheek and a fierce sense of justice. After watching her friends and family suffer under a deeply compromised law-enforcement system, Gorrie signed up for training to become one of a rare few Aboriginal police officers in Australia. In her 10 years in the force, she witnessed appalling institutional racism and sexism and fought past those things to provide courageous and compassionate service to civilians in need, many Aboriginal themselves.

When a mother and daughter take the overseas trip of a lifetime, they discover that the past is never quite behind them. When Indigenous lawyer Jasmine decides to take her mother, Della, on a tour of England's most revered literary sites, Jasmine hopes it will bring them closer together and help them reconcile the past. Twenty-five years earlier the disappearance of Jasmine's older sister devastated their tight-knit community. This tragedy returns to haunt Jasmine and Della when another child mysteriously goes missing on Hampstead Heath.

From Manuka to Manhattan, Lauren’s going all the way! Lauren is a curator at the National Aboriginal Gallery in Canberra. She's good at her job, passionate about the arts and focused on her work - that is, when she's not focusing on Adam. But Adam is a player, on and off the field. Lauren knows he's the one, but he doesn't seem to feel the same way about her. If she just waits long enough, though, surely he'll realise how much he needs her? Then her boss offers her the chance of a lifetime - a fellowship at the Smithsonian in New York.

Miinaa was a young girl when the white ghosts first arrived. She remembers the day they raised a piece of cloth and renamed her homeland 'Bathurst'. Now she lives at Cloverdale and works for a white family who have settled there. The Nugents are kind, but Miinaa misses her miyagan. His brother, Windradyne, is a Wiradyuri leader, and visits when he can, bringing news of unrest across their ngurambang. Miinaa hopes the violence will not come to Cloverdale.

After escaping Lengard and finding sanctuary with the Remnants, Alyssa Scott is desperate to save those she left behind - and the rest of the world - from the power-hungry scientist Kendall Vanik. But secrets and lies block her at every turn, and soon Lyss is questioning everything she has ever believed. When long-lost memories begin to surface and the mysteries of her past continue to grow, Lyss battles to retain her hard-won control.

Bigambul woman Brynn Wallace dreams of leaving her Brisbane life behind for a fabulous career at a New York City publishing house and acquiring a wardrobe of Louboutin shoes. When her mum passes away from cancer, she leaves Brynn with a plane ticket and instructions to go and chase her dreams. But finding the perfect creative job in New York is never going to be easy and eventually, desperate for income, Brynn accepts work at a TriBeCa doggy daycare. With a boss from hell, feuding staff (and dogs), and jeans and boots instead of dresses and Louboutins, it's far from her fantasy.

When football star Nick Harding hobbles into the Black Salt Cafe the morning after the night before, he is served by Anna, a waitress with haunted-looking eyes and no interest in footballers, famous or otherwise. Nick is instantly drawn to this exotic, intelligent girl. But a relationship between them risks shame for her conservative refugee family and backlash for Nick that could ruin his career. Meanwhile, when Nick's sister, Lily meets Toby, it seems that for the first time she is following her heart, not the expectations of others.

This is the story of one of Australia's first true heroes Pemulwuy. A proud and feared Aboriginal warrior, Pemulwuy leads an uncompromising twelve-year war against British colonial oppression and makes the supreme sacrifice in order to guide his people to safety. Most histories of Australia start with the First Fleet and the hard times the colonists had with the climate and unruly convicts. Very few mention what really happened or the blood that was spilled in the wars never spoken of.