Showing results by narrator "Toby Webster" in All Categories

Whakapapa is a Maori idea which embodies our universal human need to belong. It represents a powerful spiritual belief—that each of us is part of an unbroken and unbreakable chain of people who share a sacred identity. Owen places this concept at the core of his methods to maximise a team's performance.

The hour is late. The candle is low. Tomorrow I will see whether it is my friends or a ship homewards I meet. But I must finish my story for you first. My future, my descendant, my mokopuna. So begins the tale of James Pōneke - orphaned son of a chief, ardent student of English, wide-eyed survivor. All the world’s a show when you’re a living exhibit. But anything can happen to a young New Zealander - a boy between worlds, having lost his family and tribe - on the savage streets of Victorian London.

It's a story that began in a rickety old home on a cold June morning in 1994, where five members of a seemingly ordinary New Zealand family were gunned down. There were two suspects. One lay dead from a single bullet to the head. The other was the only survivor: David Bain. Since then, the country has asked: Who killed the Bain family? David, or his father Robin? And why?

Max Grimes is homeless, living on the streets of Auckland – among the forgotten, the invisible. But now someone is hunting the homeless, killing them one by one. Trying to put his shattered life back together, Max is pulled into a deadly game when a face from his past reappears, reopening wounds he thought were long buried. As whispers of a Grim Reaper spread terror through the city, Max must race against time – not only to find the killer, but to outrun the ghosts chasing him. Because if he fails, he'll be next.

Forthright and frank, Read's well-respected views on the game and its future are a must-listen for rugby fans, and his take on the myriad personalities and the peccadilloes of his teammates, coaches and opponents will be sure to surprise and delight. From the playing fields of Papakura to the summit of the sport, Read has faced every challenge head on. His life story is no exception.

Mr. Royston is driving his hansom through the night-time streets of Melbourne when he is hailed by a man supporting a slumped, intoxicated figure and requesting that the cabman take the unfortunate fellow home - before proceeding to drop his burden and make a rapid exit.

Nothing in Stan Andino's regular and uneventful existence has prepared him for the moment he discovers his wife naked, except for a black apron, bleaching the lounge carpet with a sponge. A CT scan one week later explains it: Carmen has a brain tumour. As Stan and his teenage sons grapple with the diagnosis and frightening personality changes in their wife and mother, family friends Austin and Tibbie Lamb do everything possible to assist the Andinos. Then Tibbie's body is discovered at the bottom of Browns Bay cliffs. DS Ramesh Bandara and his partner are assigned to the case.

After graduating university, four friends - Peter, Avery, James, and Isaac - spent a golden summer working in a vineyard. Years later, Peter is brutally murdered in Martinborough. Meanwhile, north of Auckland, the long, hot summer is over and the tourists have left Matakana wine country. A tranquil atmosphere descends, and warm autumnal winds sweep across the valleys. With the harvest due, grapes sit bursting upon the manicured vines, awaiting the pick. Then a severed hand is discovered under Avery's house.

**Shortlisted for the 2021 Ned Kelly Award for True Crime** Shocking real-life stories of murderous women who used rat poison to rid themselves of husbands and other inconvenient family members. For readers of compelling history and true crime, from critically acclaimed, award-winning author...

New Zealand, 1928. When Wilhelm Erdinger arrives in the sleepy village of Falters Mill, claiming to want nothing more than to be left alone to pursue a self-sufficient life, the locals are more than happy to oblige. Against all expectations, his life flourishes, and he discovers both unexpected friendship and love. But as war marches ever closer, it is not the locals' growing antipathy against the German in their midst that threatens to bring his tenuous happiness crashing down, but a dark secret from his past.

Single mum and Paramedic Fiona Murchison has made it her mission to protect her little boy. Her husband was a daredevil, a risk taker, with his life played out in front of the camera. But when he died, she vowed to keep her son away from the glare of the world’s media. Now her quiet and content life is about to come crashing down around her with the arrival of a new doctor in town…

A young woman is found dead at a local beach. Sergeant Bill Granger, the local policeman, is called in to investigate. He had hoped for a quiet off-season. Instead, what seems to be a straightforward case of an unfortunate death turns into a complex web of small-town secrets and desire for revenge that will soon place Bill's family in danger. With Niko Sopoaga, a young South Auckland constable working alongside him, Bill falls into the dark and dangerous world of drug distribution and a hardened motorcycle gang wreaking havoc, while they chase a clever killer.

On June 22, 1954, in the depth of a southern winter, teenage friends Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker went for a walk in a park with Pauline's mother. Half an hour later the girls returned alone. Honorah Parker lay in a sea of blood on a lonely track. She had been savagely murdered. In this mesmerizing audiobook, lawyer and true-crime writer Peter Graham tells the whole story for the first time, giving a brilliant account of the murder and ensuing trial, dramatic revelations about the fates of Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker after their release from prison and their strange lives today.

One night in December, twenty-two year old Ted Green makes his way to Waterloo Bridge determined to end his life. Lonely, despairing and utterly hopeless, it seems the only choice to make. That same night in December, Marianne Cooper is running away from a party. Having found her boyfriend in a passionate clinch with someone else, Marianne can’t get away fast enough. But as she makes her way along London’s South Bank, a figure catches her eye on top of the bridge. Then she sees him, a man ready to jump.

Worn down by a job he hates and a stressful family life, middle-aged, middle-class Bradley picks up a teenage escort and commits an unspeakable crime. Now she's tied up in his warehouse and he doesn't know what to do. Max is homeless, sleeping rough and barely existing - known for cadging a cigarette from anyone passing and occasionally even the footpath. Nobody really sees Max - but he has one friend, and she's gone missing. In order to find her, Max is going to have to call on some people from his past and reopen wounds that have remained unhealed for a very long time.

Anna and Will have been passing in and out of each other’s lives since they were just teenagers. Now 20 years later, Anna is married—she has a lovely house, a step daughter in university and a husband with a good job. What she doesn’t have is joy. When she runs into Will it sparks something in her, a longing for the Anna she used to be. Together they embark on a journey to find what brings them joy, to discard what doesn’t and to become the people they always wanted to be.

1866. Will Stewart is one of many who have left their old lives behind to seek their fortunes in New Zealand's last great gold rush. The conditions are hostile and the outlook bleak, but he must push on in his uncertain search for the elusive buried treasure. Rose is about to arrive on the shores of South Island when a storm hits and her ship is wrecked. Just when all seems lost she is snatched from the jaws of death by Will, who risks his life to save her. Drawn together by circumstance, they stay together by choice and for a while it seems that their stars have finally aligned.

Pio Morgan is waiting outside a pub on a cold winter's night. There is a debt he must pay and no options left. What he does next drags a group of strangers into a web of confusion that over the course of a few days changes all their lives. There's the young Maori widow just trying to raise her children, the corporate executive hiding his mistake, the gang of criminals that will do whatever it takes to recover what they've lost and the outsider sent to town to try and figure out who did what. Time is running out for all of them as events take an increasingly sinister turn.

Andrew and his girlfriend Jess are making a life for themselves in London, but it's a bit of a grind, and now their relationship is beginning to suffer. Andrew's best friend Jaryd, on the other hand, is living every young man's dream - a beautiful apartment in Paris, a happy relationship with the lovely Liv, and a business venture gone global. But when the two couples head off on a summer road trip around Italy, relationships are tested by temptation, drugs, and an accident that will come to define them.

The agreement was to get married . . . not to fall in love. In this sweeping romantic comedy, affairs are to be expected, and falling in love is betrayal... This topsy-turvy romcom is perfect for fans of Josie Silver, Beth O'Leary and Mhairi McFarlane. For a commitment-phobe who's never taken a...