Showing results by narrator "Kate Hood" in All Categories

Monsoon is a journey into the hearts and memories of those caught in a certain time in a particular place. Sandy Donaldson has been working for a volunteer organisation in Vietnam for the past four years. As her contract nears its end, she is reluctant to leave so she invites her oldest friend, Anna, to come for a holiday and discover its beautiful tourist destinations. Both girls have unexplored links to this country.

Continuing the history of the Irish Darcys begun in Missus and continued in The Harp in the South, this third novel of the trilogy re-acquaints listeners with the vicissitudes of slum life in a Sydney suburb. An unforgettable family and a cast of unforgettable characters enliven a story that is sometimes tragic, but often humourous, in a time of poverty and destitution, hope and promise.

The Silent Country is a vast and beautiful wilderness, a place which holds secrets and stories that are rarely spoken. TV producer Veronica Anderson travels to the Northern Territory to retrace the journey of an expedition that had set out 50 years earlier to film the outback, but which mysteriously ended in tragedy. Of the group, led by the eccentric Maxim Topov, few are still alive and they are reluctant to talk about the intriguing events.

The bleak coal-mining settlement of Denniston, isolated high on a plateau above New Zealand's West Coast, is a place that makes or breaks those who live there. All sorts arrive here to work the mines and bring down the coal: ex-goldminers down on their luck, others running from the law or from a woman or worse. They work alongside recruited English miners, solid and skilled, who scorn these disorganised misfits and want them off the hill. Into this chaotic community come five-year-old Rose and her mother....

The Kimberley, a land that cradles Australia's ancient treasures, is sanctuary to the mysterious spirits reflected in the oldest rock art in the world. It is also home to a people whose powerful secrets could unlock the future for a modern mankind. Four people are tied up in a mystery so powerful it could change their lives forever.

Swinging from a meat-hook, his entire skin was in one piece including his hair, face, ears, nose, mouth and genitals. Slashes and stab holes tore through the human pelt, a testimony to the wounds he suffered before dying. Cruel and evil, Katherine Knight showed no mercy when she butchered her de facto in a crime that put her behind bars in an Australian prison for a record life sentence.

Missus takes us behind the lives of Hughie and Mumma, out of the gritty realism of inner city slum life and into the past of the stations,the bush and the country towns. We meet them as they were in the early 1920s, drifter Hugh Darcy, the unwilling hero who sweeps the dreamily innocent Margaret Kilker off her feet.

Swept up by Hollywood in the 1950s, larrikin Australian actor Randy Storm had the looks, charm and talent to take on the world. But by the 1990s he's forgotten, burned out after a life of movie star excess. When producer Michael Matthews meets the once-great Randy Storm, he is surprised to find a man who is at peace with himself. Both he and researcher Janie Callendar set out to discover the source of this inner peace. Meanwhile his agent Ariel Margoles sees a chance for Randy to be a star once more in the hottest Hollywood film of the year.

On a small coral cay on the Great Barrier Reef two communities come together in an uneasy alliance: a tourist resort and a scientific research station. At first glance, the island is a sexy resort, a naturalist's dream, a diver's delight. But the island holds secrets and dangers as Jennifer Towse soon discovers. When world-famous Isobel Belitas arrives, Jennifer learns to see the world - above and below the sea - very differently.

When Nikki Stern left suburban Melbourne for Europe in the early 1980s, little did she know that her life was about to change dramatically. Adopted into a well-connected family and educated at an exclusive school, she fell instantly and hopelessly in love with a charming and charismatic cartoonist in Amsterdam. Paul and Nikki embarked on a passionate love affair, enjoying the hedonistic days of the '80s before eloping and returning to Australia. But soon Nikki found herself in a world she never imagined. Descending into the depths of the sex industry - as a dominatrix, stripper, prostitute and porn star - there was almost nothing she didn't do.

Someone is trying to sabotage Ashworths, the exclusive department store set up by Laura Beaumont. Is the company about to be taken over? The timing is bad for the Beaumont family because Laura's health is declining and they desperately need to find a successor to the business. Caroline, Laura's eldest daughter, is a concert pianist in search of a new career; perhaps at Ashworths. But her ambitious sister Michaela has her eye on the top job and is suspicious of Caroline's motives. Meanwhile, Joel, Laura's son, has to deal with his own problems before he can pursue his career as a doctor.

A footloose city slicker who couldn′t tell a bull from a cow was hardly the ideal candidate to answer an ad for a governess on a Mackay cattle station. But Alice Greenup was game for anything, until she was bowled over by a handsome young jackeroo with a devastating smile. It was the start of a whole new way of life as Alice gave up her city life to embrace the bush and all that came with it: horses, cattle, the obsession with rain - and the correct way to wear a hat.

Australia's national character and spirit have always been defined, rightly or wrongly, by 'the bush'. This entertaining, thought-provoking, humorous, nostalgic, and, above all, highly readable collection of stories for the modern reader shows why the romance endures.

From Jim Haynes, one of our most successful and prolific Australian authors, comes a collection of classic and iconic stories from the remote outback, cattle station, wheat farm, and rural town. The bush is where our iconic characters are found living in, taking refuge or exploring, whether an Aborigine, explorer, squatter, bushranger, or stockman.

In Craft for a Dry Lake, Kim Mahood embarks on an extraordinary journey to her heartland - the outback of her youth. Compelled to revisit the haunts of her childhood by the tragic death of her father, Kim seeks to lay his ghost to rest, but instead finds herself faced with many of her own. Her adventures are interwoven with the echoes of childhood memories and peopled by an intriguing cast of outback characters.

Blaze exposes the new order of women and power in the cut-throat arena of up-market magazines. The idealistic baby boomers have been pushed aside and it's every woman for herself. An intimate look at four women coping with their private and public lives in the world where scheming and fox cunning seem to beat skill and talent, where sexism and ageism in office politics label women over 30 over the hill. Blaze is the story of women trying to survive, to compete, while maintaining friendships and finding happiness. In this pressure-cooker world, something has to give and for some women it isn't worth the fight.

Hundreds of kilometres without a car, a house, or a person in sight. The dome of clear blue above and the occasional group of roos startling off into the scrub. Then emus, bolting off in a mad panic on the other side. I was finding something that had been lost inside me and I wanted to weave in and out on that straight white ribbon of road for the joy of having found it again. Cross My Heart is the story of Mick and Michelle, chasing a dream, crossing their hearts for the future; a vibrant, passionate, sprawling novel set in outback Australia.

A young Australian woman leaves Sydney for a new world, Guyana, South America. Captivated by Guyana's wild, unspoiled beauty, Madison Wright joins the native Amerindians struggling to preserve their culture against corporate exploitation. But her new-found commitment soon plunges Madison into a mire of murder, drug smuggling and political corruption, and finally, an unexpected love that pits her heart against her beliefs.

Sydney, 1942. Pearl is 18, beautiful and impetuous. She plays saxophone in an all-girl jazz band at the Trocadero and occasionally sits in on underground gigs with her twin brother Martin, who also plays the sax. On one such evening black GI and jazz legend James Washington blows into her life, and nothing is ever the same again, especially not Pearl. A love story begins to unfold against the blacked-out nights and rumour-filled days of a city in the grip of war.

All three girls come from the same small country town. Katrina, privileged, beautiful, and sophisticated, is the daughter of a wealthy medical family; Carmel, from a struggling farming family is overweight and inhibited, but has a gift for music, and Jude, a medical student, is the daughter of a Chilean doctor who was murdered when she was two.

When English actress Vanessa Forsythe falls in love with Bren Selby, her life changes forever. Leaving behind her London apartment, she becomes mistress of Amaroo Downs, a remote cattle station in Western Australia. Not only does Vanessa have to adjust to a vastly different lifestyle in the outback, she must establish her place in the Selby family.