Showing results by narrator "Kate Hosking" in All Categories

It is the start of a long, hot summer, and Madalena Grimaldi has disappeared. Claudia is hired to find the missing schoolgirl, but she's already working on a case - the death of Guy Valentine, her father. As Claudia searches the streets, looking for the ghost of her derelict father and for the mysterious man who can lead her to Madalena, she finds herself sinking into a world where, for many, rock bottom is only the beginning.

"We must be ruthless," Edward snarls, "because we lead ruthless lives: you, of anyone, should understand that. This is our existence, Jordan, this house, this land, that father, that mother - there's no pity, there's no mercy, there's probably no escape. It is hard, Jordan, and we have to be hard to survive it, and the best we can do is fight anything that threatens to make it worse."

Gracey's come home to Cunningham on holidays. But now she's a state athletics champion and a private school student, and everything looks different - even frightening. Part history, part mystery, Gracey is a challenging story about the past and the present, murder and compassion, and black and white identity.

Angela and Gracey were going to be 'best friends forever' and make it into the same university as care-free first-year students. But for Gracey, her Aboriginal heritage takes on a new significance. While Angela falls in love for the first time, Gracey is drawn into Black politics and their friendship drifts apart. Then Angela discovers that she too has a heritage - one her family would sooner deny. The conflict of the past possesses the power to draw the friends together, but it could as easily blow them apart forever.

In 1998 Kate O'Hara rents an old cottage on the banks of a river in Tasmania. She wants peace and quiet, to come to terms with her husband's death and the end of her unhappy marriage. But her cottage is haunted by the ghost of Devlin, a boatman from convict days. Captivated by Devlin's story and his mysterious disappearance, Kate falls deeper under the spell of the past. And then Kate steps back in time and meets Devlin in person.

Detective Sergeant Gemma Woodstock finds herself lost and alone in the city, brokenhearted by the decisions she's had to make. Her new workplace is a minefield, and the partner she has been assigned is uncommunicative and often hostile. When a homeless man is murdered and Gemma is put on the case, she can't help feeling a connection with the victim and the lonely and isolated life he led despite being in the middle of a bustling city.

When Gemma Woodstock, homicide investigator in the large rural town of Smithson, views the body of her old school friend Rosalind splayed open on the autopsy table, she suffers the same feeling of inscrutability that has coloured her relationship with Rose for so long. Gemma, however, is hiding her own secrets. She has a four-year-old son, Ben, and has recently moved in with the boy's father, Scott. But the relationship is troubled, and she is having an affair with a colleague that she works closely with.

Neville 'Pom' Darling is on the hunt for the perfect photograph. Skye Stewart is searching for her long-lost grandfather. It's 1939, and Neville, escaping an unhappy marriage and his memories of the Great War, finds himself in Mackenzie Crossing on the day of the terrible Black Friday bushfires. He meets the beautiful Georgie Mackenzie and in an instant knows that she is the subject he has been looking for. As the heat intensifies, Georgie and Pom begin to wonder if they have a future together, but first they must survive the blaze.

City girl Paula married her lovely farmer, the only problem is he comes with a farm...Another heart-warming rural romance from the queen of Australian storytelling. Self-reliant Sydney girl, Paula, is looking forward to a new life in the country. Just married to sheep farmer Dan Woodcroft, she can't wait to escape her protective family and exchange her busy existence for a new life down on the farm in rural South Australia. But life on the farm proves rather different to what she was expecting.

The story of how gold miners rebelled against British authority, beginning a process that would ultimately lead to democracy in Australia. The Eureka Stockade. It's one of Australia's foundation legends - yet the story has always been told as if half the participants weren't there. But what if the hot-tempered, free-spirited gold miners we learned about at school were actually husbands and fathers, brothers and sons? What if there were women and children right there beside them, inside the stockade, when the bullets started to fly?

The story of how gold miners rebelled against British authority, beginning a process that would ultimately lead to democracy in Australia. The Eureka Stockade. It's one of Australia's foundation legends - yet the story has always been told as if half the participants weren't there. But what if the hot-tempered, free-spirited gold miners we learned about at school were actually husbands and fathers, brothers and sons? What if there were women and children right there beside them inside the Stockade when the bullets started to fly?

A poignant and searingly honest memoir about love and life with Andy Whitfield, breakout star of the television phenomenon Spartacus. When you meet the love of your life, the one person you want to spend the rest of your days with, what do you do when they're ripped away? Vashti and Andy Whitfield fitted together like the missing pieces of a perfect jigsaw. From the moment they met, they were inseparable.

It's 1931, and Belle Bartholomew has arrived in rural Sweet Wattle Creek to claim her inheritance - a run-down grand hotel formerly owned by Martha Ambrose. Determined to solve the mystery of her birth and the reason why she was bequeathed the hotel, Belle runs into difficulties with the townsfolk and their desire to keep their secrets safe. Sixty years later Sophie Matheson is on a quest to find Belle and her family after discovering the wedding dress. The Sweet Wattle Creek centenary brings more challenges when her past catches up.

This stunning and intoxicating novel speaks of passion and obsession, ranging in setting from an Australian rainforest to Boston and Toronto. A mysterious and elusive love affair haunts the lives of three women in Australia. Twenty years later, on the other side of the world, Charade Ryan sorts through story and counter-story for her father, the legendary Nicholas, and the truth about her origins.

Sam Studley's a bit older and wiser than when you met him in Hold My Hand - Or Else!. But it's a pity he can't say the same for his 15-year-old sister Leanne. No one seems to know where she is. Some kids are saying she's got AIDS and some are saying she's been abducted. Some are saying she's on the run to Kings Cross, some are saying she's a speed freak and gone to a drug rehab centre, and some that she's hiding out at home with chickenpox. But if living with Leanne sounds full on, you should hear about living without her!

To Sam the stud, living with his sister Leanne's bad enough. But when his mother says she's getting married again - to the town cop! - Sam wishes he was anywhere else. You've got to be careful what you wish for: You might get it. Someone's pulling the moves, all right, and suddenly Sam's on a joyride heading in the opposite direction fast. Forget the white dresses, the soppy words, and the tissues - this wedding's burning rubber all the way. And it's a cack.

What about all that stuff you keep reading about: the moonlit walks, waves softly kissing the sandy shore? It doesn't exist. Does it have to be a problem just because you don't want to hold your mother's hand anymore and you're not ready to hold anyone else's? Before you try to give yourself a hickey tonight, read this!

"Roy's tiny breaths sounded like milkshake fighting its way up a very thin straw. His eyes were closed. 'Rory', I said. 'Don't die. Don't die.' His eyes fell open. They flicked wildly around. 'The goat', he shouted. I didn't bother looking behind me. I knew there was no goat. And I knew Rory wasn't dying. Not yet."

"Get the doctor," said Dad. "The poor thing is green." "Give it to me," said Mum and took the baby away from Chris. At once it screwed up its nose, closed its eyes and stopped breathing. It started turning purple again. A father at eight years old? It could only be a Paul Jennings story. And it is.

"'There he is', Gramps shrieked. 'The Spy. The scumbag spy.' I looked up and saw a monstrous white hairy face disappear into the drain. I had never seen such a frightening sight. White hair covered its entire head. I couldn't even see any eyes. In a flash Gramps splashed into the drain after it."