Showing results by narrator "Jennifer Vuletic" in All Categories

In each of these tales, Margaret Atwood deftly illuminates the single instant that shapes a whole life: In a few brief minutes we watch as characters progress from the vulnerabilities of adolescence through the passions of youth into the precarious complexities of middle age. By superimposing the past on the present, Atwood paints interior landscapes shaped by time, regret, and life's lost chances, endowing even the banal with a sense of mystery.

A dramatic crime thriller from the best-selling author of Without Consent. For pathologist and forensic physician Dr Anya Crichton, the death of a gang rape victim hours before she is due to give evidence at trial is more than only a tragedy. The psychotic Harbourn brothers, the girl's accused attackers, now look like they're getting away with two horrific crimes.

It feels like the safest place on Earth. A family-friendly, floating palace. But, as Anya Crichton soon discovers, cruise ships aren’t all that they seem.... Statistics tell us that a woman is twice as likely to be sexually assaulted on a cruise ship than on dry land. Customers aren’t screened, so the ships are a haven for sex offenders and paedophiles. With no policing, and floating in international waters, sexual assaults and passengers ‘disappearing’ are uncommonly frequent.

Forensic physician Dr Anya Crichton is presented with a patient who has returned from her honeymoon with multiple sexually transmitted infections. Her husband has none of them. She tearfully denies having had any other partners and Anya believes her. Is this a medical phenomenon or has something more sinister taken place? Anya’s investigations into the case leads to a ground breaking study that attracts international attention.

Forensic Physician Dr Anya Crichton is on the trail of a serial rapist. When two of the victims are later stabbed to death, police suspicion immediately falls upon Geoffrey Willard, recently released from 20 years in prison for the brutal rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl. Unravelling myriad pieces of forensic evidence, Anya is confronted with the greatest ethical dilemma of her career. If Willard is innocent, she is about to blow the whistle and ruin a fellow pathologist’s reputation. If he is guilty, her involvement has jeopardised the police’s case and ensured a rapist-murderer goes free.

Meet Merlin. He's Lucy's bright, beautiful son - who just happens to be autistic. Since Merlin's father left them in the lurch, Lucy has made Merlin the centre of her world. Struggling with the joys and tribulations of raising her adorable yet challenging child (if only Merlin came with operating instructions), Lucy doesn't have room for any other man in her life. By the time Merlin turns 10, Lucy is seriously worried that the Pope might start ringing her up for tips on celibacy, so resolves to dip a toe back into the world of dating.

Jo returns to South Africa after ten years in the UK to cover the riots sweeping the Jo’burg township of Alex. Nico, her estranged Afrikaner father, reappears and asks her to help prove his innocence in the murder of a black man, abducted by the security forces decades earlier. As they set off on a road trip through South Africa’s now-unfamiliar landscape, it becomes clear that Nico knows more about the murder than he is letting on, and Jo begins to wonder whether she is his accomplice, or his captive.

New Year’s Day 1901 sees the birth of Australia as a nation, eager to claim her place on the world stage. Clytie Hart, a daring equestrienne, is travelling with her mother in a wagon train along the back roads of Victoria’s Gold Triangle. Once world-famous, Wildebrand Circus is now struggling to survive. But a chance meeting with Rom Delaney, a wild young adventurer, changes everything. His invitation to play in Hoffnung, an isolated gold-mining town, promises to restore the circus’ fortunes. To Clytie, the roving life is all she has ever known.

Cate Carlton has recently died, yet she is able to linger on, watching her three young children and her husband as they come to terms with their life without her on their rural horse property. As the months pass and her children grow, they cope in different ways, drawn closer and pulled apart by their shared loss. And all Cate can do is watch on helplessly, seeing their grief, how much they miss her and how - heartbreakingly - they begin to heal.

Eddie Twyborn is bisexual and beautiful, the son of a Judge and a drunken mother. With this androgynous hero - Eudoxia/Eddie/Eadith Twyborn - and through his search for identity, for self-affirmation and love in its many forms, Patrick White takes us on a journey into the ambiguous landscapes, sexual, psychological and spiritual, of the human condition.

Vianna Francis, known in the colony as ‘The Sydney Venus’, is a notorious young mistress in keeping to a former gentleman convict, who uses her to entice wealthy men to his gaming tables. A woman of mystery, Vianna is a magnet for scandal. Was she the mistress of a royal duke? A lady’s maid who learned the tricks of the world’s oldest profession when in service to a Parisian courtesan? Or the widow of a young man executed on the gallows? Men of high rank are determined to possess this passionate, mercenary beauty.

Vianna Francis, known in the colony as ‘The Sydney Venus’, is a notorious young mistress in keeping to a former gentleman convict, who uses her to entice wealthy men to his gaming tables. A woman of mystery, Vianna is a magnet for scandal. Was she the mistress of a Royal duke? A lady’s maid who learned the tricks of the world’s oldest profession when in service to a Parisian courtesan? Or the widow of a young man executed on the gallows? Men of high rank are determined to possess this passionate, mercenary beauty.

Up-and-coming American winemaker Tess Harrison is temporarily working at an Australian vineyard where her family now has a financial stake. She’s excited to make her mark away from her dominant family and the outback’s premier organic winery seems like the perfect training ground. One problem: no one told her the small town Wirralong was a premier wedding destination. When a new hire upends Tess’s careful plans for her life and her career, she finds herself reluctantly rethinking her dislike for the M word.

On the surface Natasha and Mitchell live an idyllic life in the Adelaide Hills with their two daughters and kelpie cross. While both have busy careers, they ensure time is spent with family and friends. Natasha, an aspiring interior designer, has started her own homewares shop and is excited to develop her business further. Mitchell, on the other hand, is becoming more withdrawn. Is he pressured by work, having a mid-life crisis or hiding something from his family?

Howard and Elsie Manning were born on the same day, met at kindergarten, and have been married for 59 years. They have lived sensible, productive lives, and raised two self-sufficient daughters. Now, at 78, they are bored with the predictability of life, fed up with contemporary society, have aching joints and dwindling finances, and—funeral by funeral—their circle of friends is shrinking. Worst of all, they are grieving for their beloved, recently deceased dog Maisie.

Loyal country girl Libby Levine lives a golden life with her financier husband Carl and their two children. When Carl is jailed for financial fraud, Libby feels agonizingly complicit for hosting the final investor pitch in their home. She's also horrified to discover that her brother lost money as well - and with it his last chance at IVF. Matters go from atrocious to worse when her family's possessions and home are repossessed, Libby is sacked and Harrison's priceless violin is wrecked. They have no other option but to move to the rural goat farm where Libby was raised and start again.

Emma's beloved, John Chen, is a 3000-year-old Chinese god. He is becoming weaker by the day in his battle to protect her and his daughter from the Demons who pursue them relentlessly. But it is Emma who is nagged by doubts about her own nature, and must find the courage to save them all. Emma Donahue went to Hong Kong to become a nanny to John Chen’s daughter. But John’s world is different, and he is no ordinary businessman—all the gods, demons and dragons in hell want him dead. And though she doesn’t know it, Emma holds the power to save them all.

On the surface Natasha and Mitchell live an idyllic life in the Adelaide Hills with their two daughters and kelpie cross. While both have busy careers, they ensure time is spent with family and friends. Natasha, an aspiring interior designer, has started her own homewares shop and is excited to develop her business further. Mitchell, on the other hand, is becoming more withdrawn. Is he pressured by work, having a mid-life crisis or hiding something from his family?

A year ago, a devastating bushfire ripped Annie's world apart—killing her grandmother, traumatizing her young daughter and leaving her mother's home in the mountains half destroyed. Annie fled back to the city, but the mountain continues to haunt her. Now, drawn by a call for help from her uncle, she's going back to the place she loves most in the world, to try to heal herself, her marriage, her daughter and her mother.

From the bestselling author of The Nurses' War comes this charming, funny, pointed look at the golden years of radio broadcasting in post-war Australia, celebrating the extraordinary unseen women who wrote the radio plays that held a nation captive. For readers of Lessons in Chemistry.