Showing results by author "Lauren St. John" in All Categories

Celebrated journalist Lauren St. John "bears witness to a remarkable story" ( Publishers Weekly) in this striking memoir of her African childhood. In the 1970s St. John lived on a Rhodesian farm that should have been paradise. But the specter of war hung over the land, filling every day with peril and uncertainty.

Martine's parents are killed in a fire, and she must leave her home in England to live on a wildlife reserve in Africa with a grandmother she never even knew she had. As soon as Martine arrives at the reserve, she hears whisperings of a mythical animal living there, a white giraffe. No one has ever seen the animal, but it leaves footprints behind.

Just as Martine is settling into life on the wildlife game reserve, she is whisked away on a school trip. Her class is going on an ocean voyage to witness the Sardine Run, a spectacular natural phenomenon, off the coast of South Africa. What begins as an exciting adventure quickly turns perilous when a storm blows up and Martine and her classmates are thrown overboard into shark-infested waters. They are saved by a pod of dolphins, only to end up marooned on a deserted island.

Kat and Harper can’t wait to join their parents on a winter vacation in a mountain cabin in the US. But a series of misadventures result in them being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Alone. When Kat discovers that an argument she witnessed in New York City holds the key to a major crime, she’s certain that it’s only a matter of time until the culprits come looking for her. With a snow storm moving in and no way out, all that stands between the girls and disaster are a team of eight huskies and one impossible raccoon.

Twins Jess and Jude Carter live a dream life sailing from one exotic destination to the next with their guardian, Gabriel. But after Gabe vanishes and a storm smashes up their lives, they’re left penniless and alone. When a wealthy, glamorous family offer them a home, everybody tells them they’re the luckiest children in the world. But the Blakeneys’ stately mansion is full of secrets—secrets that seem entangled with the twins’ own fate. As they race to uncover the truth, Jess and Jude must confront their deepest fears.

It's June - winter in South Africa, and Martine and her grandmother are enjoying a cold but beautiful walk along the beach when they find a stranded, dying dolphin.

When she is 11 years old, Martine is orphaned and sent to live with her grandmother on a game reserve in South Africa. Her grandmother seems strangely unwelcoming, and Martine has a difficult time settling in at her new school, where she is conspicuously an outsider. But she has an ally in Tendai, one of the keepers on the reserve, from whom she learns the lore and survival techniques of the bush, and in Grace, who instantly senses there is something special about Martine.

Greg Norman is golf's most complex and controversial celebrity and perhaps its most gifted and charismatic player. Winner of more than 70 tournaments, including the 1986 and 1993 British Opens, he has reigned as the world's number-one-ranked golfer for most of a decade and began 1998 as the PGA Tour's career-earnings leader with almost $12 million.

After a break-in at their London home, Kat Wolfe and her veterinarian mum decide it’s time to move to the country. Dr. Wolfe’s new job on England’s Jurassic Coast comes with a condition: they have to adopt Tiny, a huge Savannah who resists Kat’s best attempts at cat whispering. Kat starts a pet-sitting agency to make pocket money, but then the owner of her first client, an Amazon parrot, vanishes from his gadget-filled mansion.

When a landslide on the Jurassic Coast reveals a rare "dragon" dinosaur, best friends Kat Wolfe and Harper Lamb are thrilled, especially when stars and scientists come flocking to sleepy Bluebell Bay. But after they begin investigating a suspicious death, events spiral quickly out of control for detectives Wolfe and Lamb. Worse still, Kat’s wild cat is in trouble. Can they solve the mystery—and save the cat’s life—before it’s too late?

When orphaned Laura Marlin moves from a children's home to live with her uncle in Cornwall, she longs for a life of excitement just like the characters in her favourite detective novels. A real life adventure is on hand as she is deposited at her uncle's spooky house... Why does her uncle, Calvin Redfern, forbid her to go to Dead Man's Cove? What's thetruth about Tariq, the silent Indian boy who lives with the flamboyant Mukthars? Who is J? Who has left the message in a bottle for Laura to discover?

This searingly honest memoir describes growing up on an African farm during the Rhodesian Bush War and the twilight years of white colonialism in the 1970s. It also explores the shock and euphoria of Zimbabwean independence in the 1980s as St John navigates her way through the immense personal and political changes.

Kat Wolfe loves her new home in idyllic Bluebell Bay, especially as it comes with a resident wildcat. But when she starts pet-sitting for pocket money, she finds that beneath the town's perfect surface lie some dark and dangerous secrets...After a pet owner vanishes from his clifftop mansion, Kat turns to her new friend, Harper Lamb, for help. What began as mystery-solving holiday fun quickly turns deadly for Wolfe and Lamb....

When a landslide on the Jurassic Coast reveals a rare ‘dragon’ dinosaur, best friends Kat Wolfe and Harper Lamb are thrilled, especially when stars and scientists come flocking to sleepy Bluebell Bay. But after they begin investigating a suspicious death, events spiral quickly out of control for detectives Wolfe and Lamb. Worse still, Kat’s wild cat is in trouble. Can they solve the mystery - and save the cat's life - before it’s too late?

Nick Donaghue, a handsome young obituary writer for The Times, leads a charmed existence until he is caught up in one of Britain's worst ever train crashes. When he survives unscathed, his friends and colleagues consider him the luckiest man alive. Only Nick knows the truth - that he is tormented by horrific nightmares.

Lauren St John's stunning Christmas classic is about forgotten children, the power of nature to heal us and a girl who will climb mountains in search of a place to call home. Growing up in vibrant, crowded Nairobi, Makena has only one dream: to climb Mount Kenya like her hero, her mountain guide father. But when her beautiful world is shattered, she finds that in the city's dark places, there are a thousand ways to fall, each more deadly than any crevasse.

Jules and Holly have been best friends since university. They tell each other everything, trading revelations and confessions and sharing both the big moments and the small details of their lives: Holly is the only person who knows about Jules’ affair; Jules was there for Holly when her husband died. And their two children - just three years apart - have grown up together. So when Jules’ daughter, Saffie, makes a rape allegation against Holly’s son, Saul, neither woman is prepared for the devastating impact this will have on their friendship or their families.

I knew I was in Paris, I knew that was the Seine beneath me, the sky above, but when I looked around for help, the grand apartment buildings of the Quai Voltaire stared back at me, indifferent. In the sixth arrondissement everything is perfect, and everyone is lonely. This is the Paris of 13-year-old Paul. Shy and unloved, he quietly observes the lives of the self-involved grown-ups around him: his glamorous maman Séverine; her young musician lover, Gabriel; and his fitness-obsessed papa, Philippe.

Orphaned Roo Thorn feels like the unluckiest girl in the world. Until she discovers a letter. A letter which urges her to ‘Grab life by the wings and fly.' With the help of her aunt, Joni, Roo sets out to buy her dream horse – a fiery showjumper named Wonder Boy. Then Wonder vanishes without a trace. Determined to save him, Roo and Joni investigate his disappearance. But as the mystery deepens and more prize horses are stolen, the pair find themselves drawn into a thrilling – but dangerous – adventure.