Showing results by narrator "Taryn Ryan" in All Categories

Angela and Nellie plan to live with a family friend in Western Australia. When their ship from England docks, they learn that she has died in a tragic accident. What will the future hold for the young sisters?

An insurance investigation sounds pretty harmless, even if it is for 'Unusual Happenstance'. That's not usually a clause Normals use—it covers all-purpose hauntings, angry genii loci, ectoplasmic home invasion, demonic possession, that sort of thing—but Susan Beckett's claimed three times in three months. Her house keeps getting inundated with mud, but she's still insisting she doesn't need or want help... until the dry-land drownings begin.

In Western Australia, Sarah chuckles as she describes her final will and testament—which will throw the metaphorical cat among the family pigeons—whilst sharing a bottle of wine with her neighbour Thomas as they sit on the terrace of her luxurious waterside home. Six months later, at the age of 95, she peacefully passes on. Married and widowed three times, Sarah has had a great life as a successful businesswoman. Now she's left her Australian house to her two great-nieces—on the condition that they live in it together for a year.

In 1983, backstage at the Lyceum in London, Tracey Thorn and Lindy Morrison first met. Tracey's music career with the Marine Girls had just begun, while Lindy, drummer for The Go-Betweens, was ten years her senior. They became confidantes, comrades and best friends, a relationship cemented by activism and agitprop theatre, lesbian punk bands and rock 'n' roll love affairs. Morrison came to be a kind of mentor to Thorn, a strong female role model in a male dominated industry. They both faced a chauvinist music media wanting them to behave to type.

When Mara Gregory receives a letter from the father whom she believed to have died when she was a child, her world is turned upside down. Aaron Buchanan only discovered that he had a daughter a couple of years ago and now he's desperate to play a part in her life. In the face of her mother's opposition, Mara arranges to meet her father and his family. In a breath-taking corner of the world, amid a waterfront community on Australia's west coast, will Mara find him the disappointment that her mother promises?

Adelaide, 1931: Telephone switchboard operator Frances’ life is difficult as sole provider for her mother and adopted uncle. But it’s thrown into turmoil when she overhears a suspicious conversation on the phone, planning a murder. If a life is at risk, she should tell the police; but that would mean breaking her confidentiality clause and would cost her the job. And Frances soon begins to doubt the evidence of her own ears - it was a very bad line, after all. She decides to put it behind her and meets slightly dangerous nightclub owner Jack.

2019: Bethany Kristensen faces her toughest challenge to date, skippering the family charter business. With rivals doing their utmost to undercut her prices and reputation, the Kristensens' operation hangs by a thread. Winning the tender for a new scientific research program headed out to the farthest edge of the reef is her last chance to keep the business going. But when rumour and vandalism turn to outright sabotage, things take a drastic turn...

Spilling Secrets: Planet Catlabrator is awash with water and the catralabs are drowning. When Space Agent Star Girl is sent to investigate with SA Asteroid she learns that some mission buddies are more trouble than they're worth. Can she work with Asteroid to save the planet and its alien catralabs?

A FARMING LIFE shares the uplifting stories of women from six rural families as their resilience is tested by personal loss, illness, fractured relationships, natural disasters and the challenges that come with working in a traditionally male-dominated world. These women are all hands-on farmers - in fact, most are responsible for managing their own farms - and their defiance, tenacity and genuine humility shines through, as does their hope for the next generation of young women already lining up to follow in their footsteps.

1931. Frances Palmer is overjoyed when her brother, Rob, returns to Adelaide as a racecourse veterinarian. But all is not well on the turf, and when a man is murdered, there's only one suspect - Rob. Frances and her boyfriend, charming night-club owner Jack Sullivan, along with ex-vaudevillian Uncle Sal and their friends, have only one chance to unmask the real murderer by infiltrating the racecourse. The odds are against them...luckily, putting on a dazzling show where everything depends on sleight of hand is what they do best. But nothing is a dead cert against a cold-blooded killer.

Agnes has run her family's restaurant, The Shark Biscuit, for the last six years, ever since her father's health took a turn and she had to step in to keep the doors open. Now she's crippled with guilt because it's her fault it's closing. One more night and she's free. Harrison loves squaring off against the infuriating yet enchanting Agnes, but in six hours he will no longer be by her side, day after day. When Agnes' ex-boyfriend brings his entire family in for dinner to show support, thinking it will win her back, she begs Harrison for help. Pretend to be her boyfriend.

Dawn Grave is a career detective who's holding on to a dark past—one that destroys relationships and wreaks havoc on her personal life. For more than twenty years, she's tried to forget the horrors of her youth—while her sister has spent all that time digging for answers. Now a cryptic text message threatens to throw it all back into the light. Dawn attempts to call her sister, but when Lisa can't be reached, she knows something terrible has happened. But finding Lisa means returning to the remote tropical town in northern Australia where her nightmares all began.

An unexpected inheritance is most people's dream, but not so for Paula. She's happy and secure in Western Australia with her own business, a complete contrast to her rootless childhood, and has little interest in the minor stately home in Wiltshire of which she is apparently now the owner. Persuaded to at least visit the property, she travels to the UK but from the journey to what awaits her at the other end, complications personal, romantic and financial abound, which will test the adage that home is where the heart is.

Hannah Bird has just arrived in Thailand. Disoriented and out of her depth, she meets Deven, a fierce and gutsy Australian expat who sweeps her into thrilling adventures rescuing elephants. As they head deeper and deeper into the fraught world of elephant tourism, their lives become tangled in ways Hannah never imagined. But how far will they go to save a life? Hannah is about to make a critical decision from which there will be no turning back, with shattering consequences.

It’s a dream come true for Frances Palmer: a voyage from Australia to England on the Empress of the Sea, together with her fiancé, Jack Sullivan, and her uncle Sal, a.k.a. ‘Salvatore the Magnificent’. They’ve been hired to entertain the passengers with magic tricks and daring stunts. But all is not well below deck, with jealousy and larceny ruffling the cheerful atmosphere. Frances and Jack soon find themselves in stormy seas, together with newfound allies.

This collection includes New Girl, Odd One Out, Winning Moves, Three's a Crowd, Beach Wipe Out, Toxic Talk, Shut Down and Double Cross, starring Star Girl and her space cadet friends.

When Amber Jones wakes up in her sister Sage's speeding car, with no idea how she got there (though the hangover is a clue), all she wants to do is go home. But Sage is convinced a road trip to Alice Springs will finally answer the burning question: who is Amber's father? Because nine months before Amber's birth, her late mother Goldie made the same trip . . . Armed with just a name and Goldie's diaries, Amber agrees to search for a man she's never met in one of the world's biggest deserts.

If you think you weren't born with confidence, it's time for a reframe. Step beyond imposter syndrome, a crisis of self-belief or a deficit of bravery with this empowering and practical guide to making friends with your fear and building the skills of confidence in every aspect of your life. Human behaviour and performance specialist Mel Schilling walks you step by step through taking control of your relationships, career and life, demonstrating that confidence, resilience and self-esteem are skillsets to be learned and are essential to helping you thrive.

They say it takes 28 Questions to fall in love. Then what? ‘Reader, imagine yielding to someone with a power so strong she has the ability to slice time. Before. Her. After.’ When first-year music student Amalia stumbles into her Oxford college bar, she has no idea that everything is about...

A call to action for the scholarly community - introducing the merger of podcasting and peer review to encourage academics to think about the medium as an alternative outlet for research output.