Showing results by narrator "Brigid Lohrey" in All Categories

Harriet Main moves to the beautiful coastal town of Rivers End with a heavy heart. The bookstore she’s opening on the idyllic main street is a small distraction from the pain of her recent divorce, and the guilt over failing her daughter Olive when she needed her most. When Harriet finds an anonymous old diary in a collection of books donated to the store, she’s shocked when the donor refuses to take it back, wanting nothing to do with the tragic book.

Longtime feminist activist and writer Lynne Segal searches for hope in her own life and in the world around her, and finds it in our intimate commitments to each other and our shared collective engagements, the two being intertwined. Issues of care, intimacy, education, alongside meaningful work, and social engagement, lie at the core of our ability to understand the world and its possibilities for human flourishing. Segal looks at our shared lifelong dependence on care and the well-being of others.

In Self-Care for Tough Times, Suzy Reading shows the listener how to be their own safe place during periods of stress, grief, loss or change. A gentle yet powerful process is included for developing a self-care toolkit to call on during difficult periods, such as relationship breakdown, illness or death in the family, financial strain or simply feeling completely exhausted by life.

Piracy and the Making of the Spanish Pacific World demonstrates that piracy is key to explaining the surprising longevity of Spain's Asian empire, which survived the Age of Revolutions and endured almost to the end of the nineteenth century. It offers important new insight into piracy's impact on the trajectory of globalization and European imperial expansion in maritime Asia.

Three generations of women. Three generations worth of secrets. Will a cache of letters from beyond the grave hold the key to unravelling them all? The answer to that question lies at the heart of this addictive and atmospheric novel from the author of The House of Brides.

Stories for Work walks you through the science of storytelling, revealing the secrets behind great storytellers and showing you how to master the art of storytelling in business. Stories hold a unique place in our psyche, and the right story at the right time can be a game-changer in business; whether tragedy, triumph, tension, or transition, a good story can captivate the listener and help you achieve your goals.

Ivy Ross left Rivers End ten years ago, vowing never to return. Her heart broken, her trust gone, the father she adored behind bars. But when her sister Jody begs Ivy to return to finalise their inheritance, the majestic Fairview House, she is drawn home. And when she finds a collection of heartfelt letters hidden in her father’s library, everything she thought she knew is called into question. The anonymous letters reveal a heartbreaking love story that force Ivy to rethink the terrible night that tore her family apart.

Timely and suspenseful, Sealed is a gripping modern fable on motherhood. A terrifying portrait of ordinary people under threat from their own bodies and from the world around them. With elements of speculative fiction and the macabre, this is also an unforgettable story about a mother's fight to survive. Heavily pregnant Alice and her partner Pete are done with the city. Above all, Alice is haunted by the rumours of the skin sealing epidemic starting to infect the urban population.

Do you love your partner enough to share them with someone else? This is the question facing Laura when a group of close friends, all neighbors living on the same street, decide one night to put their keys in a bowl and swap partners. No one is obliged to do anything but the rules state that what does happen remains under wraps. Not everyone is keen on the idea, though Laura's husband certainly is, but group pressure mixed with alcohol means they run with it. This will set off a chain of jaw-dropping events that will change all their lives forever.

Dana has all she ever wanted - a husband she loves, her four-year-old daughter Kelsey who is the apple of her eye and another baby on the way to complete her perfect family. But then the worst fear that Dana has comes true, and everything she thought she knew, she now starts to doubt. As her world comes crashing around her, who can Dana trust?

1882 England: The grand estate of Summerfield needs an influx of cash. Will a marriage to a rich American save the Weston family's legacy--or destroy it? American heiress Genevieve Farrow travels to Summerfield to marry Morgan Weston, the heir to the earldom--a man she's only met in letters. In need of confidence, and under the thumb of an ambitious mother, she struggles to win the heart of the man she's come to love.

Planning is the trick for succeeding in small business. This process needn't be daunting, especially if you can get the timing right, pick a strategy that works, and chart a sound financial course. And if your best-laid plans go sideways, there's always hope, and a practical way forward, in this book. Getting Started in Small Business for Dummies will help you decide whether small-business ownership is right for you, and assess the viability of your business idea; and more.

Marine biologist Hana Ishikawa is racing against time to save the coral of the Great Barrier Reef, but struggles to fight for a future in a world where so much has already been lost. Seventeen-year-old Judith Holliman escapes the monotony of Sydney Town during the nineteenth century, when her naval captain father lets her accompany him on a voyage. Telma Velasco is hunting for a miracle in a world ravaged by global heating: a leafy seadragon, long believed extinct, has been sighted. But as Telma investigates, she finds hope in unexpected places.

Margery Blandon was always a principled woman who found guidance from the wisdom of desktop calendars. She lived quietly in Gold Street, Brunswick, for 60 years until events drove her to the 43rd floor of the Tropic Hotel. As she waits for the crowds in the atrium far below to disperse, she contemplates what went wrong. Her best friend kept an astonishing secret from her, and she can't trust the home help. It's possible her firstborn son has betrayed her, that her second son might have committed a crime and her only daughter is trying to kill her.

Bindi Summer, the hard-working manager at The Waratah Inn, is tired, feeling low, and wondering where her life is headed. Then, she is blind-sided by a shock revelation and the sudden arrival of her ex-boyfriend, who shows up at the inn, questioning his decision to leave her almost two years earlier. When Josh Owens, an old high school crush, shows up out of the blue, all Bindi wants is to hunker down and ride out the storm, but Josh won't be put off so easily.

One night, Daphne's teenage son Gabriel returns early from a house party, completely distraught. He refuses to let his mother know what's wrong and becomes very reclusive. But Daphne's son is not her only concern. Far from it. Her husband is acting oddly. And she is getting messages from an ex-partner she'd very much rather forget. Her family life seems to be unravelling at the seams, so when Gabriel's classmate Leo gets in touch and promises to help her son, she has hopes she can address at least one problem.

1883, England: The village of Summerfield is changing. Exciting opportunities abound, and new love fully - and finally - blooms. Genevieve Weston will be the countess of Summerfield one day. A new mother of twins, Genevieve struggles with life after babies. But through her struggles, and in the midst of a crisis, she taps in to her American entrepreneurial spirit and finds a way to utilize her talents - and the talents of those around her.

Trina is starting over after a painful separation from her husband of almost 20 years. Grief and loss force her to return to her hometown, where she has to deal with all of the things she left behind to rebuild her life, piece by piece. A hometown she hasn't visited since she left at the age of 18. When the handsome police officer who lives next door comes knocking with questions about a tragedy from her teenage years, Trina finds herself wondering if everything she thought she knew about the past is a lie.

Sylvie, Jude, Wendy and Adele have a lifelong friendship of the best kind: loving, practical, frank and steadfast. But when Sylvie dies, the ground shifts dangerously for the remaining three. These women couldn't be more different: Jude, a once-famous restaurateur with a spotless life and a long-standing affair with a married man; Wendy, an acclaimed feminist intellectual; and Adele, a former star of the stage, now practically homeless. Struggling to recall exactly why they've remained close all these years, the grieving women gather for one last weekend at Sylvie's old beach house.

It’s been 25 years since Emma graduated from the prestigious Denham House Girls’ School. She thinks she’s finally shaken the shadow of the awkward, neurotic girl she was at school. But as a class reunion approaches, Emma finds herself right back there, moving into the headmaster’s old staff cottage with her daughter while her marriage implodes. It’s here though that Emma finds a photograph that had been hidden away: an explicit image of her school-friend Tessa, staring boldly at the camera, dated the day before her death.