Showing results by narrator "Susan Lyons" in All Categories

Emma J. Chapman's haunting literary debut has won an abundance of favorable reviews from critics and fellow authors alike. How to Be a Good Wife tells the story of Marta, who through her long marriage to Hector has followed all the advice in the dog-eared manual Hector's mother gave her. But her world is beginning to come apart. Marta is finding it harder and harder to remember life before Hector, and as her thoughts become more and more disjointed, she begins to see a blonde girl in the darkness - and knows that something is coming for her.

Amanda and her husband, David, feel fortunate to be raising their son and daughter in the close-knit community of ex-pats on Grand Cayman Island, an idyllic place for children to grow up. Their firstborn, Sally, has always listened to her heart, deciding at age four that she would rather be called Clover and then, a few years later, falling in love with her best friend, James. But the comforting embrace of island life can become claustrophobic for adults, especially when they are faced with difficult situations.

When Julia learns that her sister has been violently murdered, she must uncover why. But Julia's quest quickly evolves into an alluring exploration of her own darkest sensual desires. Becoming involved with a dangerous stranger online, she's losing herself...losing control...perhaps losing everything. Her search for answers will jeopardize her marriage, her family, and her life.

Thirteen-year-old Matilda watches as all the foreigners flee her homeland - all but one, the white man Mr. Watts. Amidst the ruins of the town schoolhouse, Watts reads Dickens' Great Expectations to the children, thus sparking their imaginations and giving them hope in a chaotic world.

Surgeon’s apprentice Zachary Walsh knows that his master, John Howard, prides himself on his rationality. But John cannot explain how or why Mary Toft, the wife of a local journeyman, has managed to give birth to a dead rabbit. When this singular event becomes a regular occurrence, John and Zachary realize that nothing in their experience as rural physicians has prepared them to deal with a situation like this - strange, troubling, and possibly miraculous.

Lady Cecilia of Danby Hall feels adrift. She couldn’t be less interested in helping to plan the church’s upcoming bazaar. Instead, what excites her most is the Woman’s Suffrage Union meeting she has just attended. Inspired by the famous and charismatic leader of the group, Mrs. Amelia Price, Cecilia is eager to join the Union - if she can hide it from her parents, that is. But when Mrs. Price is found dead at the foot of the stairs in her home, her Votes for Women sash torn away, Cecilia knows she must attend to a more urgent matter: finding the killer.

New York Times best-selling author Keri Arthur wields a pen that drips with unrestrained sensuality. In this sexy paranormal romance, Riley Jenson - she of vampire blood and werewolf instinct - is on the hunt for evildoers. As alluring as she is deadly, Riley sets her sights on two imposing serial killers. But when the immortal Quinn joins the hunt, all bets (and possibly Riley's clothes) are most certainly off.

For more than a millennium, Polynesians have occupied the remotest islands in the Pacific Ocean, a vast triangle stretching from Hawaii to New Zealand to Easter Island. Until the arrival of European explorers they were the only people to have ever lived there. Both the most closely related and the most widely dispersed people in the world before the era of mass migration, Polynesians can trace their roots to a group of epic voyagers who ventured out into the unknown in one of the greatest adventures in human history.

Ostensibly a quickfire quiz, The Guessing Game is really a show that pushes facts aside in favour of flights of fancy and rewards the funniest, luckiest and most bizarre guesses. The premise is simple: host Clive Anderson fires off a series of difficult and implausible questions, and awards points to the panellists for their outlandish answers. Included here are all 12 episodes of the witty, whimsical and wildly speculative show.

England 1912. Danby Hall is the only home Lady Cecilia Bates has ever known. Despite the rigid rules of etiquette and her mother's fervent desire to see her married off, Cecilia can't imagine life anywhere else. But now, with an agricultural depression sweeping the countryside, the Bates family's possession of the hall is suddenly in peril. A possible solution arrives in the form of the imperious American heiress Annabel Clarke. The Bates and their staff arrange a grand house party upon the heiress's arrival. Then a guest dies after sipping from a glass meant for Annabel....

Oroonoko, the grandson of an African king, is madly in love with Imoinda, the daughter of the king's general. When the king - who is also in love with Imoinda - catches wind of their affair, he sells Imoinda as a slave. This betrayal sets off a chain of events that carries unforeseen consequences for everybody involved. Aphra Behn's Oroonoko has been hailed as one of the first great English novels and remains a classic of historical fiction.

Critics have used every possible superlative to praise the works of two-time Man Booker Prize winner Peter Carey. In The Chemistry of Tears, Carey continues to astound with a story of love, death, and human invention. Museum curator Catherine’s affair comes to an abrupt end with her married lover’s untimely death. Denied outward grief by the nature of their relationship, Catherine retreats into isolation. Delving into notebooks more than a century old, she feels a growing connection to Henry Brandling, who in 1854 gave life to a mechanical creature.

The Memory of Love is a story of courage and survival set on New Zealand's North Island where a Swedish doctor's lonely life is changed when she rescues a small boy. This beautifully written novel explores the destructive, forbidden and healing powers of love.

Being a preacher in the countryside is not for the faint of heart nor faith. Four inexperienced preachers face a myriad of challenges including those who figure a man of the cloth needs a wife. Can they meet the expectations of "helpful" congregants and be true to their hearts?

In the 1950s poet Christopher Chubb composes a body of sexually charged poems. Chubb then dupes a trendy literary magazine into believing the poems were composed by the late Bob McCorkle, an undiscovered genius. But the trick backfires, and soon Chubb finds himself tormented by the very monster he creates. Decades later, a literary editor named Sarah Wode-Douglass begins peeling back the layers of the Chubb mystery in, of all places, Malaysia, where the reclusive poet remains in hiding.

Layla Byrnes is balancing a demanding job, a failing marriage, and the challenges of motherhood, all while dealing with her unstable mother's threats of self-harm. When her mother calls just before Christmas, she doesn't follow the usual script. Instead, she tells Layla that there's something she needs to tell her about her much-loved father, a physician who tragically died in a rescue attempt at sea when Layla was young. Layla drops everything to rush to her childhood home on the wild west coast of Tasmania, determined to confront her mother.

When Constance, a lowly clerk in a London stationery, married Joseph Barton, a biological researcher, she believed she had found her ultimate husband and protector. But after three miscarriages, and the troubled birth of their daughter, Angelica, Constance fears for her life, inside her own home.

Develop a high-performing team based on a culture where respect trumps harmony. As teams become more diverse, we won't always see eye to eye. We won't agree on everything, and we may not even like each other. In order to achieve results, we need to have robust, candid, and constructive discussions. Respect Trumps Harmony offers a proven approach to navigating the difficulties faced in teams and workplaces today. To build collaboration; strengthen innovation; and manage safety, risk, and well-being, it's critical that there is a foundation of respect, not harmony.

On 19 July 1995, two young men stumbled upon a skeleton in a disused mineshaft near Bonnie Doon, Victoria. The sensational find was identified as the remains of transsexual prostitute Adele Bailey, who had been missing for more than 17 years. How did Adele Bailey die and why was her body hidden in a forgotten mineshaft? Was there a connection between Adele Baily and country housewife Jenny Tanner who had been killed on a nearby property?

Lloyd Jones' Mister Pip is a modern tragedy set on a tiny copper-rich tropical island embattled by internal strife. After the trouble starts and the soldiers arrive on Matilda's island, there comes a time when all the white people have left. Only Mr Watts remains, and he wears a red nose and pulls his wife around on a trolley; the kids call him Popeye behind his back. But there is no one else to teach them their lessons and no books left to learn from - except for Mr Watts' battered copy of Great Expectations, 'by my friend Mr Dickens'....