Showing results by narrator "Casey Withoos" in All Categories

In 1999, art dealer Alex Clayton stumbles across a lost portrait of Molly Dean, an artist’s muse brutally slain in Melbourne in 1930. Alex buys the painting and sets out to uncover more details, but finds there are strange inconsistencies: Molly’s mother seemed unconcerned by her daughter’s violent death, the main suspect was never brought to trial despite compelling evidence and vital records are missing. Alex enlists the help of her close friend, art conservator John Porter, and together they sift through the clues and deceptions that swirl around the last days of Molly Dean.

Winter 1852. Adam has just returned from the Californian goldfields and is heading for Bendigo in Victoria, the new El Dorado. He comes across Ella, injured, penniless and with only the clothes she is wearing. Adam is the son of a convict with the determination and intelligence to ‘better’ himself. Despite her current circumstances, it is obvious to him that Ella is a lady, and although Adam might believe himself as good as any man, the class divide remains.

Imogen Bates moved to the small rural town of Gibson's Find to start a new life for herself after the death of her husband. Tired of being haunted by the painful memories of her old life, Imogen set her last remaining hopes on the little town and poured her heart and savings into restoring The Majestic Hotel to its former glory. But while the female-starved town might be glad to see a young woman move in, not everyone is happy about Imogen's arrival. Imogen has never been one to back down from a challenge—especially when it concerns her last chance at happiness.

Faith Forrester is at a crossroads. Single, thirty and living on a farm in a small Western Australian town, she's sick of being treated like a kitchen slave by her brother and father. Ten years ago, her mother died of breast cancer, and Faith has been treading water ever since. She wants to get her hands dirty on the family farm. She wants to prove to herself that she's done something worthwhile with her life. And she wants to find a man...

Welsey Cunningham grew up running barefoot through the orchards of his Quaker family farm, working with horses and dreaming of one day building himself a house on his own patch of ground above the river. The Second World War interrupted those dreams: it took Wes to New Guinea as a medic and then sent him home with healing bullet wounds in his legs. While Wes was away, life in Almond Tree continued but everyone's been changed by the war.

Peony flower farmer Clancy Parker was born and bred in the Australian high country. Small-town Bundilla is the only place she will ever truly belong, even if staying means remaining alone. The man she'd loved is long gone, and single men are as rare as a summer snowfall. As soon as he could, street artist Heath MacBride escaped his complicated family and traded mountain peaks for city concrete. Now a commission to paint a mural on Bundilla's water tower brings him home.

Camille is a nurse specialising in supporting families through the difficult decision to donate the organs of their dying loved ones. Camille's mother is a gifted but uncompromising transplant surgeon determined to make it in a man's world until her own life falls apart. And Camille herself is a mother to Addie–five years old, critically ill and in desperate need of the very organs her mother and grandmother work with.

1853 Mogo Creek, NSW: Della Atterton, bereft at the loss of her parents, is holed up in the place she loves best: the beautiful Hawkesbury in New South Wales. Happiest following the trade her father taught her, taxidermy, Della has no wish to return to Sydney. But the unexpected arrival of Captain Stefan von Richter on a quest to retrieve what could be Australia's first opal precipitates Della's return to Sydney and her Curio Shop of Wonders, where she discovers her enigmatic aunt, Cordelia, is selling more than curiosities to collectors.

A young woman's quest to heal a family rift entangles her in one of Australia's greatest historical puzzles when an intricately illustrated map offers a clue to the fate of a long-lost girl. A mesmerizing historical mystery set in the Hunter Valley from best-selling author Tea Cooper for fans of Natasha Lester and Kate Morton.

A moving, tender and compelling story about a life lived on the edges of society, of poverty, of certainty, of love. Filled with beautifully realised descriptions of life seen through a child's eyes - a child who gradually comes to realise her adored parents are all too tragically flawed and broken - Velocity packs the emotional impact of Angela's Ashes with the surreal humour and razor-sharp observations of Running with Scissors.

In this memoir, Mandy Sayer recounts the fascinating years she spent performing on the streets of New York and New Orleans with her father. Gerry Sayer was a jazz drummer, a beguiling Irish charmer with a million stories and an insatiable love for jam sessions and all-night parties. Mandy grew up captivated by his outrageous tales even after he left the family for good and her mother descended into the distance of drink. She learned to tap-dance and they set off together to satisfy their grand ambitions on the toughest stage in the world - New York.

As a sexual offences prosecutor, Katrina Marson works for an institution that can only respond, one case at a time, to sexual violence once the damage is already done. During a decade of looking back, she kept returning to a single question: what could have been done to prevent this?

Meg's life is woven into the fabric of St. Stephens. It's a tapestry made of two precious children, a hidden truth, and a husband whose ideas of a perfect wife do not match her own. When Meg puts her foot down on a third kid, gets a job, and is empowered by the same book group that was meant to keep her in her place, her marriage begins to disintegrate. Set in a tiny Mormon community, this is a novel about resilience and courage – the fierceness of mother-love and the power that comes with never forgetting who you really are.

Diana McIntyre and her four boys have had a tough eighteen months but, with the love and support of her family, she believes their lives are finally back on track. Diana’s dream of starting a flower farm has been the perfect diversion, with an elderly dahlia expert showing her the ropes. She won’t have to do this alone. Locum pharmacist and single dad Ned Gardiner hasn’t called Victoria home for years. However, his father’s death forces Ned to return to the family farm, a place that holds few happy memories for him.

The Carrington family owns the only pub in the small country town of Kangaroo Ridge. It’s been eight years since the five siblings became orphans and since twins Sebastian and Tamara stepped up to look after their younger brothers and sister with the help of their aunt, Maddie. Seb and Tam gave up their teenage years to make sure the family stayed together, but that’s been hard and they’ve grown apart. Seb is silent and stoic; Tam, on the other hand, wants to kick over the traces and catch up on the life she missed out on.

Country-girl Cressida Knight fills her days with her farm, a mischievous pet bull called Reggie and her volunteer emergency services work. The busier she keeps, the less she thinks about the cowboy who left her behind. She's convinced the small-town Woodlea grapevine that she's moved on, but now it's time to move on for real. Champion bull rider Denham Rigby shares Cressy's deep love for the land, and all he's ever wanted was to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Cressy through life. But three years ago a dark family secret left him no choice but to run.

Romance in rural Australia, three captivating Woodlea novellas from best-selling author Alissa Callen.

The scars country vet Ella Quinlivan hides are not solely on the outside. Men are off limits. She fills her world with her friends, work and the colourful community of small town Woodlea. She also becomes custodian of a sandstone cottage of an elderly friend whose teenage daughter went missing two decades ago. With a broken marriage behind him, Saul Armstrong is determined to recapture his dreams by bringing American bison to the Australian bush. He intends to stick to his side of the high wire fence that divides his farm from his distracting new neighbour, Ella.

For only child Neve Fitzpatrick, family is everything. When she loses her mother, she heads to the bush to rent a farmhouse near her grandmother's family home. To keep herself busy and her grief at bay, she offers to look after two little redheaded cowgirls and adopts a sassy pony and shaggy donkey in need of a refuge. Drover and horse trainer Tanner Callahan may have just found his mother, but he's resolved never to let anyone too close. Abandonment has cursed him all his life, and he won't let it happen again. Only two things unnerve him: children and small-town matchmaking.

After losing a patient, Dr Fliss Knight returns to small town Woodlea and buys a run-down farm, her confidence and city career in tatters. She intends to live a solitary life and hopes that the slow country pace will help her heal. When Fliss meets the cowboy living in the bluestone stables across the garden, all her hopes for a quiet and peaceful life fade. Despite his reserve, Hewitt is impossible to ignore. As they work together to care for an abandoned dog and her puppies, they find themselves drawn to each other.