Author Archive | admin

 Pamela Hart

Inspired by the life of the world’s first woman war correspondent, Australia’s Louise Mack, the most sweeping love story yet by Pamela Hart. 1917, Italy. Australian journalist Rebecca Quinn is an unconventional woman. At the height of World War I, she has given up the safety of her Sydney home for the bloody battlefields of Europe, following her journalist husband to the frontline as a war correspondent in Italy.

Reporting the horrors of the Italian campaign, Rebecca finds herself thrown together with American-born Italian photographer Alessandro Panucci, and soon discovers another battleground every bit as dangerous and unpredictable: the human heart. A passionate and poignant love story set on the beautiful Italian coast by the bestselling author of The Soldier’s Wife and The War Bride.

 Marita Lorenz

Few people can say they’ve seen some of the most significant moments of the twentieth century unravel before their eyes. Marita Lorenz is one of them.

Born in Germany at the outbreak of WWII, Marita was incarcerated in a Nazi concentration camp as a child. In 1959, she travelled to Cuba where she met and fell in love with Fidel Castro. Yet upon fleeing to America, she was recruited by the CIA to assassinate the Fidel. Torn by love and loyalty, she couldn’t bring herself to slip him the lethal pills.

Her life would take many more twists and turns—including having a child with ex-dictator of Venezuela, Marcos Pérez Jiménez; testifying about the John F. Kennedy assassination; and becoming a party girl with close ties the New York mafia (and then a police informant).

Caught up in Cold War intrigue, espionage, and conspiracy—this is Marita’s incredible autobiography of a young woman who became a spy for the CIA.

 Sue Williams

‘I believe that nothing is impossible if you dare to dream, plan and take action. I’m an ordinary girl who simply refused to give up on a dream, and that’s all it takes to succeed in life.’

Alyssa Azar is unstoppable. When she was just eight years old, she walked the gruelling Kokoda Track, the youngest person in the world to do so. At twelve she climbed the ten highest peaks in Australia. Two years later she touched the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. Now, at the age of nineteen, she has reached the roof of the world: the summit of Mount Everest.

The Girl Who Climbed Everest is the inspiring story of how an ordinary girl from country Queensland worked towards ascending the world’s highest peak. Through passion, determination and immense hard work, and despite being turned back twice – once by a deadly avalanche and the second time by a devastating earthquake that nearly claimed her life – Alyssa is the youngest Australian to have achieved this extraordinary feat. She shares the thrills and heartbreaking disappointments on the road to reaching her goal, and explains how she finds the courage and motivation to keep going in the face of overwhelming danger and adversity.

Above all, Alyssa’s story shows us that we can achieve anything if we dare to dream big.

 Bridget Isichei

The author wanted to help people and make a real difference in the world. However, she had no idea what she was in for when she accepted a two-year volunteer post to train women to be pre-school teachers in the popular tourist destination of Vanuatu. But instead of cocktails by the sea in a luxury resort, Bridget found herself in Luganville, a shantytown whose people were still practising black magic and wearing the same fashions bought in by missionary women in the 1800s.

 Graham Seal

Australia’s history is one of epic journeys, intrepid explorers, and mysterious disappearances in far flung places. From perilous sea voyages to the distant south land, to forays across vast deserts on horseback, they are stories of endurance and misadventure, survival and loss.

Master storyteller Graham Seal has gathered together a gripping collection of famous and lesser-known journeys by land, sea and air in the 19th and early 20th centuries. As Warren Fahey writes in his foreword, ‘Some journeys, like those of Burke and Wills, Lasseter’s First Find, and the razing of the riverboat Rodney, are relatively well known. Others, mostly unknown, are tales of bravado, determination and, sometimes, sheer madness.’

From the comfort and safety of your armchair you can join some of Australia’s bravest and also some of its most foolhardy men and women in their adventures.

 Brett Pierce

A two-year-old girl is abandoned on the streets of Ulaan Bataar with a bag of clothes and a note pinned to her: ‘Please take care of me …’

Twelve-year-old Betty, alone looking after her dying mother, is kidnapped to become a child soldier …

An Australian aid worker finds himself off the tourist map confronted by the struggles of people in the developing world, across six continents. He discovers the inspirational and the beautiful; people and cultures responding to their changing landscape; the stories and courage of individuals who bring fresh perspectives to life.

And so much that is just funny …

 Diana Gabaldon

A young Jamie Fraser learns what it really means to become a man in this Outlander prequel novella. Featuring all the trademark suspense, adventure, and history of Diana Gabaldon’s #1 bestselling novels and the Starz original series, Virgins is now available for the first time as a standalone ebook.

Mourning the death of his father and gravely injured at the hands of the English, Jamie Fraser finds himself running with a band of mercenaries in the French countryside, where he reconnects with his old friend Ian Murray. Both are nursing wounds; both have good reason to stay out of Scotland; and both are still virgins, despite several opportunities to remedy that deplorable situation with ladies of easy virtue. But Jamie’s love life becomes infinitely more complicated—and dangerous—when fate brings the young men into the service of Dr. Hasdi, a Jewish gentleman who hires them to escort two priceless treasures to Paris. One is an old Torah; the other is the doctor’s beautiful daughter, Rebekah, destined for an arranged marriage. Both Jamie and Ian are instantly drawn to the bride-to-be—but they might be more cautious if they had any idea who they’re truly dealing with.

Note: Originally published as part of the Dangerous Women anthology.

 Joy Rhoades

Kate Dowd’s mother raised her to be a lady but she must put away her white gloves and pearls to help save her family’s sheep farm in New South Wales.

It is 1945, the war drags bitterly on and it feels like the rains will never come again. All the local, able-bodied young men, including the husband Kate barely knows, have enlisted and Kate’s father is struggling with his debts and his wounds from the Great War. He borrows recklessly from the bank and enlists two Italian prisoners of war to live and work on the station.

With their own scars and their defiance, the POWs Luca and Vittorio offer an apparent threat to Kate and Daisy, the family’s young Aboriginal maid. But danger comes from surprising corners and Kate finds herself more drawn to Luca than afraid of him.

Scorned bank managers, snobbish neighbours and distant husbands expect Kate to fail and give up her home but over the course of a dry, desperate year she finds within herself reserves of strength and rebellion that she could never have expected.

The Woolgrower’s Companion is the gripping story of one woman’s fight to save her home and a passionate tribute to Australia’s landscape and its people.

 Danielle Steel

Incomparable storyteller Danielle Steel illuminates rarely glimpsed precincts of unimaginable wealth and power, where love and freedom are the most dangerous desires of all.

Natasha Leonova’s beauty saved her life. Discovered on a freezing Moscow street by a Russian billionaire, she has lived for seven years under his protection, immersed in rarefied luxury, while he pursues his activities in a dark world that she guesses at but never sees. Her home is the world, often on one of Vladimir Stanislas’s spectacular yachts manned by scores of heavily armed crew members. Natasha’s job is to keep Vladimir happy, ask no questions, and be discreet. She knows her place, and the rules. She feels fortunate to be spoiled and protected, and is careful not to dwell on Vladimir’s ruthlessness or the deadly circles he moves in. She experiences only his kindness and generosity and believes he will always keep her safe. She is unfailingly loyal to him in exchange.

Theo Luca is the son of a brilliant, world famous, and difficult artist, Lorenzo Luca, who left his wife and son with a fortune in artwork they refuse to sell. Lorenzo’s widow, Maylis, has transformed their home in St. Paul de Vence into a celebrated restaurant decorated with her late husband’s paintings, and treats it as a museum. There, on a warm June evening, Theo first encounters Natasha, the most exquisite woman he has ever seen. And there, Vladimir lays eyes on Luca’s artwork. Two dangerous obsessions begin.

Theo, a gifted artist in his own right, finds himself feverishly painting Natasha’s image for weeks after their first meeting. Vladimir, enraged that Lorenzo’s works are not for sale, is determined to secure a painting at any price. And Natasha, who knows that she cannot afford to make even one false move, nevertheless begins to think of the freedom she can never have as Vladimir’s mistress. She cannot risk her safety for another man, or even a conversation with him, as Theo longs for a woman he can never have.

From Moscow to the Riviera, Paris, and London, The Mistress is a riveting tale of vast fortune, cruelty, creative genius, and daring courage, as uncompromising individuals chart a course for collision.

 Daniel Cole

A body is discovered with the dismembered parts of six victims stitched together like a puppet, nicknamed by the press as the ‘ragdoll’.

Assigned to the shocking case are Detective William ‘Wolf’ Fawkes, recently reinstated to the London Met, and his former partner Detective Emily Baxter. The ‘Ragdoll Killer’ taunts the police by releasing a list of names to the media, and the dates on which he intends to murder them. With six people to save, can Fawkes and Baxter catch a killer when the world is watching their every move?