Showing results by narrator "Casey Withoos" in All Categories

Where Have You Been? is a gripping domestic thriller that takes the form of a classic impostor story, with a 21st-century twist. Susan and Ed Middleton are perfectly content with their lives. Two kids, two cars, a solid brick bungalow in the suburbs. There’s barely a ripple in the surface of their happy existence. But when Susan’s older sister, who vanished as a teenager, reappears to claim an inheritance, everything is set to change. Karen - now known as Carly - has had a tough time during the past 20 years: drugs, prostitution, prison.

When Orla Macrae receives a letter asking her to return to the family cattle property where she grew up, she does so grudgingly. Her estranged uncle, Palmer, may be dying, but he is the last person she wants to see, especially since she's made a new life far away from where she lost so much. But on his deathbed he utters a few enigmatic words about a secret locked away and a clue as to its whereabouts.

Curl Curl, Sydney, January 1978. Angie's a looker. Or she's going to be. She's only 14, but already, heads turn wherever she goes. Male heads, mainly...Jane worships her older cousin Angie. She spends her summer vying for Angie's attention. Then Angie is murdered. Jane and her family are shattered. They withdraw into themselves, casting a veil of silence over Angie's death. Thirty years later, a journalist arrives with questions about the tragic event. Jane is relieved to finally talk about her adored cousin. And so is her family.

In 1928 Evie Woodward is running from a past she barely understands. A widow with a young son, she agrees to become partners with Daniel Roxburgh in a Psychic Detective Agency. But their bogus investigations soon take on a very real turn. Daniel lives his life in the shadows of Melbourne’s gangster world. He’s a dangerous man, but he’d do anything for Evie. Just as happiness is in their grasp, an investigation in a house called Blue Waters goes very wrong. Evie’s past is catching up with her, and Daniel may not be able to save her.

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.

It happened the day of the Moon Festival. It could have been left behind, they all could have moved on with their lives. But secrets have a habit of rising to the surface, especially in small towns. Two couples, four ironclad friendships, the perfect coastal holiday town. With salt-stung houses perched like lifeguards overlooking the shore, Lago Point is the scene of postcards, not crime scenes. Wife and mother Abbi, town cop Blake, schoolteacher Hannah and local doctor Will are caught in their own tangled webs of deceit.

From the best-selling author of Under Southern Skies comes the story of one woman's courage in a man's world. Joanna Kingsford is passionate about horses - and it's the world she shares with her father, champion trainer Charlie Kingsford. Jo's socialite mother, Nina, wants Joanna to pursue more ladylike interests, like modelling and finishing school. Jo can't think of anything duller. When a tragic accident changes everything, Jo is determined to prove she has what it takes to become a champion trainer.

One day a woman meets a man and falls instantly and irrevocably in love with him. It hits her like a thunderbolt, and she has to have him, has to be with him, regardless of the cost, of the pain of breaking up her existing relationship. She has never felt more in sync - or in love - with anyone in her whole life. So this is how it feels, she thinks to herself. This is what real love feels like. It's like that for him, too. What happens next will tear them apart and unleash havoc onto their worlds.

Rory Buchanan has it all: looks, talent, charisma - an all around good-guy, he's the centre of every party and a loving father and husband. Then one summer's afternoon, tragedy strikes. Those who are closest to him struggle to come to terms with their loss. Friendships are strained, marriages falter and loyalties are tested in a gripping and brilliantly crafted novel about loss, grief and desire.

Margaret Harrod shared a unique bond with her twin brother, Michael. As children they were inseparable, and at age 22, together, they gave their lives to the Catholic Church. Margaret became a nun and Michael a Salesian priest - it was the proudest day of their deeply religious parents' lives. Margaret cherishes those carefree childhood memories because the brother she adored is now in jail. Father Michael Aulsebrook pleaded guilty to multiple charges of molesting children, some as young as seven. And the unlikely whistle-blower was his courageous twin sister.

A clear-eyed, insightful and wildly entertaining look into the complicated, emotional world of mothers and their teenage daughters. Four mothers. Four teenage daughters. An isolated tropical paradise with no internet or mobile phone reception. What could possibly go wrong? There's tension, bitchiness, bullying, sex, drunken confessions, bad behaviour and breakdowns - and wait till you see what the teenagers get up to. How can we let our daughters go to forge lives of their own when what we most want to do is hold them close and never let them go?

It’s the 1980s, and in their small coastal town, Ali and her best friend, Jessie, are on the cusp. With The Golden Book, a journal of incantation and risk-taking as their record, they begin to chafe at the restrictions put on them by teachers, parents, each other. Then Jessie suffers a devastating accident, and both their lives are forever changed. When Ali is an adult, with a young daughter herself, the news of Jessie’s death brings back the intensity of that summer, forcing her to reckon with her own role in what happened to Jessie so many years ago.

Bush nurse Lara McIntyre and rural journalist Toby Paxton are thrust into the limelight when an accident puts the heart of their community in jeopardy. The small country town of Bridgefield can’t manage without their general store and post office, but Lara can’t stomach the idea of out-of-town buyers revamping it with no regard for what the residents want. She’s also unsure where Toby’s allegiances lie in this fight. Loyalties are put to the test as the locals attempt to save the shop, with personal agendas, old grudges and misunderstandings threatening their best efforts.

Violet Black and Ethan Wright are both in a coma after contracting the lethal M-fever. They have never met: I couldn't speak, but I was trying so hard to communicate and then...then.... I pushed. And something, someone, pushed back. Her name is Violet. Violet, but she is sunshine-yellow, and I need to find her because I think she might be just like me. But there is a far more serious reason for Ethan to find Violet - the sinister Foundation is trying to hunt them down.

Heico is an ornithologist fighting a losing battle to protect the birds in his beachside suburb. When a journalist asks for comment on a planned development, Heico exaggerates his reports on how many migratory birds use the site. Soon it is revealed that the proposed building is a mosque, and he finds himself embroiled in community resistance to the project. Still, he refuses to back down. Nahla, Heico’s house cleaner, is trying to find her place in a new country and a new marriage. 

On the morning of her wedding, 24-year-old Beth Shaw drives down the peninsula to the Portsea Hotel. She is uneasy and confused because she has just learnt something devastating about her fiancé, Jordan, that completely changes her view of him. As Beth’s old schoolmates and her relatives arrive for the big day at the bayside idyll, Beth contemplates her childhood in suburbia. She worshipped the school relay runners, one of whom was Jordan’s high school sweetheart. Painful memories of earlier disloyalties and betrayals resurface.

Even though we’d grown up in vastly different cultures and countries, we’d both known poverty, domestic violence and the expectation that neither one of us would ever amount to anything. That was probably what united us more than anything: our shared defiance of that prediction. She tap-danced on street corners for people’s small change. He was an out-of-work university teacher, poet and Vietnam vet. She was white and from Australia. He was black and from the Deep South. They met at Mardi Gras, New Orleans, in 1985. She was 22. He was nearly 40. They fell in love.

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.

Alice has always been a trailblazer, as a scientist, activist and mother. She knew her choices would involve sacrifices, but now, on the eve of her 80th birthday, she’s beginning to wonder if she’s sacrificed too much. Alice’s daughter, Sappho, rebelled against her unconventional upbringing, choosing to marry young and embrace life as a homemaker, but her status as a domestic goddess has recently taken a surprising turn. Ged has always been the peacemaker between her grandmother and mother.