Showing results by narrator "James Wright" in All Categories

In her first book of comic strips, Emma reflects on social and feminist issues by means of simple line drawings, dissecting the mental load, ie all that invisible and unpaid organizing, list-making and planning women do to manage their lives, and the lives of their family members. Most of us carry some form of mental load - about our work, household responsibilities, financial obligations and personal life; but what makes up that burden and how it's distributed within households and understood in offices is not always equal or fair.

For the past several years, Jahzara Franklin has had the weight of the world on her shoulders. Her mother suddenly passed away from a brain aneurysm, making her the sole caregiver for her teenage sister because their father wasn't in the picture. When she's unable to find a job that pays enough for her and her sister to live comfortably, she swallows her pride and does something she never thought she'd do. When she meets a man who appears to have good intentions, she gives him a chance, only to find out six months later that he's a fraud.

Pope Gregory XVII has spent a lifetime quietly serving the church he loves - until he announces a prophecy so alarming that it threatens to tear the Vatican apart. Terrified, the Vatican cardinals imprison him in a monastery. Is he mad, as they believe, or is it all an elaborate plot? An old friend of the pope sets out on a risky quest to find out. On the way, he discovers the power of love and faith, while terrorists and politicians use every deadly and unholy means to stop him.

Sunburnt Country is an outstanding selection of autobiographical stories and short fiction about Australia and Australians. From childhood, through adolescence, work and marriage, to old age, these stories provide a lively, at times moving, sometimes funny, glimpse into many aspects of life in Australia.

The slight movement beneath the bamboo toward the creek distracted Dobel from his meagre meal of biscuits and water. At first he was unsure what it was. As the shadow came closer, it materialised into the unmistakable form of an NVA soldier moving from the creek toward the area of the LUP occupied by Collier and the wounded Wilkins. The enemy moved silently, an AK-47 held directly in front of his body, ready for action.

Jacko Emptor, Northern Territory born, brings Australian wildness to the television screens of America. Is America ready for him? Is he ready for America? Jacko, investigative reporter, exploits American innocence to break into living rooms and penetrate the heart's secrets. But these secrets make their claim on him too, especially the secrets of Sunny Sondquist, a child-woman missing in the American heartland. Follow Jacko as he exposes evil, falls from grace, and shows how television makes gods of some and fools of many.

Alec Ramsey is the survivor of a disastrous Antarctic expedition which abandoned his revered friend and leader of the party, Stephen Leeming. For 40 years, in the security of academia, Ramsey has nurtured with guilt his doubts about this incident. Now Leeming's body is, against all odds, to be exhumed from the Antarctic icecap, and Ramsey must confront his obsession and decide whether he really did - or can continue to - survive at all.

Leverson, the narrator at the centre of these stories, calls himself a "people freak". Seduced by north Queensland's sultry beauty and unique strangeness, he is as fascinated by the invading hordes of misfits from the south as by the old established Queenslanders.

Iron-fisted Pope Leo XIV emerges from open-heart surgery with the chilling realisation that his reforms have devastated the Church. As he struggles to overcome the policies he himself put in place, he must battle enemies from within the Vatican, as well as Islamic terrorists determined to assassinate him. Amid political intrigue and counterespionage, his brilliant Surgeon, Salviati, becomes a target, too, along with Salviati’s beautiful mistress, Tove, and her fragile daughter, as the plot builds to a dramatic climax. 

Winter, 1945. The Second World War is over, but it is a time of armistice, not peace. Austria is grieving its defeat and the loss of a generation of men; it is a land without leaders. To men like Major Mark Hanlon, Occupation Commander of the alpine town of Bad Quellenberg, falls the task of destroying the legacy of the Nazis once and for all. When his driver is murdered by an Austrian soldier, Hanlon is determined to bring the man to justice. But investigating the crime proves difficult in a community where nearly everyone has something to hide.  

Night falls. In a lonely valley called the Sink, four people prepare for a quiet evening. Then in his orchard, Murray Jaccob sees a moving shadow. Across the swamp, his neighbour Ronnie watches her lover leave and feels her baby roll inside her. And on the veranda of the Stubbs place, a small dog is torn screaming from its leash by something unseen. And nothing will be quite the same again.