Showing results by narrator "Ulli Birve" in All Categories

In 1855 Salt Creek lies at the far reaches of the remote, beautiful and inhospitable coastal region, the Coorong, in the new province of South Australia. The area, just opened to graziers willing to chance their luck, becomes home to Stanton Finch and his large family, including 15-year-old Hester Finch. Once wealthy political activists, the Finch family has fallen on hard times. Cut adrift from the polite society they were raised to be part of, Hester and her siblings make connections where they can.

Mia Montrose, archaeological linguist, has discovered that the Black Madonna is a code used by secret societies throughout time for the lost key to an ancient power source: the Sphere of Amenti. Kali, interdimensional Queen of the Anunnaki - now fully merged with the youngest Dragon Queen, Tamar Devere - has less than a year to rehabilitate her Fallen kindred who desire intergalactic domination.

Ashlee Devere, 19th century clairvoyant, adventurer and historian, is called upon to authenticate a Sumerian text that predates the Old Testament. Tamar, daughter of the renowned 21st century linguist Mia Montrose, reading Ashlee's diaries for the first time, undergoes an astounding transformation - psychically and physically. Kali, a powerful goddess, and one of the keepers of the lost key to the gateway between our world and the next, is coming....

For the past 33 years, Angela Gillespie has sent to friends and family around the world an end-of-the-year letter titled ‘Hello from the Gillespies’. It’s always been cheery and full of good news. This year, Angela surprises herself - she tells the truth....

Alice Murray learns to play the piano aged three on an orange orchard in rural Australia. Recognising her daughter's gift, her mother sends Alice to boarding school in the bleak north of England, and there Alice stays for the rest of her childhood. Then she's offered a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London, and on a summer school in Oxford she meets Edward, an economics professor who sweeps her off her feet. But Alice soon finds that Edward is damaged.

When the Templeton family from England takes up residence in a stately home in country Australia, they set the locals talking – and with good reason. From the outside, the seven Templetons seem so bohemian, peculiar even. No one is more intrigued by the family than their neighbours, single mother Nina Donovan and her young son Tom. Before long, the two families' lives become entwined in unexpected ways.

This collection of short fiction from Elizabeth Harrower features a number of previously unpublished works and 'Alice', which was published for the first time in The New Yorker in 2015. Internationally acclaimed for her five brilliant novels, Elizabeth Harrower is also the author of a small body of short fiction. A Few Days in the Country & Other Stories brings together for the first time her stories published in Australian journals in the 1960s and 1970s along with those from her archives.