Showing results by narrator "Jessica Douglas-Henry" in All Categories

'Smart, suspenseful, brimming with secrets.' KATE MORTON The moment she laid eyes on Heather Wisher, Tully knew this woman was going to destroy their lives. Tully and Rachel Aston are murderous when they discover their father has a new girlfriend. The fact that Heather is half his age isn't even...

The unputdownable new domestic drama with jaw-dropping twists from international bestseller, Sally Hepworth 'Gabe is alone at the cliff's edge. His arms are outstretched, palms facing the empty air.' He said she jumped. He wouldn't lie. Before the woman went over the cliff, Pippa and Gabe were...

Ren lives alone on the remote frontier of a country devastated by a coup. High on the forested slopes, she survives by hunting and trading - and forgetting. But when a young soldier comes to the mountains in search of a legendary creature, Ren is inexorably drawn into an impossible mission. As their lives entwine, unravel and erupt - as myth merges with reality - both Ren and the soldier are forced to confront what they regret, what they love and what they fear. 

In 1940, as the Nazis sweep toward Lithuania, Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara defies his own government and secretly issues thousands of visas to Jewish refugees desperate to flee. After the war, Sugihara is dismissed and disappears into obscurity. Three decades later, in Australia, Rachael Margolin, her father and her grandmother live disconnected from one another and haunted by unspoken tragedies. When Rachel announces her engagement to a Greek Orthodox man, it detonates a long-held secret.

Three scary monsters – racism, misogyny and ageism – roam through this mesmerising audiobook. The dual nature of Scary Monsters is reflected in the fact that this audiobook can be listened to in two different ways – either Lyle or Lili can be heard first, the choice is yours. Lyle works for a sinister government department in near-future Australia. An Asian migrant, he fears repatriation and embraces ‘Australian values’. Islam has been banned in the country, the air is smoky from a Permanent Fire Zone, and one pandemic has already run its course.

Over 500,000 years ago, a single gene mutated. It spread over time, becoming critical in the journey transforming our earliest ancestors into fully modern humans, capable of navigating the entire planet and beyond. Then just a few thousand years ago, humans gradually outsourced knowledge to writing, and we displaced art and music from the heart of learning. This is the extraordinary story of the discovery of a supergene that makes us uniquely human. 

When Roz Chen's wife, Niamh, is killed in a hit-and-run on a lonely Tasmanian road, the grieving widow begins to wonder if Niamh's death was an accident after all. Meanwhile, SAS veteran Sam Willard is hoping for a fresh start with a job at a salmon farm. But as allegations of old war crimes surface and Sam is 'promoted' as a special operative against anti-salmon farm activists, he and Roz form an unlikely alliance.

Author Deb Hunt sets out to discover what makes our Australian farming families tick. Travelling to properties across the country - from a vast, dusty cattle run in outback Queensland to the wheat belt of Western Australia and dairy farms in Tasmania - and introducing us to eight different families who survive and thrive on the land, these stories provide a window into a way of life that defines the Australian spirit at its best.

Koalas regularly appeared in Australian biologist Danielle Clode's backyard, but it was only when a bushfire threatened that she truly paid them attention. In vivid, descriptive prose, Clode embarks on a delightful and surprising journey through evolutionary biology, natural history, and ecology to understand where these enigmatic animals came from and what their future may hold. She begins her search with the fossils of ancient giant koalas, delving into why the modern koala has become the lone survivor of a once-diverse family of uniquely Australian marsupials.

"Listeners will be captivated as the narrators create tension and drop hints about the real problem in this “ideal” family." —Booklist on The Younger Wife "Narrators Barrie Kreinik and Jessica Douglas-Henry enhance the air of anxiety by weaving an engaging web of emotion. Their Australian...

In 1960, when the legendary icebreaker Magga Dan set sail for Antarctica, it contained a secret. Hiding on board was Nel Law, wife of expedition leader Phillip Law. She would make history by becoming the first Australian woman to set foot on the icy continent, but it was her art that would change everything. Though a talented artist, Nel has always been defined by her role as ‘the explorer's wife', but in the clear expanse of the Southern Ocean, her true self is finally allowed to emerge. Despite misogyny from the all-male crew and resentment from her husband, Nel's art begins to flourish.

Handywoman Barb Young has lived in the sleepy coastal town of Bullford Point for over fifty years - and frankly, in that time, not much has happened, unless you count that business where a bush turkey managed to board the ferry a couple of years ago. When Joe Griffiths returns from Sydney after six years of drug addiction, jail and, eventually, rehab, Barb offers him a job, hoping to help him turn his life around. However, when another new resident of Bullford Point is murdered, Joe becomes the prime suspect.

Giulia is ten. She has never left the tiny island she lives on. She never wants to. Her best friend on the island - besides her older sister - is a donkey. She ties ribbons around his head and thinks she will marry him when the time comes. Her island is one filled with widows. Widows that are watched over by the Shipmaster and his many sons. It is a place that feels stuck in time - verdant, plentiful, happy, peaceful. Until the men arrive. And the vines begin to fail. And everything changes.

Scottish-born Robert Wales sailed into Sydney Harbour during WWII, but in 1953 he was choking in the city, and doctors prescribed fresh country air. With no experience and only knowledge he'd picked up from a few books, he uproots his family and sets out to establish a sheep farm in the bush. When they arrive on a lonely hill in northern New South Wales, they have no electricity, no running water, no telephone and no choice but to make this their home. 

Growing up in the 1950s, the three Doherty children were trained by their parents to memorise car number plates, to spot unusual behaviour on the street and most important of all, to avoid drawing attention to themselves. The children became unwitting foot soldiers in Australia's battle against Soviet infiltration in the Cold War. They attended political rallies, stood watch on houses owned by communist sympathisers and infiltrated the UFO Society.

A house perched impossibly on a cliff overlooking the stunning, iconic Bluebird Beach. Prime real estate, yet somehow not real estate at all, The Lodge is, like those who live in it, falling apart. Gordon Grimes has become the accidental keeper of this last relic of an endangered world. He lives in The Lodge with his wife, Kelly, who is trying to leave him, their son, Ben, who will do anything to save him, his goddaughter Lou who is hiding from her own troubles, and Leonie, the family matriarch who has trapped them here for their own good.

Fuelled by her biologist's background and deep curiosity, Danielle Clode delves into the world of koalas to discover what's behind the sweet face on thousands of postcards. From their megafaunal ancestors to the disastrous effects of colonisation, from remarkable conservation success in the 1920s to the devastating bushfires of 2019-2020, Clode tells the story of koalas and their complex relationship with humans.

The true story of Australia's first political assassination. Could the conviction of Vietnamese refugee Phuong Ngo for the 1994 assassination of Cabramatta MP John Newman be one of Australia's greatest miscarriages of justice? Cabramatta was embroiled in a heroin epidemic, gang wars and demands...

Stephen Aston is getting married again. The only problem is, he's still married to his first wife, even though she is in a care facility for dementia. But he'll take care of that easily, by divorcing her—even if his adult daughters protest. Tully and Rachel Aston look upon Heather as nothing but an interloper. Heather is the same age as Rachel and even younger than Tully. Clearly she's a gold digger and after their father's money. Heather has secrets that she's keeping close, and reasons of her own for wanting to marry Stephen.

A gripping novel of myth, environment, adventure, and an unlikely friendship, from an award-winning Australian author. Ren lives alone on the remote frontier of a country devastated by a coup d'état. High on the forested slopes, she survives by hunting, farming, trading, and forgetting the...