Showing results by narrator "Edwina Wren" in All Categories

From bestselling author Jackie French comes a compelling book about the choices we make and the chances we never dreamed we'd be given. 1931. The height of the Depression, Sydney, New South Wales They were diamonds: beautiful, sparkling and irresistible. Nice girls do not accept employment from...

A page-turning, heart-warming family saga set in the Snowy Mountains during the Depression in the 1930s. Blue Laurence has escaped the prison of her aunt's mansion to join the Magnifico Family Circus, a travelling troupe that brings glamour and laughter to country towns gripped by the Depression...

The latest trilogy by a best-selling author.... Mia Montrose is a 21st-century Australian woman with a doctorate in ancient languages who has just scored the most promising job of her career. When Mia experiences mysterious happenings and forces beyond her control, she begins to understand that history does not always stay in the past.

During a brush with the Sons of the Long Knives, Gwion earns the trust of Keridwen and is offered employment at her Castell in Gwynedd. There the goddess is brewing a potion of prophetic insight and secret wisdom, destined for her monstrous, shape-shifting son, Morvran. But an ill-timed accident on the final day of his task sees Gwion inherit all the potion's supernatural abilities. In a shapeshifting battle, Gwion is swallowed by Keridwen, and upon her return to human form the Goddess discovers that she is pregnant.

It is 1915, and the world is being torn apart, but newlyweds Ruby and Jimmy Hawkins are sure their love will survive the trauma and tragedy of war. Sent away to fight in the desperate battles raging in Gallipoli, Jimmy plans for the future they promised each other and struggles to keep his dreams whole amidst the brutality of the trenches. Back home in Sydney, Ruby reads his romantic letters, full of longing. But as weeks slip into months, she is forced to forge her own life.

Sol is a gifted but also terrifying six year old; his mother believes he is destined for greatness. He has a birthmark, like his dad, his grandmother and great-grandmother. But when they all make an unexpected trip to Germany, terrible secrets emerge about their family's story during World War II. Perhaps birthmarks are not all that has been passed down through this family.

In war-torn Malaya, Nancy dreams of Australia - and a young man called Michael. The year is 1942 and the world is at war. Nancy Clancy left school at fourteen to spend a year droving, just like her grandfather Clancy of the Overflow. Now sixteen, Nancys family has sent her to Malaya to bring...

In a wintry landscape in the Swedish countryside, the paths of two women cross. One bleak March evening, Veronika, a young writer, arrives in a small village in pursuit of stillness and solitude to enable her to come to terms with grief and loss, and to complete a novel.

Anniversary edition of the first book Jackie French published with A & R. This is where a truly remarkable career began. 'Rain Stones' and the other stories in this collection reveal that the country is a magical place, that there is an extra dimension to be found by those whose minds and hearts...

A novel about three women at turning points in their lives, and the one night that changes everything. One night, three women go to the theater to see a play. Wildfires are burning in the hills outside, but inside the theater it is time for the performance to take over. Margot is a successful...

'Gripping, emotional and moving' -- New Idea on Facing the Flame (The Matilda Saga, Book 7) A body has been found in the burned-out wreckage of the church at Gibber's Creek -- with older skeletons lying beneath it. The corpse is identified as that of Ignatius Mervyn, the man who attempted to...

A powerful novel from master storyteller Jackie French The soldiers she saved called her the Angel of Waterloo. The husband she loved and lost called her Hen. The patients she treated in secret called her Auntie Love. She was Henrietta Bartlett, a surgeon's daughter, a survivor of the Napoleonic...

It's 1972 in Gibber's Creek, and across the nation, the catchcry is, 'It's time'. As political ideals drift from disaster to the dismissal, it's also time for Jed Kelly to choose between past love, Nicholas, the local Labor member, and Sam from the Halfway to Eternity commune. It's time too for...

In the 80th anniversary year, Jackie French explores the dropping of the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, which ended World War 2. 1942. Japan has bombed Sydney Harbour. Sixteen-year-old Ossie lies about his age to protect his country, even though it means abandoning his only...

THE INSPIRATION FOR THE NETFLIX FILM PENGUIN BLOOM “A triumph that will make your heart soar” (Sy Montgomery, author of The Soul of an Octopus), this true story follows a family’s journey of recovery, hope, and courage as they nurse an injured magpie back to health—from the New York...

1932. Ernie and Lily Hass, and their daughter, Girlie, have lost almost everything in the Depression; all they have keeping their small family together are their secrets. Abandoning their failing wheat farm and small-town gossip, they make a new start on the west coast of Australia where they...

The old music box has been handed down through Leo's family for hundreds of years. An astounding secret is hidden beneath its gleaming black lid. Now it is Leo's music box, and although he respects the rules, his cousin Mimi Langlander does not. When the rules are broken, Leo's life is changed forever as he and Mimi plunge together into a thrilling quest in the fantastic world of Rondo.

The fifth title in the sweeping Matilda Saga Hippies wear beads, demonstrators march against the Vietnam War, and the world waits to see the first human steps on the moon's surface. But at Gibbers Creek, Jed Kelly sees ghosts, from the past and future, at the Drinkwater billabong where long ago...

'Gripping, emotional and moving' -- New Idea There have been fires before, but not like this. In 1978, as the hot wind howls and the grass dries, all who live at Gibber's Creek know their land can burn. But when you love your land, you fight for it. For Jed Kelly, an even more menacing danger...

Three people, struggling to come to terms with great loss after the end of the war, search for peace in a small town's library in a heartbreaking novel of love and loss and the healing power of memory and words. In a small town on the land's edge, in the strange space at a war's end, a widow, a poet and a doctor each try to find their own peace, and their own new story. In Thirroul, in 1948, people chase their dreams through the books in the railway's library.