Showing results by narrator "Des Fitzgerald" in All Categories

Sarah Willis longs to free herself from the expectations of a privileged upbringing, while Winston Keller can't afford the luxury of a dream. Despite their differences, the pair are drawn together in a whirlwind romance that defies the boundaries of class. But when a dark family secret pulls the young lovers apart, and WWII plunges the world into chaos, it seems impossible they will ever find their way back to each other—or even hold onto the dream of what might have been.

While estranged twins Oliver and Theo Wingfield are identical in appearance, they couldn't be more different. Theo, an extrovert verging on arrogant, was always a drifter, a nomad, operating on the fringes of the law. Oliver, intense, creative and introspective, was destined to become a winemaker. Each vintage, every bottle from Oliver's Mudgee-based label, Four Dogs Missing, sells out. And now, after fifteen years without contact, Theo unexpectedly turns up at his brother's vineyard, bearing an invitation that his twin knows nothing about.

What could be worse than living in a tiny house in the tiny town of Wisteria with twin brothers who believe they’re superheroes? Answer: the voices in Jett’s head. They buzz with bits of a bad memory, and they’re getting louder every day. A friend recommends a book sure to unscramble her confusion, but it’s disappeared, and nobody wants to talk about it. Enraged, Jett and her friends rally up a team to fight the censorship, even enlisting her clever pet bunny, Felix, one-eared Grey Cat, and the ghosts of a few authors known for shaking things up.

From the bizarre and audacious imagination of horror author Andy Marino comes a harrowing tale of the insect that will herald the apocalypse… "The literary equivalent of swallowing a wasp that's crawled inside your Coke can. Do yourself a favor and read this book." – Nick Cutter, author of...

Toward a Cognitive Theory of Narrative Acts brings together in one volume cutting-edge research that turns to recent findings in cognitive and neurobiological sciences, psychology, linguistics, philosophy, and evolutionary biology, among other disciplines, to explore and understand more deeply various cultural phenomena, including art, music, literature, and film. The essays fulfilling this task for the general listener as well as the specialist are written by renowned authors.

Izzie Mallon will be shutting herself away from the festive season, and the snowstorm that has brought the city to a standstill, in her apartment on Henrietta Square - the beautiful home she shared with her beloved husband, Sam, until his tragic death a few months ago. Then, there’s a knock at the door - a stranger, stranded by the bad weather. He tells Izzie that he’s Eli Sanders, her husband’s long-time friend. Izzie has never met him in person, but feels she owes it to Sam to welcome Eli into her home. Even though her instincts say otherwise....

There's no rest for the wicked… or the dead they've left behind. It's been four years since the Hartnett House Massacre. Four years since Whitley Adams rescued her sister, Nora, from a nightmare she herself still struggles to escape. When a documentary filmmaker expresses interest in telling their story, Whitley's sister believes it could be the answer to all their troubles. A chance to finally confront their past, and move on with their lives once and for all. The past isn't the only thing waiting at Hartnett House.

The summer Natasha Rothwell turns 15, strange dancing lights appear in the sky above her small town, lights that she interprets as portents of doom. Natasha leads a sheltered life with her beautiful, bohemian mother in a crumbling house by the sea. As news of the lights spreads, more and more visitors arrive in the town, creating a feverish atmosphere of anticipation and dread. And the arrival of a new lodger, the handsome Mr Bowen, threatens to upset the delicate equilibrium between mother and daughter.

Felicity is a predator. Born into bloodshed, raised with wolves, she lives only for the hunt. When Imperial forces invade her sanctuary and shatter the winter silence with the screams of countless victims, Felicity catches scent of a bigger game. A game of vengeance, love, and death. To follow this path, she must put her life in the hands of five strangers. Easier said than done for a wolfchild. For Felicity, caught between the two worlds of man and beast, a single question repeats itself. What makes you human?

Miss Metamorph is a deeply personal memoir about love, loss, and becoming — told in fragments of memory, family history, and quiet reckonings that refuse to be rushed. Narrated by the author, this unabridged audiobook invites you into the spaces between what was lived and what was remembered: childhood, motherhood, grief, betrayal, and the long work of reclaiming voice. It is a story shaped as much by silence as by language, and by the enduring bonds that hold even after loss.

Strangers did not, as a rule, find their way to Chez Dom - a small, rundown Tunisian cafe on Paris' distant fringes. Run by the widow Houria and her young niece, Sabiha, the cafe offers a home away from home for the North African immigrant workers working at the great abattoirs of Vaugiraud, who, like them, had grown used to the smell of blood in the air. But when one day a lost Australian tourist, John Patterner, seeks shelter in the cafe from a sudden Parisian rainstorm, the quiet simplicities of their lives are changed forever

Just as young journalist Lark Chadwick is about to begin her new job on the cops and courts beat, she discovers the body of a strangled girl - the first victim of a serial killer. Lark's got the inside track, but there are complications: jealous rivals in the newsroom, her job in danger, a hunky colleague who becomes a suspect, a superstar athlete with anger issues. And just who is that mysterious bag boy at the local market? With the help of her friend and mentor Lionel Stone, Lark's nerve is tested like never before in a dramatic life or death showdown with the killer.

So I just got a call. Apparently my mom—yes, the same one who just came cannonballing back into my life a few weeks ago after ten years without a word—might have killed someone. A self-help guru. You know, one of those guys promising to SHIFT your life into overdrive with his magical secrets. "Shift" because those secrets come from a long lineage of shifters. Yeah, I don't get it either. Then again, I wasn't one of his loyal disciples, so I never paid much attention to his corny late night ads.

When poachers threaten the island they love, two girls team up to save the turtles—and each other. An eco-mystery with an unforgettable friendship story at its heart from a fresh new voice in middle grade. Twelve-year-old Barana lives in a coastal village in Honduras, where she spends every...

Two days before Jack O'Rourke's embarkment to the Western Front in 1916, he leaps into Sydney Harbour to save an elderly Russian man, named Samuel Lomond, from drowning. What happens when Jack returns from the front and discover Lomond's brutal murder, is at the heart of this thrilling historical fiction saga.

Catching her sister in bed with her fiancé, school teacher Katy Cornish enlists playboy colleague Felix Montague to help her save face. What she doesn’t bargain on is them both losing their jobs in the process. With money running out, Katy must endure the rude and arrogant Felix while they embark on a road trip around the country in hopes of securing a new job. But there’s just one problem - they’re up for the same posts. This road trip is going to be unlike any other, with them doing whatever they can to sabotage the other.

With Alice as a guide, explore the steps and ways to live a conscious life and focus on the goodness of the world around us. Alice's beautiful and captivating writing is an act of mindfulness in itself, and she shares her favourite moments in life, encouraging us to ponder our own. Alice also inspires the listener to be attentive to the here and now and embrace moments as they arise.

The Masters, dreadful and severe, rule the Red City and the lands far beyond it. By night, they politic and feast, drinking from townsfolk resigned to their fates. By day, the Masters must rely on their human servants, their Day Boys, to fulfill their every need and carry out their will. Mark is a Day Boy, practically raised by his Master, Dain. It’s grueling, often dangerous work, but Mark neither knows nor wants any other life.

Back in the last weeks of February, which now feels like a hundred years ago, we here in Innishannon were busy planning what was termed ‘The Big Rake Off’ of the dead grass on the long sloping bank beside the road coming into the village. Happily unaware of forthcoming events, we were totally focused on creating our wild flower bank - to get something like this going you need a ‘metheal’, a word which prior to the coronavirus was unknown to anyone under 40.

Clara has been given a second chance at life after the loss of her husband. She is engaged to the father of her child, and with their union she will also gain a stepson. Things appear to be looking up for their family until she receives intriguing messages on a typewriter that belonged to her fiancé's late-wife. At first, the notes appear to be innocent, until things go very, very wrong.