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'I don't want two wishy-washy godmothers,' Jeannie had said that day in the country hospital when Eliza was only a day old. 'No dolls. No pink dresses. Just lots of adventures. Lots of spoiling. The pair of you like two mighty warriors protecting her at every step.' Eliza Miller ...grew up in Australia as the only daughter of a troubled single mother, but with the constant support of two watchful godmothers, Olivia and Maxie. Despite her tricky childhood, she always felt loved and secure. Until, just weeks before her eighteenth birthday, the tragic death of her mother changed everything. Thirteen years on, Eliza is deliberately living a life as safe as possible, avoiding close relationships and devoting herself to her job - until one day an unexpected invitation from her godmothers, now both based in the UK, prompts a leap into the unknown. Within a fortnight, Eliza has swapped her predictable routine in Melbourne for life in the middle of a complicated family in Edinburgh. There's no such thing as an ordinary day any more. Yet, amidst the chaos, Eliza begins to blossom. She finds herself not only hopeful about the future, but ready to explore her past. Her godmothers have long been waiting for her to ask about her mother's mysterious life - and about the identity of the father she has never known. But even they are taken by surprise with all that Eliza discovers. Set in Australia, Scotland, Ireland and England, THE GODMOTHERS is a story about love, loss, hope and sorrow, about the families we are born into and the families we make for ourselves.
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Life in the village isn't always sweet and simple . . . When single mum Olivia uproots her young son Darcy from their life in Tasmania for a new start in the English Cotswolds, she isn't exactly expecting a bed of roses - but nor is she prepared for the challenges that life in th...e picturesque village throws her way. The Renaissance Project hopes to bring the dwindling community back to life - to welcome migrants from around the world and to boost the failing economy - but not everyone is so pleased about the initiative. For cake-maker Olivia, it's a chance for Darcy to finally meet his Norwegian father, and for her to trace the last blurry lines on what remains of her family tree. It's also an opportunity to move on from the traumatic event that tore her loved ones apart. After seven years on her own, she has all but given up on romance, until life dishes up some delicious new options she didn't even know she was craving. An uplifting and heartwarming story about the moments that change your life forever, human kindness, and being true to yourself. Praise for Josephine Moon- 'A mountain of heart, an abundance of soul and a banquet of mouth-watering food.' Good Reading 'You can't go wrong with a book by Josephine Moon.' Vanessa Carnevale 'A delightful page-turner and a truly moving tale.' Better Reading
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Two sisters, one baby and the best of intentions... As a vibrant, young woman with a lifetime of possibilities ahead of her, Freya grants her sister, Pearl, the ultimate gift of motherhood. However, this comes at a hefty price - an unexpected rift in her family and the loss of th...e man she loves. Decades later, Freya is divorced, childless and homeless, at rock bottom after losing everything she's worked for. When her estranged niece, Billie, offers sanctuary, managing the family restaurant on beautiful Magnetic Island, Freya can hardly refuse. Billie has never understood the tension between her mother and her aunt and now, with a newly broken heart, she is nursing a family secret of her own. All three women come together under the tropical Queensland skies, but can they let go of past regrets, or will old tensions tear them further apart? By the bestselling author of Meet Me in Venice, this is a moving and inspiring novel in a stunning setting about choices and consequences and the redemptive power of love.
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By Keneally, Tom
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- RRP: $32.99
- $24.74
- Save $8.25
- In Stock At Publisher
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In this joyful novel, our narrator is Charles Dickens's tenth child, Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens, known as Plorn. Sent, as his brother Alfred had been before him, at sixteen years of age, to Australia to learn to 'apply himself', we follow his early Australian adventures in outb...ack NSW learning to become a man from the most diverse and toughest of men. Part of Dickens' motivation was to separate these younger of his children from the Dickens family schism, where Charles had expelled his wife from the family home, keeping her sister Georgie there to run the household and taking up with the actress Ellen Tiernan. Plorn arrived in Melbourne in late 1868 carrying a terrible secret. He has never read a word of his father's work. After a very brief stopover he is sent out to become a gentleman stockman on a 2000 square mile station in remotest, semi-arid parts of NSW. Here he inevitably gets enmeshed in a tribe named the Paakintji and various other folk, colonists, colonial-born, ex-convicts, ex-soldiers, and very few women - though he is struck by each one he does encounter. Plorn did not expect he would encounter the same veneration of his father and familiarity with his work in Australia that was rampant in England. Against this backdrop, and featuring cricket tournaments, horse-racing, bushranging, sheep droving, shifty stock and station agents, frontier wars and first encounters with Australian women we follow Plorn, and sometimes his brother Alfred, through wonderful adventures as he works to apply himself. This is Tom Keneally in his most familiar terrain. Taking historical figures and events and reimagining them with verve, compassion and humour. It is a romp.
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'You are her mother in this moment. The future is another time.' In a remote part of Tanzania known as the Cradle of Humankind,Essie Lawrence lives with her husband in an archaeologist's camp. One morning a chance encounter with two strangers out in the field sees her making a ra...sh promise - one she has no idea how she can keep. When she returns home, she has a black baby in her arms, a motherless infant, too young even to have a name. From now until the coming of the rains, Essie is to care for the little girl. And then hand her back. Bringing a baby to the research base is just the first of many taboos Essie is about to break. As she becomes immersed in a life-changing experience, she finds that her marriage, her career - everything she's worked for - is put at risk. And as her heart opens up to new life and new love, she is led back into her past, to memories of her own mother and her first home on the island of Tasmania, at the far end of the world. In the shadow of the Maasai Holy Mountain of God, on the shores of the flamingo lake, personal stories are played out alongside the Lawrences' quest to find the origins of the human species. Nightmares and dreams go hand in hand. What is real and what will turn to dust? Whose wisdom will stand the test of time? And after a season of being a mother, will Essie be able to survive the hardest challenge of all? To love, and then let go... An exquisite and heart-piercing story of one woman's bond with a baby, The Beautiful Mother will resonate with every parent, crossing time, place and culture. It is an unforgettable exploration of what it really means to be a family, revealing the deep need we all have to find our own tribe.
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By Toon, Paige
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- RRP: $32.99
- $24.74
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Some people believe that it's possible to fall in love simply by gazing into another person's eyes, but Hannah, who spends her working life staring into the eyes of strangers, has never felt anything out of the ordinary for any of her clients. Then she meets Sonny, and a spark ig...nites between them that's hard to ignore and impossible to forget. Weeks later, they cross paths again, but Sonny's whole demeanour has changed. Gone is the sexy, laidback, confident man that Hannah was so attracted to, and in his place is someone who can barely make eye contact at all. It soon transpires that Sonny is at a crossroads. He's committed to making serious life changes, but these changes can't and won't include romance. Hannah, who is only temporarily housesitting her uncle's cottage, has her own reasons for wanting to keep their budding friendship platonic. But as summer hots up and the chemistry between them sizzles, Hannah and Sonny discover that there's more to each of them than meets the eye... Praise for Paige Toon- 'You'll love it, cry buckets and be uplifted' MARIAN KEYES 'Tender, heartbreaking and magical' GIOVANNA FLETCHER 'Warm, inspiring, like a holiday mood in book form' MHAIRI MCFARLANE 'For smart, romantic fiction, look no further than the new book from bestselling Paige Toon' RED 'Achingly romantic and brilliantly written . . . Five Stars!' HEAT 'Paige Toon is the queen of will-they/won't-they romance, setting up an ending that will leave you in bits' SUNDAY EXPRESS
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Why would the police come back looking for a dead man? Young widow Tilly is making a new life for herself, keeping house for the rangers at the Binboona Wildlife Sanctuary in the isolated wilderness of the north-western Gulf Country. Caring for injured wildlife and helping to run... the popular tourist campsite are just the distraction she needs from everything she left behind when her husband, Gerry, and young daughter were lost at sea. But when the police show up asking questions about Gerry, the peaceful routine she's built is disrupted as she begins to question what really happened to her family. The arrival of botanist Connor stirs up even more emotion and has Tilly questioning who she can trust. When she and young ranger Luke stumble across evidence of wildlife smugglers on a visit to the local caves, suddenly her sanctuary is no longer safe and it becomes clear the past has well and truly come back to haunt her. Set against the lush backdrop of the Northern Territory with its vibrant birds and deadly wildlife, this is a chilling and highly evocative family mystery about the wild and dangerous things that can happen in the most remote and untamed corners of our country.
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Liar
(Trade Paperback / Paperback)
By Pearse, Lesley
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- RRP: $32.99
- $24.74
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Amelia White dreams of being a reporter. The closest she's come is selling advertising in the local paper - until the fateful day she stumbles on a shocking scoop. Round the corner from her home, she discovers the body of a murder victim, dumped among the rubbish. When the police... and reporters descend, Amelia is horrified at the lies soon to be spread about the young woman. Determined to protect the victim from these smears, she convinces her paper's editor to let her tell the true story. And when another body is found, Amelia discovers that she may be the only one with any chance of learning the truth and stopping more killings. If only she can work out who the liar is . . .
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'He didn't have to be normal, the boy realised. He just had to pretend.' It's winter in Melbourne and Detective Emmett Corban is starting to regret his promotion to head of the Missing Persons Unit, as the routine reports pile up on his desk. So when Natale Gibson goes missing, h...e's convinced this is the big case he's been waiting for - the woman's husband and parents insist the devoted mother would never abandon her children, and her personal accounts remain untouched. But things aren't all they seem. The close-knit Italian family is keeping secrets - none bigger than the one Natale has been hiding. Just as the net seems to be tightening, the investigation is turned on its head. The body of a woman is found . . . then another. What had seemed like a standard missing person's case has turned into a frightening hunt for a serial killer, and time is running out. But to really understand these shocking crimes, Emmett and his team will need to delve back through decades of neglect - back to a squalid inner-city flat, where a young boy is left huddling over his mother's body . . .
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Sixteen-year-old Hugh Twycross has a bright future, mapped out by his parents, his teachers - everybody, it seems, except Hugh Twycross. Hugh has a secret, though: he loves cars and he loves car racing. When his grandfather asks him to go on a road trip to Uluru in his 1970 Holde...n HT Monaro, Hugh decides, for once in his life, to do the unexpected.
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