Download or read book Scorched written by Penguin Books Staff and published by Penguin Books. This book was released on 2004-01 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Australia's hottest talents, this dazzling collection of stories will make you think of icy-poles, holidays at the beach, thrumming cicadas, New Year's resolutions, water restrictions, and scorching heat . . . Here too are tales of sudden death, abandonment, abduction, betrayal, family feuds, and murder. Dip into Scorched for some perfect summer reading.
Download or read book Penguin Australian Summer Stories written by Penguin Books Staff and published by Penguin Books. This book was released on 1999-01-01 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of stories connected to summer includes tales of an unusual ocean voyage, a diving tragedy and an exhilarating joyride. Contributors include Kristin Williamson, Nick Earls, Peter Goldsworthy and Amy Witting. The stories have been published previously in various novels and anthologies.
Download or read book Penguin Australian Summer Stories 4 written by Penguin Books Staff and published by Penguin Books. This book was released on 2002-01 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fourth in a series of collections of previously published short stories by well-known Australian writers, presented for summer reading. Contributors include Robert Drewe, Nick Earls, Helen Garner, Andy Quan, Tim Winton and Amy Whiting. Includes acknowledgements of sources and notes on contributors.
Download or read book The Summer of Secrets written by Barbara Hannay and published by Penguin Group Australia. This book was released on 2018-07-30 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sydney journalist Chloe Brown is painfully aware that her biological clock isn't just ticking, it's booming. When her long term boyfriend finally admits he never wants children, Chloe is devastated. Impulsively, she moves as far from disappointment as she can – to a job on a small country newspaper in Queensland's far north. The little town seems idyllic, a cosy nest, and Chloe plans to regroup and, possibly, to embark on single motherhood via IVF. But she soon realises that no place is free from trouble or heartache. The grouchy news editor, Finn Latimer, is a former foreign correspondent who has retreated after a family tragedy. Emily, the paper's elegant, sixty-something owner, is battling with her husband's desertion. Meanwhile, the whole town is worried when their popular young baker disappears. As lives across generations become more deeply entwined, the lessons are clear. Secrets and silence harbour pain, while honesty and openness bring healing and hope. And love. All that's needed now is courage... Praise for Barbara Hannay’s bestsellers: ‘It’s a pleasure to follow an author who gets better with every book’ Apple iBooks, ‘Best Books of the Month’ ‘In beautiful, fluid prose, Hannay once again puts together all the ingredients for a real page-turner’ The Chronicle
Download or read book Heatwave written by and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Summer Love written by Nancy Thayer and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2022-05-03 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Old secrets come to light when four friends gather on Nantucket for a life-changing reunion in this heartwarming novel of love and self-discovery by New York Times bestselling author Nancy Thayer. “The next generation discovers the magic of the island in this big-hearted book so vivid you’ll almost be able to smell the ocean air as you turn each page.”—E! News When four strangers rent bargain-basement rooms in an old hotel near the beach, they embark on the summer of their lives. First there’s Ariel Spencer, who has big dreams of becoming a writer and is looking for inspiration in Nantucket’s high society. Her new friend Sheila Murphy is a good Catholic girl from Ohio whose desire for adventure is often shadowed by her apprehension. Then there’s small-town Missourian Wyatt Smith, who’s immediately taken with Ariel. The last of the four, Nick Volkov, is looking to make a name for himself and have a blast along the way. Despite their differences, the four bond over trips to the beach, Wednesday-night dinners, and everything that Nantucket has to offer. But venturing out on their own for the first time, with all its adventure and risks, could change the course of their lives. Twenty-six years after that amazing summer, Ariel, Sheila, Wyatt, and Nick reunite at the hotel where they first met. Now it’s called The Lighthouse and Nick owns the entire operation with his wife and daughter. Ariel and Wyatt, married for decades, arrive with their son, and Sheila’s back too, with her daughter by her side. Life hasn’t exactly worked out the way they had all hoped. Ariel’s dreams have since faded and been pushed aside, but she’s determined to rediscover the passion she once had. Nick has the money and reputation of a successful businessman, but is it everything he had hoped for? And Sheila has never been able to shake the secret she’s kept since that summer. Being back together again will mean confronting the past and finding themselves. Meanwhile, the next generation discovers Nantucket: Their children explore the island together, experiencing love and heartbreak and forging lifelong bonds, just as their parents did all those years ago. It’s sure to be one unforgettable reunion. This delightful novel from beloved storyteller Nancy Thayer explores the potential of dreams and the beauty of friendship.
Download or read book The Country Wedding written by Barbara Hannay and published by Penguin Group Australia. This book was released on 2017-07-31 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two country weddings, fifty years apart ... and the miracle of second chances In the tiny Tablelands township of Burralea, musician Flora Drummond is preparing to play at the wedding of a very close friend. If only she could forget the embarrassing teenage crush she once had on the handsome groom. All is as it should be on the big day. The little church is filled with flowers, the expectant guests are arriving, and Mitch is nervously waiting – but his bride has failed to appear. Decades earlier, another wedding in the same church led to a similar story of devastation. Hattie missed out on marrying her childhood sweetheart the first time around and now she has returned to the scene of her greatest heartache. As Flora is drawn into both romantic dramas, she must also confront a relationship crisis of her own. But the past and the present offer promise for the future and there's a chance for friends, old and new, to help each other to heal. From the rolling green hills of Far North Queensland to the crowded streets of Shanghai on the eve of the Second World War, this is a beautiful romantic saga that tells of two loves lost and found and asks the questions – do we ever get over our first love, and is it ever too late to make amends?
Download or read book Cooper Not Out written by Justin Smith and published by Penguin Group Australia. This book was released on 2022-01-18 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'I’m calling it...this is THE book of summer.' GOOD READS In the Australian summer of 1984, in the small country town of Penguin Hill, Sergeant Roy Cooper is making a name for himself. He’s been batting for his local cricket club for decades — and he’s a statistical miracle. He’s overweight, he makes very few runs, he’s not pretty to watch, but he’s never been dismissed. When local schoolgirl Cassie Midwinter discovers this feat, she decides to take the matter further. The remarkable story finds its way into the hands of Donna Garrett, a female sports columnist who’s forced to write under a male pseudonym to be taken seriously. That summer, the West Indies are thrashing Australia, and the Australian people’s love of cricket has never been lower. But Donna’s columns on Roy Cooper capture the imagination of a nation, and soon there’s pressure to select him for the national team. This would see him playing at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, carrying the spirit of every small country town in Australia along with him. Could such a miracle actually happen? This is sport, after all, and who doesn’t love a good story? COOPER NOT OUT is a funny, heart-warming novel set within real events. It is a moving and highly original tale about friendship and belief, and the joy of discovering your greatest potential. 'Cooper Not Out is the story Australia needs right now. This beautifully written book highlights life's simple pleasures, like a game of country cricket, but its emotional complexity is what makes it really sing. Justin Smith deftly handles issues of class, pride, gender, machismo, and social norms around sexuality. Frankly, it's a ripping read that will make your heart swell. Roy Cooper is a hero for our times.' Tracey Spicer 'An uplifting, inspiring, fun story, to make our hearts sing.' Canberra Times ‘I am gobsmacked. I love cricket. I love stories. I love books so I have just won the trifecta! Think The Castle, think Phar Lap, think Rocky all rolled into one. I laughed, I cried, I couldn’t put it down. This beautifully written tale has everything – it’s funny, heartwarming, nostalgic and most importantly manages to brilliantly create an atmosphere of anticipation that keeps you coming back for more. I’d give it 6 stars if I could!’ Better Reading
Download or read book The Other Side of Summer written by Emily Gale and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-05-30 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A heartfelt and voice-driven novel with just a touch of magic, Emily Gale's The Other Side of Summer is perfect for fans of Rebecca Stead. Ever since her brother Floyd died, Summer’s world has been falling apart. Her mom is a ghost of her former self, her older sister is angry all the time, and her dad wants to move the family to Australia. It seems like the only thing unchanged in their lives is Floyd’s guitar, which was returned to the family perfectly unharmed by the bombing that killed him. Once Summer arrives in Australia, she feels even further away from Floyd than before. Until she works up the courage to play his guitar. When she plays, something amazing—perhaps even magical—happens. Summer starts to feel less alone. But even with a little magic on her side, only Summer will be able to find her way through her grief to whatever the other side may bring. “This pitch-perfect story is full of hope and magic. Exquisite and unforgettable.”—Fiona Wood, author of Six Impossible Things, Wildlife, and Cloudwish
Download or read book River Run written by Nicole Alexander and published by Random House Australia. This book was released on 2016-08-29 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking place over just one week, River Run is an unputdownable rural drama from the bestselling author of The Bark Cutters and Wild Lands. It is January 1951, and after a year away Eleanor Webber has returned home to River Run, her family’s sprawling sheep property in western New South Wales. Fleeing a failed love affair back in Sydney, she hopes for some time and space to heal. But with shearing of over 25,000 sheep about to commence, and the infamous and moneyed Margaret Winslow and her husband Keith staying in the main house as her mother’s guests, that dream is quickly dashed. More worryingly, her half-brother Robbie is increasingly running wild, playing tricks on his governess, antagonising the jackeroos and obsessing about a communist invasion. Though only eleven, Robbie has appointed himself guardian of the property and, in his treehouse by the river, he readies for an imminent attack. Armed with a gun. Then, with a storm looming and tensions rising in the shearing shed, a mysterious stranger appears on the horizon. And in one disastrous moment young Robbie entangles Eleanor in a situation that will have serious repercussions for every member of the Webber family . . .
Download or read book Mammoth written by Chris Flynn and published by Univ. of Queensland Press. This book was released on 2020-04-28 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The original, unforgettable and thought-provoking new novel by award-winning author Chris Flynn that will change how readers understand the world. Narrated by a 13,000-year-old extinct mammoth, this is the (mostly) true story of how a collection of prehistoric creatures came to be on sale at a natural history auction in New York in 2007. By tracing how and when these fossils were unearthed, Mammoth leads us on a funny and fascinating journey from the Pleistocene epoch to nineteenth-century America and beyond, revealing how ideas about science and religion have shaped our world. With our planet on the brink of calamitous climate change, Mammoth scrutinises humanity's role in the destruction of the natural world while also offering a message of hope.
Download or read book The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories written by Michael Newton and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2010-02-25 with total page 562 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This terrifying selection of ghost stories brings together the very best classic works from the masters of the supernatural Phantom coaches, evil familiars, shadowy houses, spectral children and mysterious doppelgangers haunt these tales. They range from the famous, such as M. R. James's tale of an ancient curse, 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come To You, My Lad' and W. W. Jacobs's story of gruesome wish-fulfilment, 'The Monkey's Paw', to lesser-known masterpieces: Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Thrawn Janet', telling of a parish priest tormented for life by his encounter with the undead; Charles Dickens's unsettling account of a railway signal-man and an ominous portent; and Edward Bulwer Lytton's 'The Haunted and the Haunters', where a cursed house harbours a diabolical secret. Michael Newton's introduction discusses why ghost stories scare us and why they flourished from the mid-nineteenth to early-twentieth century, examining their changing conventions throughout history. This edition also includes further reading, notes, a glossary and a chronology. Edited with an introduction and notes by Michael Newton
Download or read book Goddess in the Machine written by Lora Beth Johnson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Andra wakes up from a cryogenic sleep 1,000 years later than she was supposed to, forcing her to team up with an exiled prince to navigate an unfamiliar planet in this smart, thrilling sci-fi adventure, perfect for fans of Renegades and Aurora Rising. When Andra wakes up, she's drowning. Not only that, but she's in a hot, dirty cave, it's the year 3102, and everyone keeps calling her Goddess. When Andra went into a cryonic sleep for a trip across the galaxy, she expected to wake up in a hundred years, not a thousand. Worst of all, the rest of the colonists--including her family and friends--are dead. They died centuries ago, and for some reason, their descendants think Andra's a deity. She knows she's nothing special, but she'll play along if it means she can figure out why she was left in stasis and how to get back to Earth. Zhade, the exiled bastard prince of Eerensed, has other plans. Four years ago, the sleeping Goddess's glass coffin disappeared from the palace, and Zhade devoted himself to finding it. Now he's hoping the Goddess will be the key to taking his rightful place on the throne--if he can get her to play her part, that is. Because if his people realize she doesn't actually have the power to save their dying planet, they'll kill her. With a vicious monarch on the throne and a city tearing apart at the seams, Zhade and Andra might never be able to unlock the mystery of her fate, let alone find a way to unseat the king, especially since Zhade hasn't exactly been forthcoming with Andra. And a thousand years from home, is there any way of knowing that Earth is better than the planet she's woken to?
Download or read book Why I Love Summer written by Michael Wagner and published by Random House Australia. This book was released on 2018 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An ode to a uniquely Australian experience and the joy of family and friends. Sunny days, weekends at the pool, games in the backyard, daylight until late and long, lovely holidays . . . that's summer, the best season ever. The perfect follow up to the much-loved Why I Love Footy- Notables list, Picture Book of the Year category, CBCA 2016.
Download or read book 47 Degrees written by Justin D'Ath and published by Penguin Group Australia. This book was released on 2019-01-08 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zeelie wonders if they’re in danger. When temperatures soar to 47 degrees one hot summer day, 12-year-old Zeelie hopes the nearby bushfires everyone’s talking about aren’t heading towards her family’s new home. What will they do if the wind changes direction? What about their belongings and their beloved pets? And why hasn’t her mum and brother returned from Melbourne? Nothing can prepare Zeelie for what’s to come.
Download or read book Hot Little Hands written by Abigail Ulman and published by Random House. This book was released on 2016-05-31 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For fans of HBO’s Girls, Abigail Ulman’s heartbreakingly tender and often darkly funny fiction is a fresh take on the experiences of contemporary young women. “A familiar yet highly inventive collection of short fiction which hits virtually all my buttons: dark humor, complex female characters, and a strong summer camp storyline.”—Lena Dunham, Lenny Claire is magnetic. On the cusp of adulthood and letting go of her adolescence one miserable responsibility at a time, she’s moved from London to San Francisco to work toward her PhD and minor in cheap whiskey, pour-over coffee, and guys who can’t be bothered to shower. When she finds out she’s pregnant by a heartsick ex-boyfriend, the solution seems clear, if only to her. Kira is a talented thirteen-year-old Russian gymnast who leaves her traditional family to travel to America. Elise and Jenni, two Australian high school students, seek asylum from the hooking up and heavy drinking they’ve been doing for years by reenrolling in their childhood sleepaway camp. Over the course of nine loosely connected stories, Hot Little Hands introduces us to young women, at once clever and naïve, who struggle to navigate the chronic uncertainty and very real dangers that come with being impatient for the future and reluctant to leave childhood behind. Abigail Ulman’s voice feels of the moment—sharp and powerful—as she deftly explores ageless themes of sex and maturity among girls who are both confident and frighteningly exposed. Praise for Hot Little Hands “In this sardonic, smart, and thoroughly modern debut collection, Ulman presents nine stories about young women on the verge of adulthood, motherhood, and more who make momentous decisions while delirious with desire.”—O: The Oprah Magazine “[Ulman] excels at dialogue and narrative. The more you get to know her characters, the funnier it is to witness their verbal code-switching as they navigate between nosy parents, fumbling love interests, and trusted friends. That none of these stories is constrained by any need for tidy endings makes them all the more believable.”—The Atlantic “Deftly written with a fresh and realistic style . . . Each female protagonist is wonderfully complicated and charming in her own way.”—Bookreporter “The captivating women in this collection leave a lasting impression.”—Publishers Weekly “Genuinely insightful . . . Hot Little Hands is the rare collection that portrays how life pivots around mundane moments as readily as earth-shaking events.”—Shelf Awareness “It is rare for a collection to so adeptly capture the way life can be at once facile and intense. Ulman’s details are lifelike and droll, her style lucid and engaging, and the overall effect stirring.”—Kirkus Reviews “A noteworthy debut. . . . Ulman writes without judgment, and this is what gives her characters life. They are multifaceted, flawed beings—sometimes victims of others, but often victims of their own actions—in whom readers will recognize flashes of themselves.”—Booklist “The stories are beautifully paced, the dialogue perfect. There is a lovely comedy underpinning the cool tone. Often this becomes hilarious, but it is also controlled and well-judged. Abigail Ulman knows how to write a story, manage a buildup, hold your attention, suggest that somehow nothing much is happening while, in fact, everything is going on.”—Colm Tóibín, author of Brooklyn
Download or read book If You Could Go Anywhere written by Paige Toon and published by Random House Australia. This book was released on 2019-05 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Angie has always wanted to travel. But at 29, she has still never left her small mining town in the Australian outback. When her grandmother passes away, Angie finally feels free to see the world - until she discovers a letter addressed to the father she never knew and is forced to question everything. As Angie sets off on her journey to find the truth - about her family, her past and who she really is - will enigmatic stranger Alessandro help guide the way?"--Provided by publisher
