Showing results by narrator "Kate Hosking" in All Categories

Australian swimmer Petria Thomas won the hearts of millions around the world with her triple gold-medal-winning triumph at the Athens Olympic Games in 2004. Having overcome the pain and anguish of three shoulder reconstructions and two ankle reconstructions over the length of her glittering 12-year career, Petria is admired and respected for her grit, determination, and steely will to win.

It's 1969, and small-town girl Faith Taylor longs for the excitement of the city. Leaving her family home in Willow Tree Bend, Faith lands a job at The Angel - Melbourne's most infamous nightclub. While Faith relishes her newfound freedom, she can't help but notice that there are some things about the club that don't add up. So when a policeman shows her a shocking photograph and reveals that a former waitress was murdered, Faith realises she must help to bring down the shadowy owner behind the club's activities.

It is the start of a long, hot summer, and Madalena Grimaldi has disappeared. Claudia is hired to find the missing schoolgirl, but she's already working on a case - the death of Guy Valentine, her father. As Claudia searches the streets, looking for the ghost of her derelict father and for the mysterious man who can lead her to Madalena, she finds herself sinking into a world where, for many, rock bottom is only the beginning.

The story of how gold miners rebelled against British authority, beginning a process that would ultimately lead to democracy in Australia. The Eureka Stockade. It's one of Australia's foundation legends - yet the story has always been told as if half the participants weren't there. But what if the hot-tempered, free-spirited gold miners we learned about at school were actually husbands and fathers, brothers and sons? What if there were women and children right there beside them inside the Stockade when the bullets started to fly?

"We must be ruthless," Edward snarls, "because we lead ruthless lives: you, of anyone, should understand that. This is our existence, Jordan, this house, this land, that father, that mother - there's no pity, there's no mercy, there's probably no escape. It is hard, Jordan, and we have to be hard to survive it, and the best we can do is fight anything that threatens to make it worse."

For 12 years Winter has been haunted. Her past, her memories, her feelings, will not leave her alone. And now, at 16, the time has come for her to act. Every journey begins with a single step. If Winter is going to step into the future, she must first step into the past.

Gracey's come home to Cunningham on holidays. But now she's a state athletics champion and a private school student, and everything looks different - even frightening. Part history, part mystery, Gracey is a challenging story about the past and the present, murder and compassion, and black and white identity.

Angela and Gracey were going to be 'best friends forever' and make it into the same university as care-free first-year students. But for Gracey, her Aboriginal heritage takes on a new significance. While Angela falls in love for the first time, Gracey is drawn into Black politics and their friendship drifts apart. Then Angela discovers that she too has a heritage - one her family would sooner deny. The conflict of the past possesses the power to draw the friends together, but it could as easily blow them apart forever.

In 1998 Kate O'Hara rents an old cottage on the banks of a river in Tasmania. She wants peace and quiet, to come to terms with her husband's death and the end of her unhappy marriage. But her cottage is haunted by the ghost of Devlin, a boatman from convict days. Captivated by Devlin's story and his mysterious disappearance, Kate falls deeper under the spell of the past. And then Kate steps back in time and meets Devlin in person.

Detective Sergeant Gemma Woodstock finds herself lost and alone in the city, brokenhearted by the decisions she's had to make. Her new workplace is a minefield, and the partner she has been assigned is uncommunicative and often hostile. When a homeless man is murdered and Gemma is put on the case, she can't help feeling a connection with the victim and the lonely and isolated life he led despite being in the middle of a bustling city.

When Gemma Woodstock, homicide investigator in the large rural town of Smithson, views the body of her old school friend Rosalind splayed open on the autopsy table, she suffers the same feeling of inscrutability that has coloured her relationship with Rose for so long. Gemma, however, is hiding her own secrets. She has a four-year-old son, Ben, and has recently moved in with the boy's father, Scott. But the relationship is troubled, and she is having an affair with a colleague that she works closely with.

Neville 'Pom' Darling is on the hunt for the perfect photograph. Skye Stewart is searching for her long-lost grandfather. It's 1939, and Neville, escaping an unhappy marriage and his memories of the Great War, finds himself in Mackenzie Crossing on the day of the terrible Black Friday bushfires. He meets the beautiful Georgie Mackenzie and in an instant knows that she is the subject he has been looking for. As the heat intensifies, Georgie and Pom begin to wonder if they have a future together, but first they must survive the blaze.

City girl Paula married her lovely farmer, the only problem is he comes with a farm...Another heart-warming rural romance from the queen of Australian storytelling. Self-reliant Sydney girl, Paula, is looking forward to a new life in the country. Just married to sheep farmer Dan Woodcroft, she can't wait to escape her protective family and exchange her busy existence for a new life down on the farm in rural South Australia. But life on the farm proves rather different to what she was expecting.

The story of how gold miners rebelled against British authority, beginning a process that would ultimately lead to democracy in Australia. The Eureka Stockade. It's one of Australia's foundation legends - yet the story has always been told as if half the participants weren't there. But what if the hot-tempered, free-spirited gold miners we learned about at school were actually husbands and fathers, brothers and sons? What if there were women and children right there beside them, inside the stockade, when the bullets started to fly?

A poignant and searingly honest memoir about love and life with Andy Whitfield, breakout star of the television phenomenon Spartacus. When you meet the love of your life, the one person you want to spend the rest of your days with, what do you do when they're ripped away? Vashti and Andy Whitfield fitted together like the missing pieces of a perfect jigsaw. From the moment they met, they were inseparable.

For eight years Lexie Rogers has been a uniform cop in Sydney's red light district, Kings Cross. Having survived a violent knife attack, she's witnessed far more than most cops her age. Now she's back at work as the newest member of the Bondi Junction detectives' office and ready to start again. One of her first jobs is to execute a search warrant at a bikie clubhouse belonging to one of the two local gangs in the eastern suburbs.

Lexie's back, and she's going to find out just how deep some grudges can go.... A young nurse's body is found at Clovelly Beach in Sydney's eastern suburbs. Apart from a puncture wound in her neck, she is in perfect condition. But she's also clutching a rose in her hands - and there's an empty packet of prescription drugs in her pocket. Investigating the scene, Detective Lexie Rogers and her partner Brad Sommers know something is not right. It appears to be a staged suicide.

It's 1931, and Belle Bartholomew has arrived in rural Sweet Wattle Creek to claim her inheritance - a run-down grand hotel formerly owned by Martha Ambrose. Determined to solve the mystery of her birth and the reason why she was bequeathed the hotel, Belle runs into difficulties with the townsfolk and their desire to keep their secrets safe. Sixty years later Sophie Matheson is on a quest to find Belle and her family after discovering the wedding dress. The Sweet Wattle Creek centenary brings more challenges when her past catches up.

This stunning and intoxicating novel speaks of passion and obsession, ranging in setting from an Australian rainforest to Boston and Toronto. A mysterious and elusive love affair haunts the lives of three women in Australia. Twenty years later, on the other side of the world, Charade Ryan sorts through story and counter-story for her father, the legendary Nicholas, and the truth about her origins.

Sam Studley's a bit older and wiser than when you met him in Hold My Hand - Or Else!. But it's a pity he can't say the same for his 15-year-old sister Leanne. No one seems to know where she is. Some kids are saying she's got AIDS and some are saying she's been abducted. Some are saying she's on the run to Kings Cross, some are saying she's a speed freak and gone to a drug rehab centre, and some that she's hiding out at home with chickenpox. But if living with Leanne sounds full on, you should hear about living without her!