Renovations are hell. And that’s before you find the body beneath the floorboards. An intriguing mystery from a stylish new voice in crime fiction, for readers of Kerry Greenwood and Holly Throsby.
Author: The Book Podcast
Presenter/Producer of The Book Podcast from the Northern Beaches of Sydney.
❤️Books, travel, old maps, & typography.
Ep.3/2021 Katherine Firkin – The Girl Remains, Cassie Hamer on Book lists and our book of the month is Lovebirds by amanda hampson
A chilling police thriller set in a small coastal town on the Mornington Peninsula, where the discovery of human bones on an isolated beach has reawakened a twenty-year-old cold case…
Ep.2/2021 Tabitha Bird – The Emporium of imagination, Cassie Hamer with publishing news and our book of the month discussion is Love Objects by Emily Maguire
Welcome to The Emporium of Imagination, a most unusual shop that travels the world offering vintage gifts to repair broken dreams and extraordinary phones to contact lost love ones.
Ep.1/2021 Interview: Lyn Yeowart – the Silent Listener, Cassie hamer’s publishing news, Book of the Month: the Imitator by Rebecca Starford
Propelling the reader back and forth between the 1940s, 1960s and 1980s, The Silent Listener is an unforgettable literary suspense novel set in the dark, gothic heart of rural Australia.
Ep. 171 Blackbirds Sing – Aiki Flinthart, Book & Publishing News with Cassie Hamer, Matilda Bookshop, Stirling, S.A., Writing Conflict and Drama with Lee Kofman,
Four-and-twenty extraordinary women; one chance to save a kingdom.What would you sacrifice to save your family, your loved ones, yourself?
In September 1486, the reign of King Henry VII of England is again threatened by York loyalists. The only thing standing in the way is a four-hundred-year-old sidhe who just wants to be left alone, and a group of London women with a lot to lose if England is plunged back into war.
But, in 1486, women have no power. Only the ability to make difficult choices and sometimes-heartbreaking sacrifices.
Ep.170 Reasonable Doubt by Dr. Xanthe Mallett, Book news with Cassie Hamer, New Edition Bookshop, Lee Kofman on Writing Creative Non-fiction and Emily Brewin’s new online writing courses, Writing Sparks.
‘The good, bad and downright rotten parts of Australia’s criminal justice system are put on trial by Dr Xanthé Mallett. With her clear-eyed logic and
Ep.169 The Lost Jewels by Kirsty Manning, Book News with Cassie Hamer, Writing Class with Lee Kofman and our Bookshop is Myrtle House in Wollombi.
Inspired by a true story, The Lost Jewels unfolds an incredible mystery of thievery, sacrifice and hope through the generations of one family. Writing Class, New releases and our bookshop is Myrtle House in Wollombi NSW
Ep.168 Sticks and Stones by Katherine Firkin, Book News-Cassie Hamer, Writing First pages with Lee Koffman, The BookShop Darwin NT
A terrifying, twisting debut from TV news journalist Katherine Firkin. It’s time for a killer to leave his mark.
Ep. 167 Portable Magic: The Mother Fault, Book news, Typeface Bookshop WA, and Pamela Freeman’s writing class.
Rose and Cassie discuss The Mother Fault by Kate Mildenhall, Cassie brings us industry news and new releases, Bookshop is Typeface Perth, and Pamela Freeman talks about how to create tension and pace in your story.
Ep. 166 The Lost Summers of Driftwood by Vanessa McCausland, Book news with Cassie Hamer, Writing Dialogue – Pamela freeman, Bookshop: Blarney Books & Arts
Is it more dangerous to forget … or to remember? Phoebe’s life has fallen apart and there’s only one place . to go. Alone and
Ep.165 Symphony for the Man by Sarah Brill. New releases with Cassie Hamer. Not Just Books, Burnie Tasmania. Pamela Freeman’s writing class
1999. Winter. Bondi. Harry’s been on the streets so long he could easily forget what time is. So Harry keeps an eye on it. Every
Ep: 164 Carol Lefevre/Bookoccino/Pamela Freeman
In this week’s episode, I talk to Carol LeFevre about her new novella Mummurations. Cassie Hamer talks book news and reviews, Independent bookstore Bookoccino joins us, and Pamela Freeman answers your writing questions.
Ep: 90 Alice Nelson – The Children’s House
Marina and her husband, Jacob were each born on a kibbutz in Israel. They meet years later at a university in California when Jacob is a successful psychiatrist with a young son, Ben, from a disastrous marriage. The family moves to a brownstone in Harlem, formerly a convent inhabited by elderly nuns.
Outside the house one day Marina encounters Constance, a young refugee from Rwanda, and her toddler, Gabriel. Unmoored and devastated, Constance and Gabriel quickly come to depend on Marina; and her bond with the little bot intensifies. The pure, blinding love that it is possible to feel for children not our own is the thread that weaves through The Children’s House.
Rpt. Ep:22 Sarah Bailey – The Dark Lake
A hot summer. A shocking murder. A town of secrets, waiting to explode. A brooding, suspenseful and explosive debut that will grip you from the first page to the last.
Rpt. Ep:25 Sophie Green – The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club
If you loved THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY, THE LITTLE COFFEE SHOP OF KABUL and THE THORN BIRDS you will devour this story of five different women united by one need: to overcome the vast distances of Australia’s Top End with friendship, tears, laughter, books and love.
Rpt: Ep:26 Emma Viskic – And Fire Came Down
Deaf since early childhood, Caleb Zelic used to meet life head-on. Now he’s struggling just to get through the day. His best mate is dead, his ex-wife, Kat, is avoiding him, and nightmares haunt his waking hours. But when a young woman is killed after pleading for his help in sign language, Caleb is determined to find out who she was.
Rpt. Ep: 47 Louise Allan- The Sister’s Song
Set in rural Tasmania from the 1920s to the 1990s, The Sisters’ Song traces the lives of two very different sisters. One for whom giving and loving are her most natural qualities and the other who cannot forgive and forget.
Rpt. Ep: 63 Dervla McTiernan – The Ruin
It’s been twenty years since Cormac Reilly discovered the body of Hilaria Blake in her crumbling Georgian home. But he’s never forgotten the two children she left behind…This unsettling small-town noir draws us deep into the dark heart of Ireland, where corruption, desperation, and crime run rife. A gritty look at trust and betrayal where the written law isn’t the only one, The Ruin asks who will protect you when the authorities can’t–or won’t.
Rpt. Ep.114 Karen Viggers – The Orchardists Daughter
Set in the old-growth eucalypt forests and vast rugged mountains of southern Tasmania, The Orchardist’s Daughter is an uplifting story about friendship, resilience and finding the courage to break free
Rpt Ep: 56 Family Skeleton by Carmel Bird
From inside her Toorak mansion, Margaret, matriarch, widow of Edmund Rice O’Day of O’Day Funerals, secretly surveys her family in the garden. Everyone, including Margaret herself, is oblivious to the secrets that threaten to be uncovered by a visiting American relative who is determined to excavate the O’Day’s family history. How far will Margaret go in order to bury the truth?
Rpt. Ep:30 The Perfect Couple – Lexi Landsman
In this masterful suspense novel, which will appeal to fans of Gone Girl, it’s clear that the truth is not always what it seems . . .
There are secrets in every marriage . . . and some are more dangerous than others.
Rpt: Ep. 19 Carol Baxter “The Fabulous Flying Mrs. Miller’
Petite, glamorous and beguiling, Jessie ‘Chubbie’ Miller was one remarkable woman … flyer, thrill seeker, heartbreaker. No adventure was too wild for her, no danger too extreme. And all over the world, men adored her.
Rpt: Ep 4: Sarah Drummond – The Sound
Wiremu Heke of Aramoana joins a sealing boat on a voyage from Tasmania to Western Australia. He is on a quest to avenge the destruction of his village but soon finds himself a part of the violent and lawless world that has claimed the lives of those he’s known.
Ep.163 The Salt Madonna – Catherine Noske
This is the story of a crime. This is the story of a miracle. There are two stories here.
A page-turning, thought-provoking portrayal of a remote community caught up in a collective moment of madness, of good intentions turned terribly awry. A blistering examination of truth and power, and how we might tell one from the other.
Ep. 162 The Deceptions – Suzanne Leal
Moving from wartime Europe to modern-day Australia, The Deceptions is a powerful story of old transgressions, unexpected revelations and the legacy of lives built on lies and deceit
Inspired by a true story of wartime betrayal, The Deceptions is a searing, compassionate tale of love and duplicity-and family secrets better left buried.
Ep. 161 Unlike The Heart – Nicola Redhouse
In this compelling and insightful memoir, Nicola blends her personal experiences with the historical progression of psychoanalysis. In the end, much like in analysis, it is the careful act of narrative construction that yields the answers.
Ep. 160 Sheerwater – Leah Swann
Emotional, powerful, unforgettable. From a stunning new literary talent, you won’t be able to put down this novel about a mother’s love for her children – it will break your heart.
Ep. 159 The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld
The lives of three women weave together across centuries in the dazzling new book from the author of All the Birds Singing. As each woman’s story unfolds, it becomes increasingly clear that their choices are circumscribed, in ways big and small, by the men who seek to control them. But in sisterhood there is also the possibility of survival and a new way of life
Ep.158 This Place You Know – Christina Houen
Hay, New South Wales, 1923. Martha, a classics scholar from the coast, comes to teach in a man’s town in the outback. She falls in love with Henry, a local man, and they find their dream place on the river where they raise a family and breed a flock of sheep with fine wool. The unforgiving climate erodes their dreams. When Henry leaves, Martha takes on the outside work and learns to drive. Seven-year-old Anna is her main helper and confidante.
Ep.157 Desire Lines – Felicity Volk
Are you still a liar
Set against the uneasy relationship society has with its own truth-telling in history, war and politics, Desire Lines is an epic story of love and the lies we tell ourselves to survive – and a moving reminder that even truths which seem lost forever can find their way home.
Ep.156 The Girl In The Gold Bikini – Lisa Walker
A fun new spin on Nancy Drew and ‘girl detectives’… Engaging, action-packed, fast-paced.
Ep. 155 The Love That Remains – Susan Francis
An extraordinary memoir about secrets, life’s shocking twists and unconditional love.
How could I write about the importance of truth and not tell the whole truth myself?
Ep 154 Charlotte Pass – Lee Christine
When ski patroller Vanessa Bell discovers human bones high on Mount Stillwell at Charlotte Pass ski resort, Detective Sergeant Pierce Ryder of the Sydney Homicide Squad is called in to lead the investigative team. Set within the stunning Snowy Mountains, this intriguing mystery uncovers deadly, long-buried secrets in the valleys and mountains of this iconic area.
Ep.153 Hide by S J Morgan
Like a dark unsettling road movie, Hide takes us on a chilling ride from 80s urban Britain to the menace of the Australian outback.
Surprise Announcement – look who’s dropped in…
I’m thrilled to announce that I am part of the fabulous team bringing you the inaugural Northern Beaches Readers Festival in Avalon Beach NSW this
Ep. 152 The Wailing Woman – Maria Lewis
Sadie Burke has been forced to be a good girl her entire life. As a banshee, she’s the bottom of the ladder when it comes to the supernatural hierarchy. Weak. Condemned. Powerless. Silent. That’s what she and her six sisters have been told their entire lives, since their species was first banished from Ireland.
Ep.151 Maggies Going Nowhere – Rose Hartley
Maggie Cotton’s life is a hot mess.
In one day she’s been dumped by her boyfriend, disinherited by her mum, and been kicked off the three-year degree course she’s stretched to a decade. and that was before she received the letter saying she owed the government $70,000.
But that’s no reason to grow up, is it?
Ep 150 Eight Lives – Susan Hurley
A BRILLIANT YOUNG DOCTOR IS DEAD… AND SOMEONE HAS TO TAKE THE BLAME. Former refugee David Tran becomes the Golden Boy of Australian medical research. He invents a drug that could transform immunology. Eight volunteers are recruited for the first human trial, a crucial step on the path to global fame for David and windfall gains for his investors. But when David dies in baffling circumstances, motives are put under the microscope.
Ep 149 You Don’t Know Me – Sara Foster
He’s guarding a dark secret, but so is she. Is the truth worth telling if it will destroy everything?
Ep. 148 Otherwise Known As Pig – Catch Tilley
Life sucks for Morgan Lohdi, otherwise known as Pig.
Used as the school punching bag he’s bruised and harassed and doesn’t have anything resembling a friend. Maybe it would be OK if he could keep his mouth shut. But Morgan has a sarcastic tongue that others don’t find funny.
Summer Edition – Love and Other Battles by Tess Woods
Three generations of women. Three heartbreaking choices. One unforgettable story.
Summer Edition – The Scholar by Dervla McTiernan
Being brilliant has never been this dangerous…
When Dr Emma Sweeney stumbles across the victim of a hit and run outside Galway University late one evening, she calls her partner, Detective Cormac Reilly, bringing him first to the scene of a murder that would otherwise never have been assigned to him.
Summer Edition – After The Party by Cassie Hamer
An unexpected gift left at her daughter’s fifth birthday party in the form of a little girl pitches Sydney mum Lisa Wheeldon into events both hilarious and life-changing.
Liane Moriarty meets Marian Keyes with a touch of Christos Tsiolkas’s The Slap in this hilarious, touching and clever novel that asks what wouldn’t you do to save a child?
Summer Edition – Sandie Docker The Cottage at Rosella Cove.
Welcome to the place of new beginnings…
Why had the house stayed empty so long? Why had it never been sold? Lost, Found, Forgotten – Welcome to The Cottage at Rosella Cove, where three damaged souls meet and have the chance to rewrite their futures.
Summer Edition – Candice Fox, Redemption Point
The sequel to Candice Fox’s stunning breakout novel Crimson Lake, which Lee Child described as ‘one of the best thrillers of the year’.
Ep. 147 The Yield – Tara June Winch
Profoundly moving and exquisitely written, Tara June Winch’s The Yield is the story of a people and a culture dispossessed. But it is as much a celebration of what was and what endures, and a powerful reclaiming of Indigenous language, storytelling and identity.
Ep. 146 Wearing Paper Dresses – Anne Brinsden
Elise isn’t from the Mallee, and she knew nothing of its ways. Over the years Marjorie’s mother’s seesaws between fragile health and madness but events finally overwhelm her and her daughters.
Ep. 145 The Unforgiving City – Maggie Joel
Secrets and lies throw three lives into chaos in the last days of the nineteenth century.
Ep. 144 Hitch – Kathryn Hind
Hitch is a raw exploration of consent and its ambiguities, personal agency and the choices we make. It’s the story of twenty-something Amelia and her dog Lucy hitchhiking from one end of the country to the other, trying to outrun grief and trauma, and moving ever closer to the things she longs to escape.
Ep.143 The Orange Grove – Kate Murdoch
“The Orange Grove vividly recreates the lives, loves and fears of aristocratic women at the turn of the 18th century. Intrigues, jealousies, and the terror of being dependent on the whims of a selfish duc…the ladies of the chateau are brought alive in Kate Murdoch’s fascinating second novel.”
Ep: 142 Joan Smokes – Angela Meyer
Joan Smokes is set in the early 1960s and centres on a woman who attempts to escape the past by travelling to Las Vegas. It tackles themes of reinvention, grief, trauma and love.
Ep. 141 Lapse – Sarah Thornton
All it took was a lapse…a momentary lapse…to bring Clementine Jones’ world crashing down. Now she’s living like a hermit in small-town Katinga, coaching the local footy club. She’s supposed to be lying low, but here she is, with her team on the cusp of their first premiership in fifty years—and the whole bloody town counting on her, cheering her on.
Ep: 140 Going Under – Sonia Henry
A darkly funny and sexy novel that blows the lid off the medical profession and life inside a hospital by a young doctor whose anonymous article about the pressures of trainee doctors went viral around the world.
Ep.139 The Burnt Country – Joy Rhoades
Australia 1948. As a young woman running Amiens, a sizeable sheep station in New South Wales, Kate Dowd knows she’s expected to fail. And her grazier neighbour is doing his best to ensure she does, attacking her method of burning off to repel a bushfire. Soon Kate is putting out fires on all fronts to save her farm, keep her family together and protect the man she loves. Then a catastrophic real fire threatens everything . . .
Ep.138 A Letter from Paris – Louisa Deasey
When Louisa Deasey receives a message from a Frenchwoman called Coralie, who has found a cache of letters in an attic, written about Louisa’s father, neither woman can imagine the events it will set in motion.
Ep.137 A Lifetime of Impossible Days – Tabitha Bird
Meet Willa Waters, aged 8 . . . 33 . . . and 93. On one impossible day in… 1965, eight-year-old Willa Waters receives a mysterious box containing a jar of water and the instruction: ‘One ocean: plant in the backyard.’ So she does – and somehow creates an extraordinary time-slip that allows her to visit her future selves
Ep. 134 The Accusation – Wendy James
Crime. After eighteen-year-old Ellie Canning is found shivering and barely conscious on a country road, her bizarre story of kidnap and escape enthrals the nation. Who would do such a thing? And why?
Ep. 136 My Name Is Revenge – Ashley Kalagian Blunt
Thriller: A literary thriller novella set in 1980s Sydney and drawn from true events, including a series of international terrorist attacks, My Name is Revenge is the story of a young man seeking justice, plus essays on the Armenian genocide.
Ep.135 The Emerald Tablet – Meaghan Wilson Anastasios
Adventure: The Suez Canal, 1956. The world teeters on the brink of nuclear war and the Middle East is a tinderbox.
Conversely, redeemed archaeologist Benedict Hitchens is enjoying a peaceful existence after years in the professional and personal wilderness.But Ben’s natural inclination towards self-sabotage is never far below the surface. When he learns that the woman who betrayed him is leading a team into the Sinai Desert in search of an ancient treasure, he puts everything at risk to seek his revenge.
Ep. 133 Where The Dead Go – Sarah Bailey
Suspensful crime thriller. The final book in the award winning Det. Gemma Woodstock trilogy. Four years after the events of Into the Night, DS Gemma Woodstock is on the trail of a missing girl in a small coastal town.
Ep.132 Love and Other Battles – Tess Woods
Three generations of women. Three heartbreaking choices. One unforgettable story.
Ep.131 Dr. Space Junk vs The Universe, Archaeology and the Future – Dr. Alice Gorman
Going boldly forth as a pioneer in the fledgling field of space archaeology, Dr Alice Gorman (aka Dr Space Junk) turns the common perception of archaeology as an exploration of the ancient on its head.
Ep. 130 The Sparkle Pages – Meg Bignell
A wonderfully original and heartfelt comic novel about one woman’s mission to reignite the passion in her marriage – and rediscover herself.
Ep. 129 – Small Blessings – Emily Brewin
Small Blessings is a poignant and uplifting novel of secrets, motherhood, innocence and heartache, and ultimately what we’re willing to do for love.
Ep.128 Melody Trumpet/The Intern/Faking It/Remind Me How This Ends/Peas and Quiet – Gabrielle Tozer
Melody Trumpet was never supposed to be ordinary. As the daughter of famous musicians she was supposed to be extraordinary. A musical genius to carry
Ep. 127 Six Minutes by Petronella McGovern
How can a child disappear from under the care of four playgroup mums?
One Thursday morning, Lexie Parker dashes to the shop for biscuits, leaving Bella in the safe care of the other mums in the playgroup.
Six minutes later, Bella is gone.
Ep. 126 It’s Not About Me – Sally Hetherington
“I realised that for organisations to be sustainable, they needed to be run by local staff. And for local staff to run organisations, they needed to be empowered.”
Good Intentions aren’t always good enough.
Ep. 125 A Universe of Sufficient Size – Miriam Sved
Budapest, 1938. In a city park, beneath a bleakly looming statue, five Jewish mathematicians gather to share ideas, trade proofs and whisper sedition. Expelled from the university and persecuted by the state’s laws, they live in an uneasy but not unhappy bubble of work, friendship and slim plans of escape.
Ep: 124 Allegra In Three Parts by Suzanne Daniel
I can split myself in two . . . something I have to do because of Joy and Matilde. They are my grandmothers and I love them both and they totally love me but they can’t stand each other. Eleven-year-old Allegra shuttles between her grandmothers who live next door to one another but couldn’t be more different.
Ep: 123 Imperfect by Lee Kofman
By the time she was eleven and living in the Soviet Union, Lee Kofman had undergone several major operations on both a defective heart and injuries sustained in a bus accident. Her body harbours a constellation of disfiguring scars that have shaped her sense of self and her view of the world. But it wasn’t until she moved to Israel and later to Australia that she came to think these markings weren’t badges of honour to flaunt but were, in fact, imperfections that needed to be hidden away.
Ep: 122 The Cottage at Rosella Cove by Sandie Docker
THE COTTAGE AT ROSELLA COVE
Welcome to the place of new beginnings…
Welcome to the cottage at Rosella Cove, where three damaged souls meet and have the chance to rewrite their futures.
Ep. 121 The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone
A compulsive, note-perfect debut for fans of The Virgin Suicides and Picnic at Hanging Rock‘We lost all three girls that summer. Let them slip away like the words of some half-remembered song and when one came back, she wasn’t the one we were trying to recall to begin with.’
Ep. 120 Unbreakable Threads
The remarkable true story of an Australian mother’s fight to free an unaccompanied Hazara boy from detention, and include him in her family.An extraordinary story of courage and kindness and the ultimate triumph of family over what, at times, seem like insurmountable odds.
Ep. 119 The Bus on Thursday by Shirley Barrett
Bridget Jones meets The Exorcist in a devilishly funny new novel from the acclaimed filmmaker, screenwriter and author of Rush Oh!That’s when I literally had thoughts of becoming a nun, because I thought, Well, I’m never going to have sex again. If I become a nun, I would at least have somewhere to live.It wasn’t just the bad break-up that caused Eleanor’s life to unravel. It was the cancer. And the demons that came with it.
Ep. 118 The Killing of Louisa by Janet Lee
To lose one husband may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like murder. In New South Wales in 1888, Louisa Collins was
Ep. 117 Home Fires – Fiona Lowe
When a lethal bushfire tore through Myrtle, nestled in Victoria’s breathtaking Otway Ranges, the town’s buildings – and the lives of its residents – were left as smouldering ash. For three women in particular, the fire fractured their lives and their relationships. With her sharp eye for human foibles, bestselling author Fiona Lowe writes an evocative tale of everyday people fighting for themselves, their families and their town – as only this distinctively Australian storyteller can.
Ep.116 The Mother-In-Law – Sally Hepworth
Someone once told me that you have two families in your life – the one you are born into and the one you choose. Yes, you may get to choose your partner, but you don’t choose your mother-in-law. The cackling mercenaries of fate determine it all. From the bestselling author of The Family Next Door comes a new page-turner about that trickiest of relationships, The Mother In Law
Ep. 115 Half Moon Lake – Kirsten Alexander
On a summer’s day in Louisiana, 1913, Sonny Davenport wanders away from his family’s vacation home at Half Moon Lake and never returns. Inspired by a true story, Half Moon Lake is a captivating novel about the parent-child bond, identity and what it means to be part of a family.
Ep. 113 Dervla McTiernan – The Scholar
Being brilliant has never been this dangerous…When Dr Emma Sweeney stumbles across the victim of a hit and run outside Galway University late one evening, she calls her partner, Detective Cormac Reilly, bringing him first to the scene of a murder that would otherwise never have been assigned to him. Cormac is forced to question his own objectivity. Could his loyalty to Emma have led him to overlook evidence? Has it made him a liability?
Ep 112 Cassie Hamer – After The Party
An unexpected gift left at her daughter’s fifth birthday party in the form of a little girl pitches Sydney mum Lisa Wheeldon into events both hilarious and life-changing. What sort of mother abandons her child? And why has she chosen the Wheeldons?
Ep.111 Natasha Lester – The French Photographer
Crossing a war-torn Europe from Italy to France, The French Photographer is a story of courage, family and forgiveness, by the bestselling author of The Paris Seamstress and A Kiss from Mr Fitzgerald.
Ep 110 Kate Richards – Fusion
Lyrical and poetic, Fusion is a unique and haunting modern-gothic tale that has at its hear questions of selfhood, dependency, difference and love.
Ep.109 Anna Snoekstra – Spite Game
Getting even is a long game. Mercilessly bullied in high school, Ava knows she needs to put the past behind her and move on, but she can’t – not until she’s exacted precise, catastrophic revenge on the people who hurt her the most.
Ep.108 Esther Campion – The House of Second Chances
Can a house heal heartache? From coastal Australia to the rugged beauty of Ireland, an enchanting novel of starting over, in the tradition of Maeve Binchy and Monica McInerney
Ep.107 Molly Murn – Heart of the Grass Tree
Heart of the Grass Tree is an exquisite, searing and hope-filled debut about mothers and daughters and family stories, about country and its living history, set on beautiful Kangaroo Island.
Ep.106 Sarah Myles – The Wolf Hour
Tessa Lowell is in Uganda doing postdoctoral research on child soldiers when her family learn she has gone missing, abducted by rebels. A tense thriller set in East Africa.
Ep.105 Claire Varley – The Book of Ordinary People
A magical portrait of five ordinary people, and the sometimes heartbreaking power of the stories we make of ourselves.
Ep. 104 Meaghan Wilson-Anastasios – The Honourable Thief
Dan Brown meets Indiana Jones in this action-packed historical adventure novel by bestselling co-author of The Water Diviner.
Ep. 103 S A Jones – The Fortress
Jonathon’s arrival at The Fortress begins with a recitation of the conditions of his stay: he is forbidden to ask questions, to raise his hand in anger, and to refuse sex. Enter the world of the Vaik.
Ep.102 Carrie Cox – Afternoons with Harvey Beam
After forging a big-city career in talkback radio, Harvey is now experiencing a ‘positional hiatus’. The words aren’t coming out right, Harvey’s mojo is fading and a celebrity host is eyeing his timeslot. His father is dying and its finally time for Harvey to head home to face a different kind of music.
Ep.101 Kayte Nunn – The Botanist’s Daughter
In Victorian England, a perilous sea voyage, unforeseen dangers and treachery threaten a female botanist and her family. Present day; Anna sets out on a path far from her safe, carefully ordered life, and on a journey that will force her to face her own demons.
Ep.100 Susan Midalia – The Art of Persuasion
A witty tender comedy of manners that also has a political bite.
Voting open now for The Book Podcast on the Australian Podcast Awards
The Australian Podcast Awards are open now for voting. If you have enjoyed the podcast please consider voting for The Book Podcast. Thank you for
Ep.99 Jay Martin – Vodka and Apple Juice
Disarmingly funny account of a undiplomatic wife in Poland
Ep: 98 Sonya Voumard – The Media and the Massacre, plus Skin in the Game
The Media and the Massacre is a chilling portrayal of journalism, betrayal, and storytelling surrounding the 1996 Port Arthur massacre. Skin in the Game, Stella Prize long-listed author Sonya Voumard, is an original, incisive and hugely entertaining memoir of her life in journalism
Ep: 97 Tania Chandler – Please Don’t Leave Me Here
Is Brigitte a loving wife and mother, or a cold-blooded killer?
Nobody knows why she was in the east of the city so early on the morning she was left for dead by a hit-and-run driver. It was the Friday before Christmas 1994 – the same day police discovered the body of a man beaten to death in her apartment
Ep: 96 Pamela Hart – The Desert Nurse
Amid the Australian Army hospitals of World War 1 Egypt, two deeply determined individuals find the resilience of their love tested to its limits.
From the casualty tents the fever wards and the operating theatres of the palace; through the streets of Caio during Ramadan, to the parched desert and the grim realities of war, Pamela Hart beloved bestselling Australian author of THE WAR BRIDE, tells the heart-wrenching store of four years that changed the world forever.
Ep: 95 B M Carroll – The Missing Pieces of Sophie McCarthy
Sophie is the victim, but is she so innocent? A gripping exploration of betrayal and revenge.
Ep: 94 Sue Williams – Live and Let Fry
For Cass Tuplin, proprietor of the Rusty Bore Takeaway (and definitely not an unlicensed private investigator), its weird enough that her neighbour Vern has somehow acquired a lady friend. But then he asks Cass to look into the case of the dead rats someone’s dumped on Joanne’s doorstep. Cass is back on the case!
Ep:93 Belinda Castles – Bluebottle
On a sweltering day in a cliff-top beach shack, Jack & Lou Bright grow suspicious about the behaviour of their charismatic, unpredictable father, Charlie. A girl they know has disappeared, and as the day unfolds, Jack’s eruptions of panic, Lou’s sultry rebellions and their little sister Phoebe’s attention-seeking push the family towards revelation.
Ep: 92 Victoria Purman – The Last of the Bonegilla Girls
A post-Second World War story of strong female ties and family, secrets and lies, set in the multicultural Australia of the fifties.
The war is over, but her fight for a new life in Australia is about to begin…
Ep: 91 Kelly Rimmer – Before I Let You Go
Your sister needs you. But her child needs you more… Before I Let You Go is a moving page-turner with a heart-pounding dilemma: Your sister or her baby. Who do you choose?
Ep: 90 Alice Nelson – The Children’s House
Marina and her husband, Jacob were each born on a kibbutz in Israel. They meet years later at a university in California when Jacob is a successful psychiatrist with a young son, Ben, from a disastrous marriage. The family moves to a brownstone in Harlem, formerly a convent inhabited by elderly nuns.
Outside the house one day Marina encounters Constance, a young refugee from Rwanda, and her toddler, Gabriel. Unmoored and devastated, Constance and Gabriel quickly come to depend on Marina; and her bond with the little bot intensifies. The pure, blinding love that it is possible to feel for children not our own is the thread that weaves through The Children’s House.
Ep: 89 Glenda Guest – A Week In The Life of Cassandra Aberline
After forty-five years in Sydney, Cassandra Aberline returns to her home town in the Western Australian wheat belt in the same way she left: on the Indian Pacific train.
As they cross the emptiness of the vast Australian inland, Cassie travels back through her memories, too, frightened that she’s about to lose them forever—and with them, her last chance to answer the question that has haunted her almost all her life.
Ep: 88 Eileen Ormsby – The Darkest Web
WARNING: This episode deals with dark and disturbing issues. Please use discretion. It is not suitable for children.
Drugs, death and destroyed lives … the inside story of the internet’s evil twin
Hitmen for hire, drugs for sale. Inside the dangerous world that lurks beneath the bright, friendly light of your internet screen.
Ep: 87 J D Barrett – The Upside of Over
What happens when one of the country’s most popular identities goes from reading the news to being the news?
Olivia Law had always been the good girl. Great grades, perfect career, husband, house and hairdo. She’d learnt image was everything so she refused to look below the surface of her life. When not at work, her minutes were filled with causes, chairing boards and dining at fabulous restaurants with her equally fabulous husband, David. She kept up the Botox, blow-dries and worked hard. It wasn’t enough, but whenever doubt crept in she’d head to a pilates class or plan a renovation on her trophy house.
Then she turned 45…
Bonus episode: Willow Willpower by Sarah Cannata
Willow Willpower has big dreams. Ever since she can remember, she’s dreamt of flying high in the sky. When Willow’s mum takes her daughter to the local museum, Willow gets to know the aviation legend, Amelia Earhart. It soon becomes obvious to her: she wants to become a pilot like Amelia and travel around the world.
Ep: 86 Joy Rhodes – The Woolgrowers Companion
Australia 1945.
Until now Kate Dowd has led a sheltered life on Amiens, her family’s sprawling sheep station in northern New South Wales. The horrors of war have for the most part left her untouched. But with her father succumbing to wounds he’s borne since the Great War, the management of the farm is increasingly falling on Kate’s shoulders
Ep:85 D.M Cameron – Beneath the Mother Tree
A spine-chilling mystery and contemporary love story, Beneath the Mother Tree plays out in a unique and wild Australian setting, interweaving Indigenous history and Irish mythology.
Ep: 84 Kerry Tucker -The Prisoner
Kery Tucker seemed to be a typical suburban mother of two, but she had a terrible secret: she had been stealing money from her employers.
When her offence was discovered it was reported to be the biggest white-collar crime committed by a female in Victoria, and she was sentenced to seven years in a maximum-security prison, alongside the state’s most notorious criminals. Being incarcerated with drug dealers and murderers, however, was not nearly as daunting as having to tell her two young daughters why she was leaving them. The shame was almost unbearable.
Bonus episode: Madeleine St. John Women in Black – Ladies in Black Movie by Bruce Beresford
MADELEINE ST JOHN was born in Sydney in 1941. Her father, Edward, was a barrister and Liberal politician. Her mother, Sylvette, committed suicide in 1954,
Ep: 83 Lois Murphy – Soon
An almost deserted town in the middle of nowhere, Nebulah’s days of mining and farming prosperity – if they ever truly existed – are long gone. These days even the name on the road sign into town has been removed. Yet for Pete, an ex-policeman, Milly, Li and a small band of others, it’s the only place they have ever felt at home.
Ep:82 Heather Morris – The Tattooist of Auschwitz
The incredible story of the Auschwitz-Birkenau tattooist and the woman he loved.
Lale Sokolov is well dressed, a charmer, a ladies man. He is also a Jew. On the first transport from Slovakia to Auschwitz in 1942, Late immediately stands out to his fellow prisoners. In the camp, he is looked up to, looked out for and put to work in the privileged position of Tatowierer – the tattooist – to mark his fellow prisoners, forever. One of them is a young woman, Gita, who steals his heart at first glance.
His life is given new purpose, Lale does his best through the struggle and suffering to use his position for good.
Ep: 81 Bridie Jabour – The Way Things Should Be
Claudia is getting married in a week. Well, she’s 85% sure she is getting married in a week. Maybe 75%… First, she must return home
Ep: 80 Alli Sinclair – Burning Fields
1948 The world is struggling to regain a sense of balance after the devastation of World War II, and the sugar cane-growing community of Piri River in northern Queensland is no exception. Rosie Stanton finds it difficult to return to the family farm after years working for the Australian Women’s Army Service. Reminders are everywhere of the brothers she lost in the war and she is unable to understand her father’s contempt for Italians, especially the Conti family next door. When her father takes ill, Rosie challenges tradition by managing the farm, but outside influences are determined to see her fail. When a long-hidden family secret is discovered and Tomas’s mysterious past is revealed, everything Rosie believes is shattered. Will she risk all to rebuild her family or will she lose the only man she’s ever loved?
Ep: 79 Susi Fox – Mine
You wake up alone after an emergency caesarean, desperate to see your child. And when you are shown the small infant in the nursery, a terrible thought takes root: THIS BABY IS NOT YOUR BABY
Ep: 78 – Vanessa Carnevale – The Memories That Make Us
One moment can change your life. When Gracie Ashcroft wakes after a crash with severe amnesia, she must choose whether to live a life through other people’s memories or to start a new life all her own.
Ep: 77 Danielle Clode – The Wasp and the Orchid
Edith Coleman was the foremost female naturalist of her generation. She would solve a mystery that had even bewildered Darwin. Today, she is almost entirely forgotten, save by a handful of scientists and naturalists. Award winning author Danielle Clode presents the life of one of Australia’s foremost naturalists Edith Coleman and the story of the quest to recover her from the footnotes of history.
Ep: 76 Magdalena McGuire – Home is Nearby
1980: the beginning of the polish Crisis. Brough up in a small village, country-girl Ania arrives in the university city of Wroclaw to pursue her
Ep: 75 Kate Murdoch – Stone Circle
Is the ability to read minds a blessing or a curse?
When Antonius’s father dies, he must work to support his family. He finds employment as a servant in the Palazzo Ducal, home of Conte Valperga. Sixteenth-century Pesaro is a society governed by status, and Antonius has limited opportunities.When a competition is announced, Antonius seizes his chance.
Ep: 74 Michelle Scott Tucker – Elizabeth Macarthur, a life at the edge of the world.
In 1788 a young gentle woman raised in the vicarage of an English village married a handsome, haughty and penniless army officer. In any Jane Austen novel that would be the end of the story, but for the real-life woman who would play an integral part in establishing Australia’s wool industry it was just the beginning. A fascinating, faithful portrait of a remarkable woman and the young, volatile colony she helped to build.
Ep: 73 Kirsty Manning – The Jade Lily
A compelling and gorgeously told tale of female friendship, the price of love, and the power of hardship and courage to shape us all.
Ep: 72 Natasha Lester – The Paris Seamstress
How much will a young Parisian seamstress sacrifice to make her mark in the male-dominated world of 1940s New York fashion? Crossing generations, society’s boundaries and international turmoil, THE PARIS SEAMSTRESS is the beguiling, transporting story of the special relationship between a grandmother and her granddaughter as they attempt to heal the heartache of the past.
Ep: 71 Susan Green – How Bright Are All Things Here
Drama is a hard habit to break, and besides, life is awfully dull when it’s naked and truthful.
Glamorous, charismatic Bliss Henderson has led a flawed, fascinating life; from country Australia to the art world of 1960s London; from lust to love and loss.
Ep:70 Nadia King – Jenna’s Truth
Jenna’s just a teenager who wants to fit in.
The popularity that she wanted though, quickly turns into infamy when two “well-meaning” friends spark a controversy that alters her life forever.
What happens when the popular kids are responsible for one of the most painful and humiliating events in your life?
Ep:69 Lia Weston – You Wish
Sometimes imagination is not enough.
Thomas Lash grants secret wishes . . . on-screen, that is.
White wedding gone horribly wrong and need to swap the groom? Never went to university but must have a graduation photo? Need to create a fake family for that job interview? Problem solved with expert Photoshopping and Tom’s peculiar ability to know exactly what you desire.
Ep:68 Anne Buist – This I Would Kill For
Psychiatrist Natalie King is the expert witness in a vicious child custody battle, and the stakes are high. Getting it wrong means handing a child over to an abuser—or depriving that child of the only father she knows.
Ep:67 Holly Ringland – The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart
The most enchanting debut novel of 2018, this is an irresistible, deeply moving and romantic story of a young girl, daughter of an abusive father, who has to learn the hard way that she can break the patterns of the past, live on her own terms and find her own strength.
Ep: 66 Miranda Riwoe – The Fish Girl
Sparked by the description of a ‘Malay trollope’ in W. Somerset Maugham’s story, ‘The Four Dutchmen’, Mirandi Riwoe’s novella, The Fish Girl tells of an Indonesian girl whose life is changed irrevocably when she moves from a small fishing village to work in the house of a Dutch merchant.
There she finds both hardship and tenderness as her traditional past and colonial present collide.
Ep: 65 Shirley Patton – The Secrets We Keep
A mother’s secret, a father’s betrayal, a town on the edge…
When social worker Aimee arrives in the mining town of Kalgoorlie, she is ready for a fresh start. But Aimee has a dark secret and as the past reaches out towards her once more, she realises that somehow her secret is connected to this unfamiliar but hardly beautiful town and its inhabitants.
Ep: 64 Katherine Kovacic – The Portrait of Molly Dean
Based on a true story. A swirl of history, art, intrigue and murder that brings 1930s Melbourne Australia to life. An unsolved murder comes to light after almost seventy years…
Ep: 63 Dervla McTiernan – The Ruin
It’s been twenty years since Cormac Reilly discovered the body of Hilaria Blake in her crumbling Georgian home. But he’s never forgotten the two children she left behind…
Ep: 62 Michelle Johnston – Dustfall
Dustfall is the tale of the crushing consequences of medical error, the suffering caused by asbestos mining and the power of storytelling.
Ep: 61 Sally Hepworth – The Family Next Door
The safest suburbs often hold the deepest secrets. such is the case for Essie, a mother of two. In a moment of maternal despair she once made a terrible mistake, one she will always regret. Essie has since recovered, but she fears what may still lurk inside her.
Ep:60 Eleanor Limprecht – The Passengers
Sarah and Hannah are on a cruise from San Diego, California to Sydney Australia. Sarah Hannah’s grandmother , is returning to the country of her birth, a place she hasn’t seen since boarding the USS Mariposa in 1945. She, along with countless other war brides, sailed across the Pacific to join the american Servicemen they’d married during World War II.
Ep: 59 Fiona Lowe – Birthright
Is an inheritance a privilege or a right? Award-winning Australian author Fiona Lowe returns with a gripping family saga, set against the backdrop of Victoria’s
Ep:58 Anna Snoekstra – Little Secrets
A town reeling in the wake of tragedy.
An arsonist is on the loose in Colmstock, Australia, most recently burning down the town’s courthouse and killing a young boy who was trapped inside.
An aspiring journalist desperate for a story.
The clock is ticking for Rose Blakey. With nothing but rejections from newspapers piling up, her job pulling beers for cops at the local tavern isn’t enough to even cover rent. Rose needs a story—a big one.
Then a bizarre mystery that baffles police…
Ep: 57 Kali Napier – The Secrets at the Ocean’s Edge
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 begin to build a summer guesthouse. But forming new alliances with the locals isn’t easy.
Ep: 56 Carmel Bird – Family Skeleton
From inside her Toorak mansion, Margaret, matriarch, widow of Edmund Rice O’Day of O’Day Funerals, secretly surveys her family in the garden. Everyone, including Margaret herself, is oblivious to the secrets that threaten to be uncovered by a visiting American relative who is determined to excavate the O’Day’s family history. How far will Margaret go in order to bury the truth?
Ep: 55 Debra Oswald – The Whole Bright Year
From the creator of ‘Offspring’ and author of Useful, a gripping, wry and tender novel about how holding on too tightly can cost us what we love.
Ep: 54 Tanya Bretherton – The Suitcase Baby
In Sydney in the 1920s, babies were turning up in the harbour, on trains, and in public places. These babies, all murdered, mostly by their mothers, were a devastating symptom of changing morals and a growing metropolis.
Ep:53 Candice Fox – Redemption Point
#1 New York Times bestselling author Candice Fox delivers a compulsive new crime thriller, which sees Ted Conkaffey once again teaming up with an unlikely partner – this time the father of the girl he was accused of abducting . .
Ep: 52 Tracy Sorensen – The Lucky Galah
It’s 1969 and a remote Australian coastal town is poised to play its part in the Moon Landing. An influx of expat NASA employees working at the tracking station on the sand dune just out of town shake things up. A pink and grey galah cockatoo emerges from a cage at the back door of the Kelly household and uncovers some tightly-held secrets.
Ep: 51 Téa Cooper – The Naturalist’s Daughter
A woman’s bungled act of kindness sparks a chain of events that reverberates through the generations uncovering secrets, lies and the biggest scientific controversy of the nineteenth century, the classification of the platypus.
Ep: 50 Tammy Robinson – Differently Normal
For Maddy, life is all about routine. It has to be, to keep her autistic sister happy and healthy. With just Maddy and her mother as Bee’s full time carers, there’s no time in Maddy’s life for complications like friends, let alone a boyfriend.
Ep:49 Sarah Krasnostein – The Trauma Cleaner
Before she was a Trauma Cleaner, Sandra Pankhurst was many things: husband and father, drag queen, sex reassignment patient, sex worker, small businesswoman, trophy wife…But as a little boy, raised in violence and excluded from the family home, she just wanted to belong. Now she believes her clients deserve no less.
Ep: 48 Taryn Bashford – The Harper Effect
YA novel. Welcome to the world of elite tennis. High stakes, hard work, and even greater sacrifices. 16 year old Harper Hunter has been working towards a grand slam championship all her life. But does she have what it takes to keep chasing her dream?
Ep: 47 Louise Allan- The Sister’s Song
Set in rural Tasmania from the 1920s to the 1990s, The Sisters’ Song traces the lives of two very different sisters. One for whom giving and loving are her most natural qualities and the other who cannot forgive and forget.
Ep:46 Tess Evans – The Ballad of Banjo Crossing
Jack McPhail is a man on the run from his past, a drifter who lands by accident in the sleepy rural town of Banjo Crossing in the fertile region known as The Plains.
Despite himself, Jack becomes slowly drawn into the town, its community, its characters and its concerns. Nevertheless, acceptance of this newcomer is based on a lie, and Jack fears rejection should someone discover the truth.
Ep: 45 Glenna Thomson – Stella and Margie
A beautiful novel about two women – a generation apart – thrown together by circumstance, who slowly come to love and understand one another.
Stella and her mother-in-law Margie are two very different women. Stella is kind, compassionate and just a little chaotic. Margie is prickly, demanding and a stickler for convention. Stella has exciting dreams for the future. Margie has only bitter memories of the past.
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