Palace of tears

Title: Palace of Tears

Author: Leatherdale, Julian
Narrator: Ming-Zhu, Hii
Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Publisher: Tullamarine, Victoria : Bolinda Audio
Release Year: 2015
Set in: Hydro Majestic Hotel, Blue Mountain, NSW


About the Book:
In 2013, Adam's granddaughter Lisa started to explore her family history and found that Angie was the key role to uncover the secret of the Fox family. A story started in 1914 with passion and revenge, loyalty and love.
Adam Fox was the owner of the Palace, a ridiculous sprawling luxury hotel in the Blue Mountain of New South Wales. In 1914 his only son died, and suspicion fell on Angie Wood.
"It was Angie who broke all our hearts." What happened to her?

This mystery novel reflects 20th-century Australian society on some degree, and it delves into little-known aspects such as the treatment during WWI of people who had either German ancestry or family connections and were sent to concentration camps and then deported.

(The street view of Hydro Majestic Hotel today)

   

The blue mile

Title: The Blue Mile
Author: Kelly, Kim
Narrator: Ellerton-Ashley, Zoe & Harvy, James
Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Publisher: Tullamarine, Victoria : Bolinda Audio
Release Year: 2014
Set in: 1930s, Harbour Bridge, North Sydney, NSW


About the Book:
Beginning in late 1929, on the north side of Sydney at Lavender Bay, the story of The Blue Miles started as the alternate first person perspectives of Eoghan and Olivia.

A job on the Harbour Bridge for Eoghan, designing couture for Governor's wife for Olivia, unexpected meeting in the Botanic Gardens. An unconventional romance started.

With little in common, hugely differing backgrounds and obstacles seemingly to large to hurdle, Eoghan and Olivia battle on with their own agendas and issues. Will it be a happy ending?

Fast paced and with a sprinkling of historical facts about the bridge and the Great Depression. The Blue Mile is a story that will engage the romantics out there.

(Street view of Harbour Bridge today)

Love in the years of lunacy

Title: Love in the years of lunacy
Author: Sayer, Mandy, 1963-
Narrator: Hood, Kate
Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Publisher: Tullamarine, Victoria : Bolinda Audio
Release Year: 2014
Set in: 1940s, Sydney, NSW

About the Book:
Sydney, 1942. Pearl was eighteen, beautiful and impetuous. She played saxophone in an all-girl jazz band at the Trocadero.

One day she sneaked into the blacks-only Booker T Washington Club, and she was mesmerised by James Washington, a black GI and sax player, and the romance started.

Award-winning Australian novelist and memoirist Sayer has created a compelling and layered Pacific WWII love story, a moving and tender story of forbidden love.

About this book from Mandy Sayer

video from Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3GNutjzz_E

Girl of shadows

Title: Girl of shadows
Series: Convict girls, 2
Author: Challinor, Deborah
Narrator: Duff, Helen
Length: 14 hrs and 30 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Publisher: [Sydney] : Wavesound Pty Ltd
Release Year: 2015
Set in: 1830s, Sydney, Australia


About the Book:
In 1830, Convict girls Friday Woolfe, Harriet Clarke and Sarah Morgan had been transported to Sydney from London. Sarah had been assigned to jeweler Adam Green, Harriet was a maid for the Barrett family, and Friday was working as a prostitute in a brothel. They all were struggling to forget the brutal crime they committed.

The adventures of the convict women continue in this sequel to Behind the Sun. Philippa Gregory met Bryce Courtenay as Sydney's history came vividly to life. What had they done? what had she and Sarah and Friday done?

Convict Barrack Sydney N.S. Wales [ca. 1820] by Paul K

Miles off course

Title: Miles off course
Series: Rowland Sinclair novels, 3
Author: Gentill, Sulari
Narrator: Stevenson, Kaye
Audiobook
Publisher: Queensland Narrating Service
Release Year: 2012
Set in: 1930s, Blue Mountain, NSW


About the Book:
It centers around artist Rowland 'Rowly' Sinclair and his artist friends in 1930s Australia. Rowland spends his days painting and living off the wealth of pastoral family, that's is until he is enlisted by his older brother Wilfred to help track down his family's most trusted and oldest stock-man, an aboriginal tracker called Harry Simpson.

This leads Rowland and his bohemian friends into an ever deepening mystery, that goes further than the missing stock-man, involving kidnapping and betrayal in the Australian High Country under the backdrop of politics of the era.

Behind the sun

Title: Behind the sun
Series: Convict girls, 1
Author: Challinor, Deborah
Narrator: Duff, Helen
Length: 14 hrs
Unabridged Audiobook
Publisher: Sydney Wavesound Pty Ltd
Release Year: 2015
Set in: 1830s, Sydney, NSW

About the Book:
As the individual lives of four young London women slowly came together, they finally met in the notorious Newgate jail to wait for the transportation.

on the voyage to New South Wales, their friendship became an unbreakable -- but there are others on board who will change their lives forever.

When they finally arrive on the other side of the world, they are confined to the grim and overcrowded Parramatta Female Factory. But worse is to come as the threat of separation looms. In the land behind the sun, the only thing they have is each other...

Empire day

Title: Empire day
Author: Armstrong, Diane, 1939-
Narrator: Rubenstein, Deidre, 1948-
Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Publisher: Tullamarine, Victoria : Bolinda Audio
Release Year: 2011
Set in: 1950s, Bondi Junction, NSW

About the Book:
'Empire day' is the engrossing story of the residents of Wattle Street, Bondi Junction in 1948.

It is a novel that explores the changes in Australian society after WW2 when the Australian government invited large numbers of refugees to settle in the country. Known as 'reffo's', with the characteristic habit of Australian's assigning everyone and everything a nickname, the majority of migrants were survivors of the Nazi regime in Eastern Europe. It is an opportunity to start fresh and escape the horrific memories of death and destruction. Yet adjusting was rarely easy, everything was unfamiliar from the landscape to the language.

"A captivating story with a host of interesting characters. Armstrong weaves a multi-strand novel that explores the clash of old and new Australians." -- The Australian Jewish News

Sarah Thornhill

Title: Sarah Thornhill
Author: Grenville, Kate, 1950-
Narrator: Stevenson, Kaye
Audiobook
Publisher: Queensland Narrating Service
Release Year: 2013
Set in: Colonial Australia (1788-1851), Hawkesbury River, NSW

About the Book:
It is a moving double love story - of wild, romantic love and a slower, more mature, developing variety - an imaginatively convincing recreation of history and a celebration of country tenderly and beautifully observed. It is a powerful plea for due acknowledgement and remembrance of the veils of the past...

Sarah Thornhill is the youngest child of William Thornhill, convict-turned-landowner on the Hawkesbury River. She is a strong-willed young woman who's certain where her future lies. She's known Jack Langland since she was a child, and always loved him. But the past is waiting in ambush with its dark legacy. There is a secret in Sarah's family, a piece of the past kept hidden from the world and from her. A secret Jack can't live with...

A few right thinking men

Title: A few right thinking men
Series: Rowland Sinclair novels, 1
Author: Gentill, Sulari
Narrator: Sharpe, John
Audiobook
Publisher: Brisbane : Queensland Narrating Service
Release Year: 2011
Set in: 1930s, Sydney, Australia

About the Book:
It's Sydney 1931 and Australia is in the midst of the Great Depression. While the wealthy upper classes do their best to maintain their lavish lifestyles, unemployed line the streets and unrest brews in all levels of society.

Rowland Sinclair is an artist and a gentleman. In Australia's 1930s the Sinclair name is respectable and influential, yet Rowland has a talent for scandal.

Rowland's sheltered world is one of exorbitant wealth, culture and impeccable tailoring. He relies on the Sinclair fortune to indulge his artistic passions and friends - a poet, a painter and a brazen sculptress.

This red earth

Title: This red earth
Author: Kelly, Kim
Narrator: Tsindos, Aaron & St. Clair, Jessica
Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Publisher: Ultimo, N.S.W. : ABC
Release Year: 2013
Set in: World War (1939-1945), New Guinea, Australia



About the Book:
I put this book in the list because I am attracted by 'The beauty of the Australian landscape has been described with knowledge and love, and author Kim Kelly has it down to a fine art'.

From the beaches of Sydney to the dusty heart of the continent, This Red Earth is as much a love letter to the country, with all its beauty and its terror, as it is an intimate portrait of love itself. Above all, this is a story of the greatest power we each possess - hope.