Book picks similar to
Lily's Leap by Tea Cooper
historical-fiction
romance
historical
historical-romance
Lost Autumn
Mary-Rose MacColl - 2019
Seventeen-year-old Maddie Bright embarks on the voyage of a lifetime when she's chosen to serve on the cross-continent tour of His Royal Highness, the dashing Edward, Prince of Wales. Life on the royal train is luxurious beyond her dreams, and the glamorous, good-hearted friends she makes--with their romantic histories and rivalries--crack open her world. But glamour often hides all manner of sins.Decades later, Maddie lives in a ramshackle house in Brisbane, whiling away the days with television news and her devoted, if drunken, next door neighbor. When a London journalist struggling with her own romantic entanglements begins asking Maddie questions about her relationship to the famous and reclusive author M.A. Bright, she's taken back to the glamorous days of the royal tour--and to the secrets she's kept for all of these years.
Lilian's Story
Kate Grenville - 1984
Madness, cruelty, and sexuality permeate the family's upper-crust Australian world. Lilian Una Singer starts life at the beginning of the 20th century as the daughter of a prosperous middle-class Australian family. She ends it as a cheerfully eccentric bag-lady living on the streets, quoting Shakespeare. This book traces the progress of her life's journey, and why she made the choices she did. She's a person large in spirit as well as body, who wants to invent her own story, rather than allow it to be invented for her. Life presents her with many obstacles, including the sinister advances of her father—but in spite of this she succeeds. Triumphantly she makes her life her own, savoring every moment with the reminder that "everything matters."
The Art of Taxidermy
Sharon Kernot - 2019
Her father understands—Lottie has a scientific mind, he thinks. Her aunt wants it to stop, and she goes to cruel lengths to make sure it does. And her mother? Lottie’s mother died long ago. And Lottie is searching for a way to be close to her.The Art of Taxidermy is a heartbreaking verse novel exploring love and death, grief and beauty, and the ways we try to make sense of it all.
Mail Order Bride : A Bride in Hiding (Ladies of The Frontier) (A Western Romance Book)
Leah Laurens - 2018
but not impossible.
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Page Count: around 330 pagesBetty Bramble's life is a mess.
It has been since the day her first husband died.Now she's remarried to a man she used to adore.But she's not so sure she loves him anymore.
It's been seven years, and he acts as though she doesn't exist.It's hard being a preacher's wife.
People expect her to be perfect, including her husband.Isaac thinks he knows her, but she's been keeping a secret from him.Now that secret has come back to haunt her.The only man who can destroy her life has finally found her.
.
She'll do whatever it takes to protect her family, including her unborn child.
But that's another secret she hasn't told her husband.She's not sure she should.Does Isaac want to save their marriage?Or is Betty all alone in this?Time is running out.
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Page Count: around 330 pages
Christina, A Bride for Christmas
Hildie McQueen - 2017
When everything goes wrong are you still meant for each other?After being dispatched to Blanchard Creek, Wyoming by her mother as a mail order bride, Christina Mills tumbles from one mishap to another. As if arriving in Wyoming with a fever, losing luggage and being accosted by the hotel owner isn’t already bad enough, her to be groom decides to back out of the marriage.Alexander Barrett Patterson is a man of honor. However, the scars from battle are more than skin deep. Rather than tying the beautiful woman to a cripple, he decides to give her up and suffer the consequences of a decision every ounce of his being protests. Now, if only half the town would stop trying to make him change his mind.A story of hurt, scars and the healing power of love.
Bittersweet
Colleen McCullough - 2013
The four Latimer sisters, famous throughout New South Wales for their beauty, wit and ambition, have always been close; always happy. But then they left home to train as nurses, swapping the feather beds of their father's townhouse for the spartan bunks of hospital accommodation. And now, as the Depression casts its shadow across Australia, they are bound by their own secret desires as the world changes around them. Will they find the independence they crave? Or is life - like love - always bittersweet? 'As clever, compelling and as down-to-earth as its four heroines' Australian Women's Weekly
The Birdman's Wife
Melissa Ashley - 2016
In a society obsessed with natural history and the discovery of new species, the birdman’s wife was at its glittering epicentre. Her artistry breathed life into hundreds of exotic finds, from her husband’s celebrated collections to Charles Darwin’s famous Galapagos finches.Fired by Darwin’s discoveries, in 1838 Elizabeth defied convention by joining John on a trailblazing expedition to the untamed wilderness of Van Diemen’s Land and New South Wales to collect and illustrate Australia’s ‘curious’ birdlife.From a naïve and uncertain young girl to a bold adventurer determined to find her own voice and place in the world, The Birdman’s Wife paints an indelible portrait of an extraordinary woman overlooked by history, until now.
Torn Between Love and Family
Aurora Hanson - 2018
An interest in an irrigation project, though, and a harrowing attack by local bandits drives her into town and into the company of two men; one could be the love of her life, while the other is her own long-lost cousin. Has she accidentally stumbled upon happiness? Amelia's hope of a new family is dashed when she discovers the truth.A complicated and tragic series of events have pitted Jonas Mayfield, a former missionary and Clayton Knight, a beloved and fair Sheriff, against each other. Both men have suffered many hardships in order to forget, before finding themselves in frontal attack, again. What could possibly cause such hatred between the two men?Amelia has to unite the two sworn enemies and bring all their resources to bear against the forces of nature and of man's most basic instincts. Love, life, everything is on the line for Amelia and her family. Will she be able to save her future, by solving the riddle of the mysterious past? Will she go as far as to put her own life at risk to save the family she's always dreamt of?"Torn Between Love and Family" is a historical western romance novel of approximately 90,000 words. No cheating, no cliffhangers, and a guaranteed happily ever after.
Fortune's Son
Jennifer Scoullar - 2017
Tails you die ...
Can one man's revenge become his redemption?Young Luke Tyler has everything going for him: brains, looks and a larrikin charm that turns heads. The future appears bright, until he defends his sister from the powerful Sir Henry Abbott. His reward is fifteen years hard labour on a prison farm in Tasmania's remote highlands.Luke escapes, finding sanctuary with a local philanthropist, Daniel Campbell, and starting a forbidden love affair with Daniel's daughter, Belle. But when Luke is betrayed, he must flee or be hanged.With all seeming lost, Luke sails to South Africa to start afresh. Yet he remains haunted by the past, and by Belle, the woman he can't forget. When he returns to seek revenge and reclaim his life, his actions will have shattering consequences - for the innocent as well as the guilty.Set against a backdrop of wild Tasmania, Australian Gold and African diamonds, Fortune's Son is an epic story of betrayal, undying love and one man's struggle to triumph over adversity and find his way home. - Praise for Jennifer Scoullar -'Scoullar, it turns out, is a writer of documentary calibre ... lovely, lyrical prose.' The Australian. 'Jennifer is a writer of great imagination.' Author Andrea Goldsmith'The people, the animals and the places ... such vivid and vibrant story-telling which wholly swept me away' Beauty and LaceFortune's Son is the first book in the Tasmanian Tales trilogy. Buy it now to discover why Jennifer Scoullar is one of Australia's favourite story-tellers!
The Fragments
Toni Jordan - 2019
The woman quotes a phrase from the Karlson fragments that Caddie knows does not exist—and yet to Caddie, who knows Inga Karlson’s work like she knows her name, it feels genuine.Caddie is electrified. Jolted her from her sleepy, no-worries life in torpid 1980s Brisbane, she is driven to investigate: to find the clues that will unlock the greatest literary mystery of the twentieth century
Where Rainbows End
AnneMarie Brear - 2017
Pippa Noble is determined to reclaim their honour by making her father’s plan for an outback farm reality, although her ambition is frowned upon by a society that has very set ideas about a woman’s place …Pippa learns the hard way about the unforgiving nature of the bush, sometimes with devastating consequences. And when unfortunate circumstance leads to Pippa tending the farm alone, it is the friendship of neighbouring estate owner Gil Ashford-Smith that helps her through.Then an unexpected visitor from England arrives, putting Pippa’s dreams in jeopardy. But she refuses to let go. She will hold onto her family’s land, even if it means losing everything else …
The Painted Sky
Alice Campion - 2015
The result is a captivating rural novel, brimming with romance, mystery and suspense.Nina never knew what happened to her father, the celebrated artist Jim Larkin. One minute he was her devoted dad, the next he'd disappeared without trace. Seventeen years later, she's still haunted by the mystery.Until a call from outback Wandalla changes everything.At first, Nina's inheritance of a waterless property and a farmhouse stuffed with junk seems more like a burden than a gift. But this was her father's childhood home – and possibly her last chance to discover the truth.So what is the local solicitor, Harrison Grey, not telling her as he hands over the keys? Why does the area's wealthiest resident, Hilary Flint, seem to hate her so much? What is the significance of the gold locket with cryptic engravings that Nina always wears?And why, on top of everything, is she inexplicably drawn to her soon-to-be-married neighbour, Heath Blackett?
Cold Coast
Robyn Mundy - 2021
She must prove to Anders Sæterdal, her trapping partner who makes no secret of his disdain, that a woman is fit for the task. Over the course of a Svalbard winter, Wanny and Sæterdal will confront polar bears, traverse glaciers, withstand blizzards and the dangers of sea ice, and hike miles to trap Arctic fox, all in the frigid darkness of the four-month polar night. For Wanny, the darkness hides her own deceptions that, if exposed, speak to the untenable sacrifice of a 1930s woman longing to fulfil a dream. Alongside the raw, confronting nature of the trappers’ work, is the story of a young blue Arctic fox, itself a hunter, who must eke out a living and navigate the trappers’ world if it is to survive its first Arctic winter.
Mr Cavell's Diamond
Kathleen McGurl - 2014
He is in possession of a large diamond, given to him in India, which he vows he will give to the woman he loves – when he finds her, that is. Jemima Brown, sixteen, good-hearted and hard-working, comes to work for him as a general maidservant. When Mr Cavell stands up for her against the unwanted attentions of some tradesmen working in his house, she sees at once that here is a man of high morals and integrity. But it is Caroline Simpson, daughter of Henry’s house-painter, who catches his eye. She may be socially his inferior, but she is good-looking, flirtatious and knows how to use her charms. She manipulates Henry into marrying her, and only the loyal Jemima knows he’s been tricked. How can Jemima fight her growing feelings for her master, maintain her morals and stay in Mr Cavell’s employment, despite her mistress’s increasingly erratic behaviour?
Dillon
Linda Ford - 2021
She found Dillon down on his luck and gave him, and five other young men, a home and trains them. Seven years later she is set on finding brides for all of the young men. Dillon’s not interested. He was robbed of everything by Slick McCall—someone he trusted. A girl he loved has also treated him poorly. He doesn’t intend to open his heart to anyone. His plan is to stay right there on the ranch and take care of Maude and John.Abigail has been duped by a slick-talking charmer and is now expecting a baby with no ring on her finger. Posing as a widow, she flees west, intending to start over and create a new life for herself and her unborn baby. However she arrives at Logan Crossing and discovers her money is missing—stolen. She has nothing. Maude offers her a job on the ranch, thinking this pretty young widow will be suitable for one of the boys.Abigail eagerly helps at the ranch house, determined to make a temporary home for herself and the baby. Dillon is always ready to take her for a walk or otherwise entertain her. The baby’s birth creates a new level of attraction and intimacy between them. He tells her of how a certain Slick McCall has stolen everything and a former girlfriend hurt him, teaching Dillon to guard his heart.Slick McCall was the man who sweet talked her into making Abby’s baby. She was prepared to tell Dillon the truth about being an unwed mother but hearing his words makes her realize she must guard her secret.But how long can she hide the truth when she and Dillon are falling in love? Will Dillon still love her when the truth comes out? Most of all, will her newborn son ever be accepted?